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Obama Admin Unveils Most Expensive EPA (Air) Rules: $10 Billion Cost

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Well, Obama just lost Ohio in the 2012 election with this move. When people's power bills go through the roof (AEP is the power company in most of Ohio and analysts are predicting the biggest impact will be to AEP), they'll be angry, especially in this economy. Couple that with all the AEP jobs that will be lost in this area, and there's going to be some angry voters.

The republicans have been running ads for months now talking about how "Obama's EPA is going to drive electricity costs through the roof and destroy many Ohio jobs"... and now he's proven them correct.
 
sportage said:
Oh how crazy. Who in Gods name would want clean air anyway...?
And if Mercury levels are greatly reduced, people just might start giving birth to intelligent children. And we surely wouldn't want THAT!
What is this country coming too?
Clean air, smart kids, WTF!!!
Just more Obama communism plain and simple...
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So if we pass this we get clean air and smart kids?
 
sportage said:
Oh how crazy. Who in Gods name would want clean air anyway...?
And if Mercury levels are greatly reduced, people just might start giving birth to intelligent children. And we surely wouldn't want THAT!
What is this country coming too?
Clean air, smart kids, WTF!!!
Just more Obama communism plain and simple...
Click to expand...


typical liberal flee to emtion. No logic just kids.

How competely origingal 'its for the kids'. LOL


How about a real cost/benefit anaylsis. Not one drawn up to justify the pre-determined conclusion.
 
Double Trouble said:
Well, Obama just lost Ohio in the 2012 election with this move. When people's power bills go through the roof (AEP is the power company in most of Ohio and analysts are predicting the biggest impact will be to AEP), they'll be angry, especially in this economy. Couple that with all the AEP jobs that will be lost in this area, and there's going to be some angry voters.

The republicans have been running ads for months now talking about how "Obama's EPA is going to drive electricity costs through the roof and destroy many Ohio jobs"... and now he's proven them correct.
Click to expand...

My AEP bill already went up this year once as it is (not by much, but still went up a tad), I don't really want it to go higher. But really, who does want to pay more for their utilities than they already pay? Cuts into money I might spend on other things that may help drive demand for other things.

Blah.
 
Double Trouble said:
Well, Obama just lost Ohio in the 2012 election with this move. When people's power bills go through the roof (AEP is the power company in most of Ohio and analysts are predicting the biggest impact will be to AEP), they'll be angry, especially in this economy. Couple that with all the AEP jobs that will be lost in this area, and there's going to be some angry voters.

The republicans have been running ads for months now talking about how "Obama's EPA is going to drive electricity costs through the roof and destroy many Ohio jobs"... and now he's proven them correct.
Click to expand...

Nice bit of fearmongering & innuendo.

the only reason bills might "go through the roof" would be from using upgrades as an excuse for gouging, and the bit about job loss is pure hysteria.

Given that Repubs currently run Ohio, gouging seems likely. Pwer companies can easily borrow at low rates to perform upgrades, amortize the cost of several years, but they'll be claiming otherwise when asking for rate increases, bet on it.

You already knew that, but, hey, it's an opportunity to Blame Obama! for something, anything, something bad, something that people can imagine to be real.
 
Well news flash folks , the EPA only came into being with Obama.

So everything wrong is only the sole fault of Obama.

And if we vote GOP we will have clean air and paradise on earth.

This message is brought to you free of charge by the RNC. The folks who offer simple fixes for complex problems. As we at the RNC ask, how hard is it to blame it all on Obama, and thus avoid thinking.
 
DaveSimmons said:
From the article:
"About 40 percent of the 1,400 coal-fired units nationwide still lack modern pollution controls, despite the EPA in 1990 getting the authority from Congress to control toxic air pollution from power plant smokestacks. A decade later, in 2000, the agency concluded it was necessary to clamp down on the emissions to protect public health"

They've had over 20 years to (literally) clean up their act, but have refused to do it on their own.

The article again:
"EPA estimates that the rules will prevent 130,000 child asthma attacks and 11,000 premature deaths each year."

... plus general improvements in health that don't kill you.

This will make power more expensive, and the costs will show up in peoples' electric bills, but that's fair to me -- they will finally start paying the full costs of the power they use. Their own power use = pollution = damage to others' health.
Click to expand...

Utilities that have already invested in more advanced emissions controls have basically told the other companies "You've known for decades, we spent the money and are ready for new standards, get off your asses".

A number of companies have merely been running these dinosaur plants until the regulation they absolutely knew was coming went into effect. Lobbying tactics to delay are just them trying to squeeze more money out of the nearly dead plants.
 
Darwin333 said:
The power companies should take a loss for complying with new regulation? How long should they take a loss for and how much of a total loss should they take?
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IMO Its the cost of doing business in the US where we like clean air and environmental regulations. I think when the gov passes these new regs they need to state that utilities cannot raise prices because of the regs for some minimum amount of years about (like 5 years). They just have to eat it for complying with cleaner air etc.
 
This seems like a no-brainer. Even if the savings are only a small fraction of those predicted and the costs are several times estimates, this still makes a huge amount of long term sense.
 
Darwin333 said:
That isn't the question I asked and how much research have you done into the health savings part of this? I personally haven't done a bit so I am just curious as to how they arrive at those numbers.

This will give my business a huge boost so I am kind of agnostic right now until I see some hard numbers and the data to back them up.

PS How about banning coal altogether? That would save us an enormous amount of money in healthcare costs.
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I'm pretty sure some corporation lobbied for this shit although it's not their fault that Obama can't say no to it.

The department of energy has stolen so much money and hindered progress for so long it's really quite fucking ridiculous. There probably wouldn't be any myocardial infarctions from pollution if the damn EPA and DoE didn't exist.

The truth is that this new regulation will just do more harm at tax payer expense.

It makes me feel smart whenever people think that the government is trying to reduce health care costs. I really do. I mean, they lie and lie and lie, and rape, pillage, and plunder, so much so that it almost makes me want to jump from the top of 1k ft building.
 
Lemon law said:
Well news flash folks , the EPA only came into being with Obama.

So everything wrong is only the sole fault of Obama.

And if we vote GOP we will have clean air and paradise on earth.

This message is brought to you free of charge by the RNC. The folks who offer simple fixes for complex problems. As we at the RNC ask, how hard is it to blame it all on Obama, and thus avoid thinking.
Click to expand...

Is Obama responsible for anything?
 
The sad thing is that because the industry has fought an all out battle against these regulations, it has taken the EPA TWENTY YEARS to adopt these regulations (they started in 1990).

I'm sure the entities opposing these regulations constantly bitch about the high cost of regulation and endless litigation, when they have contributed so mightly to it.
 
Anarchist420 said:
I'm pretty sure some corporation lobbied for this shit although it's not their fault that Obama can't say no to it.

The department of energy has stolen so much money and hindered progress for so long it's really quite fucking ridiculous. There probably wouldn't be any myocardial infarctions from pollution if the damn EPA and DoE didn't exist.

The truth is that this new regulation will just do more harm at tax payer expense.

It makes me feel smart whenever people think that the government is trying to reduce health care costs. I really do. I mean, they lie and lie and lie, and rape, pillage, and plunder, so much so that it almost makes me want to jump from the top of 1k ft building.
Click to expand...

Trust me, you're still not smart.
 
Jhhnn said:
Get a grip, and a little perspective. The top hedge fund manager made half that in 2010 alone.
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What do hedge fund managers have to do with this topic? Hell, why not compare it to minimum wage burger flippers. $10B would hire more than half a million people for one year to make me a sammich. Get some perspective yourself.
 
Expensive for who ?

Yes the costs are $10B, and yes that will be passed on to consumer, but those very same consumers will also safe a lot of money in healthcare costs.

So if we are to assess whether this costs people money or not, we'd have to know what the projected savings are. Why weren't those mentioned in the OP ? Looking at only one side of the equation is hardly fair, and it will lead to the wrong conclusion.
 
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K1052 said:
Utilities that have already invested in more advanced emissions controls have basically told the other companies "You've known for decades, we spent the money and are ready for new standards, get off your asses".

A number of companies have merely been running these dinosaur plants until the regulation they absolutely knew was coming went into effect. Lobbying tactics to delay are just them trying to squeeze more money out of the nearly dead plants.
Click to expand...

This. The writing has been on the wall for two decades now. They have known that these types of regulations are coming, and many operators refused to prepare.

I for one think that these regulations will be a good thing. Air quality is a HUGE quality of life issue regardless of one's lot in life. $10B seems to be a daunting price to pay, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the initial expenditure. Sure, our electricity prices will likely go up, but most people won't notice this outside of the usual pace of rate increases.
 
Jhhnn said:
Ten Beeelyon Dollars!!!

Get a grip, and a little perspective. The top hedge fund manager made half that in 2010 alone.

Ten Beeelyon Dollars!!! is ~$30 apiece for every inhabitant of this country, so I think it should be a little embarrassing for all the anti-gubmint ravers to carry on as they do...
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I think the issue is that it won't be spread out over the entire population of this country. I for one shouldn't be impacted much because our electricity comes from nuclear and nat. gas.

I am not sure how many people get their power from the plants that have yet to upgrade but I bet they will pay the lions share of this cost. If that is only a few percent of the country then it gets quite expensive, especially for the poor and middle class.
 
khon said:
Expensive for who ?

Yes the costs are $10B, and yes that will be passed on to consumer, but those very same consumers will also safe a lot of money in healthcare costs.

So if we are to assess whether this costs people money or not, we'd have to know what the projected savings are. Why weren't those mentioned in the OP ? Looking at only one side of the equation is hardly fair, and it will lead to the wrong conclusion.
Click to expand...

I think it is because certain people will actually pay a higher price for electricity while society as a whole saves money on healthcare. I highly doubt that the people paying higher electric bills will see actual healthcare savings that offset their higher bills.
 
soulcougher73 said:
IMO Its the cost of doing business in the US where we like clean air and environmental regulations. I think when the gov passes these new regs they need to state that utilities cannot raise prices because of the regs for some minimum amount of years about (like 5 years). They just have to eat it for complying with cleaner air etc.
Click to expand...

No one would ever think about building, buying, or investing in a power plant if that was the way it worked. No way in hell would I play by those rules with my business especially when you are talking about an industry that generally has its profits defined by the .gov already. They can't even price in the cost of potential new regs without approval.

The bottom line is that when the .gov makes it more expensive for a sector to do business that cost gets passed down to the consumer. There really isn't any other way unless you want to drive that sector out of business.
 
Darwin333 said:
No one would ever think about building, buying, or investing in a power plant if that was the way it worked. No way in hell would I play by those rules with my business especially when you are talking about an industry that generally has its profits defined by the .gov already. They can't even price in the cost of potential new regs without approval.

The bottom line is that when the .gov makes it more expensive for a sector to do business that cost gets passed down to the consumer. There really isn't any other way unless you want to drive that sector out of business.
Click to expand...

And this was a good move for the fed to do. The businesses were not actually taking responsibility for their effect on society, and this regulation forces them to. Their business model was causing thousands of illnesses and deaths that they were making other people pay for.
 
soulcougher73 said:
IMO Its the cost of doing business in the US where we like clean air and environmental regulations. I think when the gov passes these new regs they need to state that utilities cannot raise prices because of the regs for some minimum amount of years about (like 5 years). They just have to eat it for complying with cleaner air etc.
Click to expand...

there's a point though where the cost of doing business here will no longer be cost effective PERIOD. this is the main reason we're losing industry after industry. it is to expensive to do anything here. it currently costs way to much to do things in the USA, the only industries we have left that support us are energy and food production. those are the only two industries which matter by the way, society cannot exist without surplus energy and food.
 
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