Read and watch the full report on CBN News: The Brody File.

It sounds innocuous enough. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new guidelines Thursday requiring state and local authorities that issue pollution permits based on federal standards to use the “Best Available Control Technology,” or BACT. The stated goal is to achieve a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. Most of the facilities affected by the new guidelines will likely be power plants, refineries and cement production operations. What the BACT guidelines simply mean, according to the agency, is this: “After taking into account technical feasibility, cost and other economic, environmental and energy considerations, permitting authorities should narrow the options and select the best one. EPA anticipates that, in most cases, this process will show that the most cost effective way for industry to reduce GHG emissions will be through energy efficiency.”

Others don’t share EPA’s sunny outlook about the consequences of imposing this new standard, which lowers permissible greenhouse gases from the current level of 75 million parts per billion to 60 million parts per billion. Achieving that level of reduction in greenhouse gases won’t be easy or cheap. This immense new burden on the private sector comes at precisely the wrong time for an economy still struggling to create new jobs and reduce near double-digit unemployment. One of the skeptics is University of Mississippi professor William Shughart II, whose op-ed elsewhere in Friday’s Examiner notes that many jurisdictions across the country can’t meet the present greenhouse gas standard, much less reach the lower threshold anytime soon. “If a county or city is not in compliance, its economy won’t be able to grow, so the EPA’s proposal would spell economic stagnation for many communities,” Shughart contends.

Without the proper pollution permits, existing facilities and new construction projects across the country either will grind to a halt or never get started. The cost estimates are indeed staggering, according to an econometric study by the Manufacturers Alliance that projects more than 7.3 million lost jobs by 2020. The hardest-hit states include Texas, which would lose 1.7 million jobs, and Louisiana, with 938,000 positions lost. Others include California (846,000), Illinois (396,000) and Pennsylvania (351,000). Total losses would reduce the nation’s gross domestic product by $1.7 trillion, according to the Manufacturers Alliance.

The full Manufacturers Alliance report is located online here: EPA’s Proposal to Reduce Ozone Standard Would Harm Economy, Manufacturers.

– George Allen, American Energy Freedom Center Chair commented on the article The Beginning of the End of Carbon Markets, published on Americans for Prosperity online.

“Coal is the backbone of reliable, low-cost power,” says Bartow Jones, managing director of Riverstone Holdings, a New York-based Carlyle Group affiliate that invested $600 million in Cline’s operations in 2007.   Power-plant coal such as Cline’s sold for $47.25 a ton on Oct. 11, about two-thirds cheaper than wind power and three-quarters the cost of solar. In the second quarter, the cost of electricity per megawatt hour from coal was $59.51, including capital and operating expenses, compared with $176.37 for power from offshore wind and $240.55 for electricity from thin-film photovoltaic cells.  At a cost of $19 a ton to mine coal last year at Pond Creek, Cline spends even less than competitors. Coal from central Appalachia averages $57 a ton to mine, Schwartz says.

Click here to read the full article on the Washington Post’s website.

“Batteries, coal synfuels, Propane, and CNG are more beneficial than unrealistic increased use of food and feed for fuel. Besides driving up the cost of our food, this 15% ethanol mandate can harm engines,” remarked American Energy Freedom Center Chairman George Allen.

To read the entire article, please click here.

– These greenhouse regulations will cost another 800,000 American jobs.  All prices will go up and productivity will go down.  It is ludicrous to implement these regulations when so many Americans already are out of work and struggling to make ends meet.

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The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has a laundry list of energy measures he wants to see approved this fall and is pressing Senate leaders to schedule votes during the short legislative session after the November election.

Top on Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) wish list for the lame-duck session is his bill with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) that would require utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2021.

“Senator Brownback and I have introduced this legislation and we hope very much that in the short session of the Congress after the election, that can be brought up and dealt with in a positive way,” Bingaman said on the Senate floor earlier this week.

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American Energy Freedom Center Chairman George Allen commented on the article, stating: “Government mandated ‘renewable electricity standards’ mean higher electricity prices which obviously harm American families, businesses and jobs. This is a bad idea if one cares about American competitiveness and our quality of life.”

To read the entire article, please click here.

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