President Obama’s proposed Clean Power Plan, which is currently undergoing a public comment period, is being justifiably criticized as a prohibitively expensive and ineffective way to reduce carbon emissions in the United States. The plan will result in the closing of many power plants, leaving working families to pay for energy sources that are costlier and less reliable.
With the release of the final rule, independent consulting firm NERA conducted a study (using the EPA’s own data) of the effects on the rule on energy markets throughout the country. The results are shockingly bad.
The new regulation will have significant costs, totaling up to $292 billion dollars, and boost electricity prices to the double digits in 41 states, including Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina. In addition, families in 28 states, including Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Virginia, can expect to see increases of 20% or more.
Many of the states are pushing back, and 27 are suing the EPA. The lawsuit is led by West Virginia’s Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey, who called the rule “flatly illegal and one of the most aggressive executive branch power grabs we’ve seen in a long time.” He added that “the EPA cannot do what it intends to do legally.” The pushback to this lawsuit has been robust as well, with the governor of Colorado sinking so low as to attempt to bully the state’s Attorney General, Cynthia Coffman, to not pursue the case.
With the Clean Power Plan set to wreak havoc on family budgets, we should remember that the negative effects will be disproportionately shouldered by minority communities, small business owners, lower income families, and the middle class. Now that the EPA has been required to present hard numbers, the facts do not bode well for the wallets of most Americans.
