States Can Stop EPA’s War on Coal

This weekend the Obama administration announced a trade for the release of Army Specialist Bowe Bergdahl, offering in exchange the five most deadly Taliban terrorists incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. This was an illegal act. The president is required by law to inform Congress 30 days before making such a decision. He did not do so, and the White House admitted it. Obama claims a signing statement made at the time this law was passed gave him a right to ignore aspects of it when he saw fit.

Similarly, on Monday the administration violated the law by announcing stringent carbon dioxide emission targets for power plants that will effectively kill the coal industry. The new regulation calls for a 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 2030. Congress failed to pass so-called “cap and trade” legislation that would enable such a move, so Obama is using the regulatory authority he claims the EPA already has to regulate carbon. But the president cannot just ignore the will of Congress. To do so assumes that Congress is irrelevant. Apparently this is what President Obama believes.

President Obama’s Organizing for America website brags that the new EPA regulations are “the strongest action ever taken by an American president to tackle climate change.” Most media outlets are echoing Obama, heralding the new EPA rule, while downplaying or ignoring the calamitous effects it will have on the economy. CBS called it “groundbreaking.” The Christian Science Monitor calls it“bold, signature, and controversial.” CNN called it “the boldest step yet,” characterizing prior U.S. positions as “hypocritical.”

ABC News cited a new poll claiming that 70 percent of Americans think something should be done about global warming. This, of course, follows numerous polls that indicate just the opposite. A Gallup poll published in The Washington Post last year indicated that most people do not consider global warming a serious threat. An ABC poll found only 18 percent ranked global warming as their highest priority. Sixty-eight percent of respondents ranked the economy as the number one priority. A Pew poll found only 42 percent believed global warming to be caused primarily by human activity.

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