McConnell Urges States to Help Thwart Obama’s ‘War on Coal’

[mystery-ak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-urges-states-to-help-thwart-obamas-war-on-coal.html



By CORAL DAVENPORTMARCH 19, 2015


WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has begun an aggressive campaign to block President Obama’s climate change agenda in statehouses and courtrooms across the country, arenas far beyond Mr. McConnell’s official reach and authority.

The campaign of Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is aimed at stopping a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring states to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Once enacted, the rules could shutter hundreds of coal-fired plants in what Mr. Obama has promoted as a transformation of the nation’s energy economy away from fossil fuels and toward sources like wind and solar power. Mr. McConnell, whose home state is one of the nation’s largest coal producers, has vowed to fight the rules.

Since Mr. McConnell is limited in how he can use his role in the Senate to block regulations, he has taken the unusual step of reaching out to governors with a legal blueprint for them to follow to stop the rules in their states. Mr. McConnell’s Senate staff, led by his longtime senior energy adviser, Neil Chatterjee, is coordinating with lawyers and lobbying firms to try to ensure that the state plans are tangled up in legal delays.

On Thursday, Mr. McConnell sent a detailed letter to every governor in the United States laying out a carefully researched legal argument as to why states should not comply with Mr. Obama’s regulations. In the letter, Mr. McConnell wrote that the president was “allowing the E.P.A. to wrest control of a state’s energy policy.”

To make his case, Mr. McConnell is also relying on a network of powerful allies with national influence and roots in Kentucky or the coal industry. Within that network is Laurence H. Tribe, a highly regarded scholar of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and a former mentor of Mr. Obama’s. Mr. Tribe caught Mr. McConnell’s attention last winter when he was retained to write a legal brief for Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal producer, in a lawsuit against the climate rules.

continued

[libertybele]

I think McConnell needs to seek a larger accomplishment like IMPEACHMENT.  That will resolve a lot of "issues" all at once.

[Dexter]

I think McConnell needs to seek a larger accomplishment like IMPEACHMENT.  That will resolve a lot of "issues" all at once.

I know it has been repeated endlessly but I am going to repeat it one more time. What illegal activity will Obama be impeached for? I understand he is a bad president, but you have to make sure you have all of your ammunition ready with a solid battle plan before you start screaming about impeachment.

[alicewonders]

Obama's policies have already resulted in the loss of so many jobs in my area, not only with the announcement of the shutting down of our power plant.  So many businesses that depended on the patronage of these employees that are now unemployed are closing their businesses.  I hope McConnell has some success with this, this is one of the things he promised he would fight. 

 :peeonobama:

[libertybele]

I know it has been repeated endlessly but I am going to repeat it one more time. What illegal activity will Obama be impeached for? I understand he is a bad president, but you have to make sure you have all of your ammunition ready with a solid battle plan before you start screaming about impeachment.

http://www.infowars.com/100-reasons-to-impeach-barack-obama/

With everything that has happened and is happening, perhaps the question is why not impeach Obama? At this point in time, what is there to lose by trying to impeach him?  Even if not successful to at least try to do something to stop the Obama insanity ... nothing else has worked.

535 members of Congress vs. 1 president ...   

[Dexter]

http://www.infowars.com/100-reasons-to-impeach-barack-obama/

With everything that has happened and is happening, perhaps the question is why not impeach Obama? At this point in time, what is there to lose by trying to impeach him?  Even if not successful to at least try to do something to stop the Obama insanity ... nothing else has worked.

535 members of Congress vs. 1 president ...

You have the 2016 election to potentially lose. Is a failed Obama impeachment effort worth a more likely Hillary Clinton victory?

[musiclady]

Obama's policies have already resulted in the loss of so many jobs in my area, not only with the announcement of the shutting down of our power plant.  So many businesses that depended on the patronage of these employees that are now unemployed are closing their businesses.  I hope McConnell has some success with this, this is one of the things he promised he would fight. 

I would think that, in spite of Mitch's tendency to lack conviction on anything, he'd hold fast on this one.

[Relic]

I've been conditioned to look beyond what they say, because they almost never say what they mean, or mean what they say.

I have a hard time believing that McConnell will dig in and fight Obama on anything. What is the endgame? What does McConnell get to lay down and give Obama his way?

I see the Republican "leadership" as being much like the Scottish nobles in the movie Braveheart.

"Wait! Wait! Don't flee! We haven't negotiated yet!"

[Longiron]

I think McConnell needs to seek a larger accomplishment like IMPEACHMENT.  That will resolve a lot of "issues" all at once.

No Offense but hell will freeze over before this RINOGOP leadership ever try impeachment. They will not even try to stop him. Now if you had Cruz or Lee leading the Senate or Gohmert or another conservative leading the HOUSE he would have been on him long ago. At least they would have stopped him????

[flowers]

Lawmaker: Protect coal plants to help the manatees

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article15397277.html#/tabPane=tabs-b0710947-1-1

WASHINGTON

From November to April, hundreds of manatees huddle in the warm discharge canal of one of Florida’s biggest coal-fired plants, the Big Bend Power Station near Tampa, as camera-toting families point and laugh from a viewing deck at the gentle creatures lolling near the smokestacks.

Some two-thirds of Florida’s endangered manatees rely on discharge waters from power plants for winter warmth, according to federal biologists. It’s a fact that congressional Republicans are seizing on to challenge the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s agenda to fight climate change, a plan to slash carbon emissions that could force large-scale closures of coal plants.

The chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources confronted U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe on the issue at a budget hearing Thursday. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said the Fish and Wildlife Service is required to formally consult on any plan that could pose problems for an endangered species.

A consultation process on endangered species issues could take time, slowing down the rules aimed at lowering carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants, the largest U.S. source of emissions that scientists have linked to warming of the planet. The Environmental Protection Agency last year proposed the most significant of the rules, setting federal standards for existing power plants, and it is getting ready to finalize it this summer.

After Ashe acknowledged under questioning that the Fish and Wildlife Service did not consult with the EPA on the power plant rules, Bishop displayed in the committee room a photo of manatees in the Big Bend discharge canal, and he noted it is “considered a primary warm-water site for the manatees.”

“So if EPA regulations cause this primary warm-water site to close down or substantially alter its operations, then it would adversely affect the manatee,” Bishop said. “Would that be something about which you think you need to consult with the EPA?”

Ashe agreed there would need for consultation “because there is a very direct and obvious impact and relationship between that water discharge and those manatees.”

[flowers]

Obama's policies have already resulted in the loss of so many jobs in my area, not only with the announcement of the shutting down of our power plant.  So many businesses that depended on the patronage of these employees that are now unemployed are closing their businesses.  I hope McConnell has some success with this, this is one of the things he promised he would fight. 

 :peeonobama:

How are you getting power if the plant shut down? How much has your bill gone up?

[alicewonders]

How are you getting power if the plant shut down? How much has your bill gone up?

I guess we're on a larger grid.  Some area power plants are being retrofitted, but they decided to close the one closest to us.  Our electric bill has gone up about 30%. 

[flowers]

I guess we're on a larger grid.  Some area power plants are being retrofitted, but they decided to close the one closest to us.  Our electric bill has gone up about 30%.

We are powered by a dam. We have stopped using our electric oven almost totally. It is a older one. We bought those New Wave hotplates and oven. That reduced our electric bill  greatly.We also now have those lights that come on with movement in our house at night. That really also dropped the bill too.  They also bill us more because they say we use more than our neighbors.......yet we have no neighbors for 6 months during the winter.