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Obama EPA kills power plant, 3,900 jobs in Texas

A liberal playing games to avoid the issue... How strange and unusual.

<sarcasm off>

I am trying to talk about the issue. You are the one who refuses. I want you to back up your claim from the very first post. Why can you not do that?
 
Redress knows damned well that those regulations exist. This is just one of those subjects that doesn't work well ideologically, so playing games to avoid the reality of how those regulations will negatively effect the economy, became a more attractive strategy for Redress.

Reality does not play ideological games. What you have not been able to do is look at the reality, which would be what regulations has Obama and the EPA implemented that caused this company to fail.
 
Reality does not play ideological games. What you have not been able to do is look at the reality, which would be what regulations has Obama and the EPA implemented that caused this company to fail.

Reality doesnt but you sure do. You have responses from three other posters. Maybe you should set your hatred of Grim aside and address the topic, there are responses to which regulations. Why dont we start with those.
 
Reality doesnt but you sure do. You have responses from three other posters. Maybe you should set your hatred of Grim aside and address the topic, there are responses to which regulations. Why dont we start with those.

None of those are EPA regulations which are currently in place that had any effect on the failure of the company making the plant.
 
To accurately judge this situation one has to be quite knowledgeable about the technology of coal based energy generation, the financial strategies required for that type of business, and the energy generation method's specific environmental impact. Then, one may be qualified to judge the specific law or regulation(s) (if they have actually read it) to determine whether its negative impact on the corporation's finances is actually greater than the societal benefit from the resulting environmental protections.

Since very few of us have sufficient background knowledge and have actually read and understood the specific law(s) or regulation(s) in question, we have to rely on the opinions of others. I am more inclined to trust the judgement of a highly educated and trained government regulator working for a salary than the opinion of a person with a significant financial stake in the matter. That's just how I role, I'm skeptical about anyone trying to make money off me.
 
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Reality does not play ideological games. What you have not been able to do is look at the reality, which would be what regulations has Obama and the EPA implemented that caused this company to fail.

Obama's EPA is the entity that is playing ideological games. He's using the EPA to regulate the coal industry into oblivion, putting more than a million jobs at risk. They pass ridiculous regulations that force these companies to waste billions of capital trying to stay compliant.

Regulatory Actions | Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for Power Plants | US EPA

Q&A with Scott Segal on New Mercury MACT Rule | ERCC

Utility MACT will undermine job creation in the United States in several different ways. It will result in retirement of a significant number of power plants and either fail to replace that capacity or replace it with less labor-intensive forms of generation. It will increase the cost of power, undermining the international competitiveness of almost two dozen manufacturing industries, and it will reduce employment upstream in the mining sectors. All told, it is anticipated that the rule will result in the loss of some 1.44 million jobs by 2020. While some jobs are created by complying with the new rule, the number and quality of those jobs is far less than those destroyed. We estimate that for every one temporary job created, four higher-paying permanent jobs are lost. The bottom line: this rule is the most expensive air rule that EPA has ever proposed in terms of direct costs. It is certainly the most extensive intervention into the power market and job market that EPA has ever attempted to implement.

Here's another one

Air Transport | US EPA

The cost to businesses that have to retrofit in order to comply? 800 billion. That = lost jobs. Obama's EPA isn't running analysis in regards to how their regulations will affect existing jobs and future job growth. They are supposed to, but instead are ramming in regulations from a pure ideological standpoint. Not grounded in economic day to day reality. Jobs and the economy be damned.

EPA Regulations have increased costs to some businesses as much as 33%

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Baker 10252011.pdf

This is the problem with centralized planning. Nobody holds the EPA accountable when their regulations produce unintended consequences that cost jobs and hurt the economy. They don't have to worry about costs like private businesses do. Hell, they don't even have to take responsibility.
 
None of those are EPA regulations which are currently in place that had any effect on the failure of the company making the plant.

Someone could show you a direct citation to a regulation cited by the CEO of the company as a reason that they were not able to make their bottom line, and you would merely respond "lies! The company just sucks!" so what's the point. You're gonna claim absolute innocence for Obama's policy and the EPA no matter what anyone says, and you will do so on the basis of "you can't prove anything". That's weak sauce and, frankly, shockingly childish for an adult debate forum.
 
Obama's EPA is the entity that is playing ideological games. He's using the EPA to regulate the coal industry into oblivion, putting more than a million jobs at risk. They pass ridiculous regulations that force these companies to waste billions of capital trying to stay compliant.

Regulatory Actions | Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for Power Plants | US EPA

Q&A with Scott Segal on New Mercury MACT Rule | ERCC



Here's another one

Air Transport | US EPA

The cost to businesses that have to retrofit in order to comply? 800 billion. That = lost jobs. Obama's EPA isn't running analysis in regards to how their regulations will affect existing jobs and future job growth. They are supposed to, but instead are ramming in regulations from a pure ideological standpoint. Not grounded in economic day to day reality. Jobs and the economy be damned.

EPA Regulations have increased costs to some businesses as much as 33%

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Baker 10252011.pdf

This is the problem with centralized planning. Nobody holds the EPA accountable when their regulations produce unintended consequences that cost jobs and hurt the economy. They don't have to worry about costs like private businesses do. Hell, they don't even have to take responsibility.

The first link is to a proposed rule that has not been implemented yet. It says that it will
"...update emission limits for new power plants under the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). The updates would only apply to future power plants; would not change the types of state-of-the-art pollution controls that they are expected to install; and would not significantly change costs or public health benefits of the rule...."

Perhaps that is why no public hearing was requested during the public comment period.

The second link features the opinions of a representative of an indu$try trade group.

Re. the third link:
"This rule, known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), requires states to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and/or fine particle pollution in other states. In a separate, but related, regulatory action, EPA finalized a supplemental rulemaking on December 15, 2011 to require five states - Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin - to make summertime NOX reductions under the CSAPR ozone season control program. CSAPR requires a total of 28 states to reduce annual SO2 emissions, annual NOX emissions and/or ozone season NOX emissions to assist in attaining the 1997 ozone and fine particle and 2006 fine particle National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)." EPA

How much is the difference in the NOX and SO2 levels you believe should be allowed compared to the new EPA (2006) standards? How many extra asthma and emphysema cases would the old levels create?

The fourth link is to the uncorroborated testimony of the CEO of a Ready-Mix and Building Material$ company.
 
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Reality doesnt but you sure do. You have responses from three other posters. Maybe you should set your hatred of Grim aside and address the topic, there are responses to which regulations. Why dont we start with those.

I'm sure glad that it's obvious to others as well...

I hope this thread has opened everyone's eyes around here, instead of just a select few.
 
I'm sure glad that it's obvious to others as well...

I hope this thread has opened everyone's eyes around here, instead of just a select few.

It opened my eyes. I note that when you're wrong, you don't do away quietly. Like an oversize turd circling a drain but presenting a well rounded view. No regulations passed by Obamy effected this power plant. Even I can see that.
 
Obama's EPA is the entity that is playing ideological games. He's using the EPA to regulate the coal industry into oblivion, putting more than a million jobs at risk. They pass ridiculous regulations that force these companies to waste billions of capital trying to stay compliant.

Regulatory Actions | Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for Power Plants | US EPA

Q&A with Scott Segal on New Mercury MACT Rule | ERCC



Here's another one

Air Transport | US EPA

The cost to businesses that have to retrofit in order to comply? 800 billion. That = lost jobs. Obama's EPA isn't running analysis in regards to how their regulations will affect existing jobs and future job growth. They are supposed to, but instead are ramming in regulations from a pure ideological standpoint. Not grounded in economic day to day reality. Jobs and the economy be damned.

EPA Regulations have increased costs to some businesses as much as 33%

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Baker 10252011.pdf

This is the problem with centralized planning. Nobody holds the EPA accountable when their regulations produce unintended consequences that cost jobs and hurt the economy. They don't have to worry about costs like private businesses do. Hell, they don't even have to take responsibility.

From your link, it looks like this was put into effect in Jan. 04.

January 2004

On January 30, 2004, EPA proposed a rule with two basic approaches for controlling mercury from power plants. One approach would require power plants to meet emissions standards reflecting the application of the "maximum achievable control technology" (MACT) determined according to the procedure set forth in section 112(d) of the Clean Air Act. If implemented, this proposal would reduce nationwide mercury by 14 tons or about 30 percent by early 2008. A second approach proposed by EPA would create a market-based "cap and trade" program that, if implemented, would reduce nationwide utility emissions of mercury in two phases. When fully implemented mercury emissions would be reduced by 33 tons (nearly 70 percent). EPA proposed to pursue the cap and trade approach either under Section 111 or Section 112 of the Clean Air Act.
 
Someone could show you a direct citation to a regulation cited by the CEO of the company as a reason that they were not able to make their bottom line, and you would merely respond "lies! The company just sucks!" so what's the point. You're gonna claim absolute innocence for Obama's policy and the EPA no matter what anyone says, and you will do so on the basis of "you can't prove anything". That's weak sauce and, frankly, shockingly childish for an adult debate forum.

Not real sure I'd take what any CEO say's as 100% true. The best I can find is that this has been in the works since 02 and put into effect in Jan 04.
 
I'm sure glad that it's obvious to others as well...

I hope this thread has opened everyone's eyes around here, instead of just a select few.

It would be very easy to show you're right. Simply link to the Regulation from the EPA website that you see as causing this company going out of business. You keep saying it's there so you must have read it.
 
Not real sure I'd take what any CEO say's as 100% true. The best I can find is that this has been in the works since 02 and put into effect in Jan 04.

I agree with not taking the CEO at his word, but if he cited the reg, and showed exactly how it affected the building of the plant, on their accounting books and in their planning schedule, and how those regs made it impossible for the company to move forward at this time, and we investigated and discovered that the company had made no errors in its development or accounting...

Redress would still claim "THERE IS NO PROOF! THE COMPANY SUCKS!" and we'd be back to []1. That's my point.
 
The first link is to a proposed rule that has not been implemented yet. It says that it will
"...update emission limits for new power plants under the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). The updates would only apply to future power plants; would not change the types of state-of-the-art pollution controls that they are expected to install; and would not significantly change costs or public health benefits of the rule...."

Perhaps that is why no public hearing was requested during the public comment period.

The second link features the opinions of a representative of an indu$try trade group.

Re. the third link:
"This rule, known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), requires states to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and/or fine particle pollution in other states. In a separate, but related, regulatory action, EPA finalized a supplemental rulemaking on December 15, 2011 to require five states - Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin - to make summertime NOX reductions under the CSAPR ozone season control program. CSAPR requires a total of 28 states to reduce annual SO2 emissions, annual NOX emissions and/or ozone season NOX emissions to assist in attaining the 1997 ozone and fine particle and 2006 fine particle National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)." EPA

How much is the difference in the NOX and SO2 levels you believe should be allowed compared to the new EPA (2006) standards? How many extra asthma and emphysema cases would the old levels create?

The fourth link is to the uncorroborated testimony of the CEO of a Ready-Mix and Building Material$ company.

So let me see if I understand you correctly:

This plant was put out of business by rules that haven't been implemented yet, and that were not identified by the owner of the plant as having anything to do with the closing of the plant?
 
Re. the third link:
"This rule, known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), requires states to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and/or fine particle pollution in other states. In a separate, but related, regulatory action, EPA finalized a supplemental rulemaking on December 15, 2011 to require five states - Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin - to make summertime NOX reductions under the CSAPR ozone season control program. CSAPR requires a total of 28 states to reduce annual SO2 emissions, annual NOX emissions and/or ozone season NOX emissions to assist in attaining the 1997 ozone and fine particle and 2006 fine particle National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)." EPA

We are losing a couple of our local power plants in Montana to that rule, ostensibly to protect the air quality over the North Dakota badlands some 200 miles to the east even though - by EPA's own calculations - the difference will not be detectable by any instrumentation available today.
 
It would be very easy to show you're right. Simply link to the Regulation from the EPA website that you see as causing this company going out of business. You keep saying it's there so you must have read it.

As I said to Redress... Just show me where a member of the Administration or someone from the EPA denies the existence of the regulations that were stated in the senate report, then I will be glad to dig them up... Without such, there is no controversy over their existence and I will not facilitate partisan efforts to steer this thread into a direction that some around here deem to be more ideologically pleasing.
 
As I said to Redress... Just show me where a member of the Administration or someone from the EPA denies the existence of the regulations that were stated in the senate report, then I will be glad to dig them up... Without such, there is no controversy over their existence and I will not facilitate partisan efforts to steer this thread into a direction that some around here deem to be more ideologically pleasing.

Should we trade air quality and peoples health for jobs?
 
Obama's EPA is the entity that is playing ideological games. He's using the EPA to regulate the coal industry into oblivion, putting more than a million jobs at risk. They pass ridiculous regulations that force these companies to waste billions of capital trying to stay compliant.

Regulatory Actions | Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for Power Plants | US EPA

Q&A with Scott Segal on New Mercury MACT Rule | ERCC



Here's another one

Air Transport | US EPA

The cost to businesses that have to retrofit in order to comply? 800 billion. That = lost jobs. Obama's EPA isn't running analysis in regards to how their regulations will affect existing jobs and future job growth. They are supposed to, but instead are ramming in regulations from a pure ideological standpoint. Not grounded in economic day to day reality. Jobs and the economy be damned.

EPA Regulations have increased costs to some businesses as much as 33%

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Baker 10252011.pdf

This is the problem with centralized planning. Nobody holds the EPA accountable when their regulations produce unintended consequences that cost jobs and hurt the economy. They don't have to worry about costs like private businesses do. Hell, they don't even have to take responsibility.

And we have a winner. That is the increase under Obama and the EPA. Of course this is not the regulation the company had trouble with in Texas, and MATS is actually a really good regulation(when it goes into effect in 2015), but it isn't what the company had trouble with.

Edit: more on MATS when I get back to my computer. I actually looked stuff up about this whole thing, learned some fascinating stuff.
 
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I agree with not taking the CEO at his word, but if he cited the reg, and showed exactly how it affected the building of the plant, on their accounting books and in their planning schedule, and how those regs made it impossible for the company to move forward at this time, and we investigated and discovered that the company had made no errors in its development or accounting...

Redress would still claim "THERE IS NO PROOF! THE COMPANY SUCKS!" and we'd be back to []1. That's my point.

I may have missed it but I didn't see in the OP where he pointed to any specific reg. They applied for an air permit in May 08 and recieved the permit from the state in Jan. 11. I would think that the company would also be working with the EPA from day one. The only reg that I saw was posted by someone on here and it shows that this reg was put into effect in Jan.04. Also from the OP the city was against this company because of the pollution it would cause.

Even administrative law judges issued negative rulings against the plant,” Armendariz said. “None of that has anything to do with EPA or federal rules. They should not throw stones at the agency — but instead take a good, hard look at how they were trying to get their permits through. Mayor Nelda Martinez, who early on became an outspoken opponent of the plant, said the risks to public health and air quality thresholds outweighed the benefits.

“This is great news and a great day for the Corpus Christi region,” Martinez said. “Now we can better protect our people, their health and focus on the expansion of existing industry for future jobs.”
 
As I said to Redress... Just show me where a member of the Administration or someone from the EPA denies the existence of the regulations that were stated in the senate report, then I will be glad to dig them up... Without such, there is no controversy over their existence and I will not facilitate partisan efforts to steer this thread into a direction that some around here deem to be more ideologically pleasing.

There was this from the OP:

“This is a victory for our community’s human and environmental health,” he said. “We will continue our efforts against the hazards of air and water pollution, whether from a pet-coke plant, from coal coming through the Port of Corpus Christi, or from other sources.”

The company’s statement received a strong rebuff from a former EPA official who heads the Sierra Club’s national “Beyond Coal” campaign.

“The history of the Las Brisas plant tells another story,” said Al Armendariz, once the EPA’s top official in Texas.

Armendariz, who last year resigned from his White House-appointed post at the EPA after a video surfaced in which he compared environmental justice to crucifixion, said the plant received opposition at the state level, as well.

Granted he is no longer with the EPA, but at one time was the EPA’s top official in Texas.
 
Should we trade air quality and peoples health for jobs?


Oh please....Scare tactics? Is that all you got? I guess using your logic we should all go back to horse and buggy.
 
Oh please....Scare tactics? Is that all you got? I guess using your logic we should all go back to horse and buggy.

~or~ perhaps we might look back into recent history, note the way things were, and gain some level of understanding rather than express ignorance by typing:

"
During 2010, the Los Angeles metropolitan area suffered through three "red alert" smog days and 69 other "smog days." That is three red alert and sixty-nine other smog days too many.

But let's look for a moment on the bright side. And we mean the bright side as depicted by Plein Air painters rather than the Next Nature-style, particle-aided sunsets that Angelinos hate to love.
Yes, let's look at today's relative bright side. After all, NRDC President Frances Beinecke writes of traveling to Los Angeles in the 1970s, "when the air hit unhealthy levels of pollution more than 200 days a year." And this New York Times infographic shows decreasing area pollution woes from 1984 to 2004.
That's good news, because for decades smog was so synonymous with the City of Angels that those same Angels couldn't fly without packing inhalers. Pollution one day in 1903 was so severe residents thought an eclipse was nigh. The San Gabriels used to be so regularly shrouded that Fuji-san seemed like a camera hog. The county as early as 1947 opened the nation's first "air pollution control program." One October day in 1955 was said to be L.A.'s smoggiest ever. Some smog-boggling photos have been collected on this page by KCET colleague Nathan Masters - including a Boy Scout wiping air pollution-produced tears from a girl's face; an underground backyard smog shelter; and Miss Smog Fighter 1951, with sash, recoiling from a just-opened jar full of the stuff.
Some of those Los Angeles air quality horrors have improved however, thanks to a range of legislative, regulative - and many other significant - reasons.
clean%20air%20act%20balloon%20630-thumb-600x468-23672.jpg
Man selling fresh clean desert air for 50 cents a balloonfull in front of Loew's State Theatre in Los Angeles, Oct. 22, 1954. Herald-Examiner Collection photo courtesy of The Los Angeles Public Library

Perhaps the key single factor is the 1970 federal Clean Air Act. "It was such a huge change in the law," Larry Pryor says, nominating the Act as a Law That Shaped L.A, "because local controls were erratic and sensitive to industry costs rather than health costs."
Pryor is an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism** and a prize-winning former editor and environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
During a recent interview, Pryor recounted the back story that led to the passage of the federal Clean Air Act, as well as the related creation of the California Air Resources Board to administer the Act at the state level.
Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 31, 1970, eight months after the first Earth Day, the Clean Air Act set comprehensive emissions limits and allowed the newly established EPA to regulate seven harmful chemicals. The Act and its federal bully pulpit led to the expanded influence - or in some cases the creation of - local agencies such as the California Air Resources Board to administer the Clean Air Act. The Act was updated in 1977 and dramatically in 1990."


How Los Angeles Began to Put its Smoggy Days Behind | Laws That Shaped LA | Land of Sunshine | KCET


Still....I'm sure you have something other than failure to comprehend to base your comment on. (please note sarcasm)
 
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