Blue Star Chronicles

When Barack Obama was campaigning for the presidency in 2007 and 2008 he said he would shut down the coal industry and energy prices would necessarily skyrocket. Apparently he meant what he said then and he is putting his ideology into practice now … at the expense of the American people and tens of thousands of American jobs, through rules, regulations and laws.

Get ready for the sacrifice of tens of thousands more American jobs (at least) to feed the fantasy of “clean energy.” Even as the “green jobs” promise proves to be a lie, the Obama administration is getting set to force the shutdown of countless power plants across half the nation.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, announced last month, will affect coal-fired electric plants in at least 27 midwestern and eastern states. Set to take effect next year, the rule could shutter up to a fifth of the nation’s generating capacity.

With coal providing 45 percent of the nation’s energy, utility companies warn of an economic “train wreck” if the regulations — based on Bush-era EPA proposals that the federal courts threw out in 2008 — take effect. One Wisconsin utility says its costs would jump $32.6 million next year, while the head of the Texas Public Utility Commission says the rules could lead to rolling blackouts — especially given the short time the utilities have to comply with Washington’s iron fist.

Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, warns of job losses totaling 1.4 million over the next eight years and a 23 percent jump in electric rates in states dependent on coal-fired plants.

With unemployment still sky-high, new jobless claims routinely hitting 400,000 a week and consumer prices rising, is this really the time to hobble the nation’s reeling economy further?

Absolutely, says autocratic EPA chief Lisa Jackson — who could possibly be against improving the air quality for up to 240 million Americans? “Just because wind and weather will carry air pollution away from its source at a local power plant doesn’t mean that pollution is no longer that plant’s responsibility.”

Fine — but wouldn’t it be nice if the EPA could prove real health effects before forcing the shutdown of so many plants?

Environmental extremists cheer the new rules because closing “dirty” coal plants is part of their fantasy of “clean energy” and green jobs. But the reality is otherwise. Even backed by stimulus funds, “green” business after business has flopped or folded, costing taxpayers millions.

In Seattle, a plan called Retrofit Ramp-Up sucked up $20 million in federal grants to make houses more energy efficient. The result: so far, only three homes retrofitted and just 14 jobs “created.” California got $186 million for a similar program and has spent just over half of it — with just 538 new full-time jobs to show for it.

Costco recently announced that it’s yanking out some 90 electric-car chargers at 64 of its stores, mostly in California — because nobody uses them. The discount retailer also rejected the offer of a $2.3 million upgrade by the California Energy Commission. “Why should we have anybody spend money on a program that nobody’s thought through?” said one regional manager.

So let’s get this straight: At the same time it’s spending millions of taxpayer dollars in pursuit of a chimera, the Obama administration is attacking the wellsprings of US prosperity, throwing people out of work and raising consumer costs. This isn’t just insane; it’s malevolent.

Nobody’s in favor of dirtier air or water, of childhood asthma or killing puppies. But progressives often seem to think that there’s never any cost for their crackpot notions, that no amount of money can ever possibly be too much, even if we have to borrow or print it. If people are thrown out of work in the process, tough.

Worst of all is the increasingly arbitrary reach of the regulatory state. President Richard Nixon created the EPA by executive order in 1970, in a hasty response to an oil spill near Santa Barbara. “The 1970s absolutely must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its waters and our living environment,” he said.

That was 41 years ago. The nation’s air and water have noticeably improved since then — but they’ll never be clean enough to satisfy some. To people like Lisa Jackson, we need to keep on paying — even if it kills us.

Welcome to the ‘hope and change’ that candidate Obama offered the American people. Is this what you thought he meant?