Show Information:
Air Date: August 06, 2015
Host : Jim Schneider
Guest: Nicolas Loris
This week President Obama officially announced the Clean Power Act. Jim described this as a series of devastating regulations from the EPA that will have a big impact on how we make, store and use energy.
Joining Jim to discuss this issue was Nick Loris. Nick is an economist who focuses on energy, environmental and regulatory issues as the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is a senior policy analyst in Heritage’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies as he researches and writes about energy prices and other economic effects of environmental policies and regulations including climate change legislation, energy efficiency and energy subsidies. He has testified before Congress and has been published and quoted in numerous publications.
While President Obama feels there’s no challenge greater to our future and future generations than a changing climate, Nick disagrees. He noted that there are a lot more pressing challenges. That’s not to say that climate change is a hoax. He believes the climate is changing and it’s clear that man-made emissions have had an impact over the past 50 to 60 years. Instead, what we’ve been seeing over the past 18 years is no increase in global surface temperatures. In fact, he indicated that we’re in one of the longest hurricane droughts that we’ve ever seen.
Nick believes that the regulations that the administration just finalized this week won’t do anything to mitigate global temperatures or solve any purported problem that there is with climate change. In short, he believes these regulations are all cost and no benefit.
One of the major tenets of this plan is the New Source Performance Standards that regulate new power plants. It sets a carbon dioxide output per megawatt hour that is so low that it will be prohibitively expensive and difficult to build coal fired plants in the U.S.
Another part known as the Clean Power Plan goes after existing plants. These plants would have to cut overall emissions 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Other points discussed included:
–Will lower income people be hurt by the Clean Power Act?
–How is the President pressuring states to take the heat on implementation?
–What impact will this have on the reliability of the power grid?
–Are there any climate and environmental benefits to this act?
–Senate Republicans are alleging that outside groups have colluded with the Obama administration to draft this plan. Is this true?
–What is the Senate’s Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 all about?
More Information:
To contact your legislators regarding the Clean Power Act call:
202-224-3121 (senators)
202-225-3121 (congressmen)
