Today’s Senate Vote on Coal is about much more than Coal

On  Wednesday the Senate is scheduled to vote on Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe’s S.J. Res. 37, which would overturn Utility MACT, which requires “Maximum Achievable Control Technology” for mercury at coal-fired power plants. But it is about far more than Coal or controlling mercury emmissions. It is about allowing the president and his administration to once again bypass Congress and move his agenda forward by manipulating regulatory and executive power.

Phil Kerpen of American Commitment spells it out in a Washington Times op-ed:

The president’s Dream Act-by-dictate provides the latest evidence of this administration’s determination to push its agenda through without respect to Congress, the Constitution or the rule of law. While there are enough examples to fill a book (which I wrote and titled “Democracy Denied”), the most outrageous of all is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) being used to advance an extreme anti-energy agenda that the American people decisively rejected when Mr. Obama proposed it as cap-and-trade. Wednesday we’ll find out where every U.S. senator stands.

In 2008, Barack Obama explained his energy policy: “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad.” He went on to explain, “So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can – it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”

That plan was utterly repudiated by the American people. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was able to narrowly grease it through the House with hundreds of pages of corrupt special-interest provisions, but the Senate refused to even bring it up for a vote. Dozens of House Democrats who voted for it were turned out of office largely because of that vote. One coal-state Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, won a Senate seat by literally shooting a bullet through the bill in a campaign spot called “Dead Aim.”

Yet the day after the 2010 election, Mr. Obama said, “Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end.”

The following week, the Center for American Progress released a report, complete with a cover letter from Obama transition co-chairman John Podesta, outlining ways in which Mr. Obama should bypass Congress and move his agenda forward by manipulating regulatory and executive power. Mr. Podesta’s report specifically recommended a regulation purporting to regulate mercury as a way to shut down coal plants and advance the global warming agenda.

Each senator will either vote to let Mr. Obama govern by regulatory decree and make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket,” or reject Mr. Obama’s plan and take responsibility as a legislator.

 

Coal Miner’s Dodderer

This is actually from last year, but it’s new to me so I’ll share it thinking it might be new to you, as well.

Congressman Hal Rogers (KY-5th) is shown here pressing EPA chief Lisa Jackson over the number of coal mining permits, of the 190 requested, she had approved.  Unlike her boss, Barack Hussein Obama, Miss Jackson is not a very accomplished liar. 

This woman doesn’t even seem bright enough to man a toll booth or push a vacuum cleaner, let alone be in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, or as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli calls the EPA, the Employment Prevention Agency.

Hat Tip to John Taylor for sending the email and to EPA Abuse.

 

Propagandizing on Behalf of the President and Receiving a Tax Deduction For Doing So

I saw this ad on television somewhere last night.

The claim that the new ‘Green Economy’ has ‘created over 3 million jobs, with many more to come’ is a complete lie put out by Barack Obama’s Department of Labor, with the socialist cheerleader and constant campaigner Hilda Solis at the helm.

But let’s set that aside for a moment.

At the end of the ad they urge people to support the President’s Clean Air Standards. That makes it a partisan political ad, does it not?

The ad is put out by ‘Earth Justice’. Any organization that wraps its name around the word ‘Justice’ causes red flags to go up, emphasis on the RED.

Sure enough, Earth Justice is a spin off of the Sierra Club and is the legal arm that uses its resources to tie up American land through legal action. Earth Justice actually boast that they’ve prevented access to 50,000,000 acres in this country. Fifty Million!

They’re motto? Because the Earth needs a good lawyer.

They’re also working against the coal industry and fracking.

But. If you go to their website’s Donate page you’ll see that your contributions are tax deductible.

Isn’t campaigning by a non-profit on behalf of a candidate illegal? Have the enviro-tyrants overstepped the campaign finance laws or have they cleverly skirted the law by embracing the ‘green’ agenda which happens to be the president’s policy?

 

Obama Walking the Plank of His Own Making. Fellow Democrats Sawing Plank.

Schadenfreude.  It’s what’s for dinner.

Democrats are running away from Obamacare, which will likely be ruled unconstitutional in June.

Sen. Jim Webb said the law would be Obama’s “biggest downside” in the election and had cost him “a lot of credibility as a leader.”

Some of us were at your office, providing such advice to this affect during the run up to this vote, Jimmy.  I saw you walking down the hallway towards your office and once you saw us gathered outside your office you ran from us.  We were there and we were ignored.  Now you hike up your skirt and run away from a re-election bid because you know you screwed up big time.

No worries though, mate.  We’ll release the same fury against your replacement candidate, Timmy Kaine, that we would have on you.  Timmy is a big Obama guy.  Big Obama guys don’t do so well with the electorate since 2008.

And then there’s this from former Congressman Artur Davis from Alabama.

“I think the Affordable Care Act is the single least popular piece of major domestic legislation in the last 70 years,” he said. “It was not popular when it passed; it’s less popular now.”

And now Democrats are running away from President Obama’s blockage of the Keystone XL Pipeline.  Funny how constituent feedback about the pain at the pump brings new wisdom to even the most radically green Democrats.

Sharks are swirling below the plank.  Sharks of Obama’s own creation.  Shutting down and restricting coal fired power plants isn’t going to help, either.  When electricity rates ‘necessarily skyrocket’ (your words, not mine) going into the cooling season, this will add more pressure.  Coal fired power plants are shutting down because of Obama.

When GSA employees lavishly waste taxpayer money and flaunt it on You Tube, that doesn’t help either. 

When Obama uses the Justice Department to promote illegal gun running resulting in the deaths of American border and ICE agents and this Justice Department turns a blind eye to voter intimidation perpetrated by the Black Panthers while harassing states over voter ID laws and immigration enforcement laws, that doesn’t help either.

When Obama racks up $5 Trillion in debt in 3 years, tosses our money at pet projects that are massive failures like Solyndra, LightSquared, and others, that doesn’t help either.

When Obama takes an unprecedented number of vacations while the ranks of the unemployed moved from gainful employment and self esteem onto demeaning government dependency, well that don’t much help, either.

You know what, Champ?  You’re doomed.  If your cratering poll numbers don’t advise you, then your own party distancing themselves from you certainly does.

America’s got a big party planned for November 6th. 

You’re not invited.

 

 

Mark Levin outlines the conservative vision for Romney 2012

Growing more and more frustrated with Mitt Romney’s inability to articulate the conservative message while campaigning, the Great One delivers an example of what Romney should be saying as only Levin can.

 

 

Obama appointed federal judge overturns Obama administrations EPA veto of coal mining permit.

For the second time this week a federal court has overturned an EPA ruling. Earlier this week , the Supreme  Court ruled that landowners are allowed to sue the Environmental Protection  Agency and allows people to challenge compliance orders handed out by the EPA under the clean water law. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency is not authorized to withdraw a Clean Water Act permit that already was issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“This is a stunning power for an agency to arrogate to itself when there is absolutely no mention of it in the statute,” Jackson wrote in a 34-page opinion that’s been highly anticipated by all sides in the mountaintop-removal debate.

Jackson called the language at issue in the law unclear and confusing, but said the EPA’s reading was not a reasonable interpretation.

What makes this latest ruling more remarkable is that the judge that slammed the Obama administration agency ploy to revoke mountaintop mining  permits, saying the EPA invented authority where there was none, was nominated by President Obama, not once, but twice. Obama nominated Jackson to fill a vacant seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on June 17, 2010. Her nomination lapsed at the end of 2010, but Obama renominated her on January 5, 2011 and the United States Senate confirmed Jackson in a 97-0 vote on March 17, 2011.

The repeated overreach of this administration is so blatant and apparent that is now being rebuked by it own hand-picked federal judges.