The Overbearing EPA

[Malsua]

Our cold and dark future, happening right before our eyes, courtesy of Mr Green, captain zero himself, Obama.

[Ryan Ruck]

Yep, it's amazing how we're doing it voluntarily.

We've already got many areas forced into having rolling brownouts during peak demand due to a lack of generating capacity, imagine how it's going to be once these plants start closing.

It's really the same thing that is being done with the military. We're taking perfectly good equipment that does its job out of service at a time when we need all of it we can get, without any replacement in sight.

Hope you all are stocked up on candles, oil lamps, and firewood.

[American Patriot]

in relation to the military I saw today the Army is cutting roughly 100,000 out of it's 300,000 people (I think I got that right)

[Ryan Ruck]

Just about. It's 70k from the Army, 20k from the Marines, and im pretty sure 10k from Navy/Air Force.

Nothing like adding to the unemployment numbers!

[American Patriot]

Amazing.

And today I just heard that the guy they appointed to the NLRB is an asshat. He's pushing for new rules to force businesses to release all private phone numbers and emails on all employees so they can be contacted by "Unions".

More Union Thuggery in the making.

[Malsua]

Wait, what?

A union is demanding that a private business release the private information about it's employees so that the union can proselytize?

If ever there was a breach of privacy, this would be it.

[American Patriot]

Wait, what?

A union is demanding that a private business release the private information about it's employees so that the union can proselytize?

If ever there was a breach of privacy, this would be it.

No the National Labor Relations Board....

Labor board chief pushes new rules to make union organizing easier

By Sam Hananel

Associated Press

Posted: 01/26/2012 06:03:52 AM PST




WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of the National Labor Relations Board plans to push for new rules that would give unions a boost in organizing members, despite an outcry from Republicans and business groups who say the board is going too far.
Mark Pearce said he hopes the board will propose the rules soon, now that it has a full component of five members. President Barack Obama bypassed the Senate earlier this month to fill three vacancies.
"We keep our eye on the prize," Pearce said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Our goal is to create a set of rules that eliminate a lot of waste of time, energy and money for the taxpayers."
One change Pearce wants is to require businesses to hand over lists of employee phone numbers and emails to union leaders before an election.
He also wants the board to consider other rule changes it didn't have time to approve before it was on the verge of losing a quorum last year. That includes the use of electronic filings and quicker timetables for certain procedures.
"My personal hope is that we take on all of these things and consider each one of these rules," Pearce said. "We presume the constitutionality of the president's appointments, and we go forward based on that understanding."
Pearce's comments come just three weeks after Obama ignited a firestorm when he made the recess appointments of two Democrats and one Republican to the NLRB, which oversees union elections and

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referees labor-management disputes.
GOP leaders have challenged the appointments as unconstitutional, saying the Senate was not technically in recess when Obama acted. Republicans had threatened to block confirmation votes on any board nominees, saying the NLRB was making too many union-friendly decisions.
Pearce's decision to push the new rules could amplify the issue in an election year as Obama's GOP opponents accuse him of being too cozy with labor unions that plan to spend millions backing his campaign.
If the board decides to propose the new rules, they would expand on sweeping regulations approved in December that speed up the process for holding union elections at work sites after unions collect enough signatures from employees. Those rules are slated to take effect April 30.
While the first round of rules won praise from union leaders, business groups claim they allow "ambush elections" that won't give employers enough time to talk to employees about whether to choose a union.
Business groups and their Republican allies say the latest push confirms their fears that the new board -- now led by three Democrats and two Republicans -- will approve even more rules that make it easier for unions to organize new members.
"I knew this was going to happen," said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. "The NLRB has lost all pretense of objectivity in my judgment."
White House officials say Obama was justified in going around the Senate since some Republicans had vowed to block any nominations in order to paralyze the NLRB. The five-member board is not allowed to consider cases or rules unless it has a quorum of at least three members.
Randel Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's vice president on labor issues, said he is surprised the board would try to adopt even more new rules that businesses fiercely oppose.
"If they're going to go forward on that basis, I think that removes any pretense at all that they are not in the back pocket of the union movement," Johnson said.
AFL-CIO spokeswoman Alison Omens called Pearce's comments "a reasonable, balanced approach to ensure that every person has a voice on the job."
"The board is obviously taking modest steps to create a level playing field and bring stability to a process that's been outdated," Omens said.
Republicans in Congress are vowing to put more pressure on the agency, with at least two House hearings on the NLRB recess appointments planned next month before the education committee and the Judiciary Committee.
"If the board is determined to continue advancing its pro-union agenda, House Republicans will continue to maintain aggressive oversight," said Brian Newell, spokesman for education committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn.
Pearce said he wants the NLRB to become "a household word" for all workers, not just those affiliated with organized labor.
"We want the agency to be known as the resource for people with workplace concerns that may have nothing to do with union activities," he said.
He said many workers don't understand that they can seek recourse with the NLRB to protect rights that exist outside of union protections.

[American Patriot]

Just to clarify....

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of protected concerted activity. The NLRB is governed by a five-person board and a General Counsel, all of whom are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. Board members are appointed to five-year terms and the General Counsel is appointed to a four-year term. The General Counsel acts as a prosecutor and the Board acts as an appellate judicial body from decisions of administrative law judges.

[American Patriot]

Basically..... a "government" oversight board - so, in regards to the thread (about EPA) which is an agency, this is simply more GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.

See Obama appoints this clown, and the Congress approves him.

In this case, the Congress did NOT approve. He was a "recess appointment" - even though the Congress wasn't ACTUALLY in recess.

The President is pretending he is the King.

[vector7]

Natural gas sector set up by Obama to be sabotaged?

Industry insiders fear rules, taxes



By Ben Wolfgang
-
The Washington Times
Sunday, January 29, 2012

President Obama spoke of the role natural gas must play in America’s energy future during his State of the Union address last week, but industry insiders fear it’s merely lip service designed to distract from what they consider the administration’s behind-the-scenes plan to sabotage the sector.

“They’re trying to make it more difficult for the industry to survive while the president is standing in front of the country saying we’re going to create jobs through hydraulic fracturing,” said Ken von Schaumburg, former deputy counsel at the Environmental Protection Agency during the Bush administration.

Mr. Obama “is talking the game, but you can’t support the industry and then have this aggressive rule-making process going on,” Mr. von Schaumburg said.

At the same time the president boasts of the nation’s vast shale gas deposits, his EPA is poised to make extracting that fuel much more difficult. The agency will this year release a widely anticipated study on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the use of water, sand and chemical mixtures to crack underground rock and release huge quantities of gas. The practice is widely used in Pennsylvania, North Dakota and other states, and has helped revitalize small-town economies and led directly to the creation of thousands of jobs in recent years.

Many in the gas industry fear that the upcoming EPA study will call for harsh new regulations on the process, and many environmental groups - a key constituency for Mr. Obama during this year’s re-election bid - are publicly pushing the administration to outlaw fracking entirely.

The EPA has already dealt a severe blow to fracking with the release of a report last year alleging the process was responsible for water contamination in Pavillion, Wyo. That study was met with ridicule from across the natural gas business because it was put out before being subjected to an independent, third-party review. While the EPA has promised such an unbiased look will be conducted, the study has likely already had a negative impact on the public perception of fracking.

Possibly making matters worse, Mr. Obama has over the past week repeated his calls for increased federal investment in the renewable energy sector, a policy some view as an effort to stack the deck against natural gas.

“Job creators and American consumers should welcome the president’s latest energy promises with suspicion,” Thomas Pyle, president of the nonprofit Institute for Energy Research, said in a statement following Mr. Obama’s State of the Union speech, during which he called for an “all-of-the-above” approach toward energy independence that relies heavily on American oil and gas reserves.

“In the same breath that he extolled the virtues of natural gas development and called for higher energy taxes on the companies that produce it, President Obama continues to press for more taxpayer subsidies for Solyndra-style green energy companies,” Mr. Pyle said.

Mr. Obama’s positive rhetoric toward natural gas could also represent a desire to please both sides of the debate, though the move to the middle has, thus far, seemed to satisfy no one. After the speech, environmental groups blasted the administration for being too timid and called for an all-out war on fracking.

“We can’t wait much longer for the clean energy revolution. We need to clean up a fossil fuel industry run amok, by ensuring … natural gas safeguards that go much further than what the president suggested,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement after the State of the Union address.

So far, however, the administration has stopped far short of what the Sierra Club and other liberal groups want to see. Mr. Obama did, however, call for legislation requiring any company drilling on public land to disclose all chemicals used during the fracking process. Several states, such as Texas and Colorado, have already passed disclosure bills, and many leading companies voluntarily post detailed breakdowns of their chemical mixtures to the website fracfocus.org, an online clearinghouse.

Potential state or federal regulations aren’t they only problems confronting the gas industry. The explosion of natural gas extraction in areas like the Marcellus Shale region has glutted the market, keeping prices low for consumers but leading to diminished returns for drilling companies.

Last week, Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest players in the game, announced plans to reduce daily gas production by 500 million cubic feet, an 8 percent drop. The firm said it’s considering slashing production even further and predicts “flat or lower total natural gas production in the U.S. in 2012” as supply outstrips demand.

[Ryan Ruck]

Obama won't be happy until we are living in a new Dark Age. Literally.

[Malsua]

I cannot wait until this Marxist anti-American, non eligible dickhead is out of office.

[American Patriot]

Oh come on.... he's not really a dickhead is he?

[American Patriot]

By the way, I mentioned something in another thread.

THere's a government group called "Committee for Public Safety".... they are responsible for between 16,000 and 40,000 deaths.

I'll give you a hint:

Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins and virtual dictatorship by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed.^[1]

That's from what I found on Wikipedia about the French Revolution.

I think our EPA might be the next "Committee for Public Safety" in OUR time....

[Ryan Ruck]

Three Coal Power Plants Closing

February 8, 2012

Ohio based FirstEnergy Corporation announces it will close three coal fired power plants in West Virginia by this fall. The closings come directly from the impact of new federal EPA regulations.

The plants to close are Albright Power Station, Willow Island Power Station, and the Rivesville Power Station. The company says 105 employees will be directly impacted.

The three plants produce 660 megawatts and about 3-percent of FirstEnergy's total generation. In recent years, the plants served as "peaking facilities" and generated power during times of peak demand for power.

The plants operated under subsidiary Monongahela Power. Mon Power recently finished a study of unscrubbed coal fired plants in the system to determine the potential impact of the most recent environmental regulations from EPA. Company officials determined the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) made it unfeasible to retrofit or continue operating the three plants.

“The high cost to implement MATS and other environmental rules is the reason these Mon Power plants are being retired,” said James R. Haney, regional president of Mon Power and president of West Virginia Operations for FirstEnergy.

The announcement follows an announcement from First Energy last month that six coal fired plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland would also be retired. All of those plans are due to be off line and shut down by September 1, 2012.

[American Patriot]

One domino at a time.


When they are all stacked, you knock the first one over and the whole board falls down.

(or the Eastern Seaboard, Western Seaboard... or whatever)

[vector7]

Companion Post and Threads:

• Do Not Be Deceived: S. 1867 is the Most Dangerous Bill Since the PATRIOT Act
• Obama Authorizes Assassination of Civilians He now calls Terrorists
• Obama’s Growing Snitch Program on Extremism
• Obama Administration Targets Pro-life Activists as Terrorists
• 2nd DHS Domestic Extremism report, guess who they define as a terrorist now?
• Eric Holders new Terror Warning: "We are now focused on Americans taking up arms"
• Enemy Belligerent Interrogation & Detention, a Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully
• The Growing List Allegedly Committing Sedition Against U.S. Government
• The Oath Keepers
• FEMA Training to Stop People Like YOU
• We Need 'Analysis of How Christian Militants … Might Bring Down The Country’
• Christians are more militant than Muslims, says Government's equalities boss
• Obama wishes America was run like China

The Department of Energy Seeks Urban Assault Weapons

Added by Marjorie Haun on March 3, 2012.



Why would the Department of Energy (DOE) arm its agents?

The answer might be simple if you consider the different roles of the DOE, one of which is to transport nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and other items that require a high level of armed security.

Ordinarily the DOE contracts out these tasks, but nevertheless, such convoys are usually accompanied by guards armed with a variety of weapons. An employee of CAPCO, a defense contractor located in Grand Junction, Colorado, during a routine scan of federal defense solicitations, discovered two documents from the Department of Energy with posting dates of February 7, 2012, and February 22, 2012.

The employee of CAPCO claimed that he had never before seen requests from the DOE such as these for weapons that are much more appropriate for breaking down doors in American homes than for fighting off highway terrorists.

The government and its agencies, as a function of fairness to the market, publishes regular “solicitations,” which are simply open requests, for various materials on an Internet website called Federal Business Opportunities, or FedBizOpps.gov. The two documents in question were sent out by the DOE to defense contractors across the country within the pages of the publicly accessible FedBizOpps.gov website.

The February 7, document is a solicitation for “Combined Tactical Systems (CTS) Grenade, Hand, Smoke, Yellow, Model 6210-Y.” The agency named on the document is the Department of Energy, and the classification code for the smoke grenades is 10-weapons. The February 22 document is a solicitation for “12G, Slugs 2 ¾: Door-breeching frangible ammunition.” In lay terms, the February 22 solicitation is a request for 12-Gage shotgun shells that have the capability to knock down doors and pierce body armor.

The shotgun slugs also have a classification of “10-weapons,” and were requested by the DOE.

This is an alarming development because, unlike the Military, which has civilian oversight in the Congress, federal agencies, such as the Department of Energy, lack direct oversight and their policies and procedures are largely determined outside of the control of elected officials. In other words, federal bureaucracies populated by unelected agents can create their own armies, purchase weapons of all kinds, and use their police powers against the citizens of the United States with little or no accountability to the voters.

There are examples of agencies using armed enforcers, who are highly trained in weapons and tactics, to raid civilian businesses, farms, and other operations. Recently, armed agents from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stormed raw milk producers using a variety of tactical weapons, in what looked like a Special Forces invasion of an enemy bunker. It is interesting to note that nearly all federal agencies have been given police authority through Executive Branch fiat, and that they have their own armed agents who are trained to conduct military-style assaults on civilian interests.

The employee of CAPCO was curious about the solicitations from the Department of Energy and so inquired to a colleague about why that department would want weapons designed for smoking out people and knocking down doors. His colleague answered with a shrug, “They probably want them for training,” and left it at that. Our question is, “Why would the Department of Energy train its agents to smoke people out and knock down doors.” With coal-powered electricity plants and other traditional energy manufacturers in the cross-hairs of the Obama Administration, one can only speculate that the answer threatens the rights of American citizens.

[American Patriot]

No comment.

[vector7]

Obama Promise Kept: Coal Plants to go Bankrupt with New EPA Carbon Cap

[IMG]http://static.************.com/p/images/february2011/040211top.jpg[/IMG]

Enviro-Whack jobs are celebrating the demise of America‘s most abundant energy resource, coal. Because coal has just been given the death sentence by Obama and the EPA.

"If old King Coal isn't dead already, he's certainly teetering toward life support," said Frank O'Donnell, president Clean Air Watch in Washington.

The EPA has issued new proposed rules on carbon emissions that will help Obama keep one campaign promise: Builders of new coal fired power plants won’t be prevented from building coal-fired power plants, they’ll just go bankrupt if they try.

“Proposed emission rules for new power plants unveiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on March 27 spell the gradual demise of coal-fired power generation and entrench the current cost advantage for natural gas,” reports Reuters’ John Kemp.

If Obama can’t get the tax portion of the Cap and Tax, I guess he figures he might just as well get the cap portion done.

“The agency's proposed rule, signed yesterday, would set a standard well within the capability of modern gas-fired plants but impossible for coal-fired units to meet unless they employ (unproven) carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.”

Even before this proposed new rule, regulators have been using a variety of stratagems to stop the construction of new coal-fired plants.

“Power developers have scrapped plans for more than 100 coal-fired electricity plants over the past decade,” says a Reuters newswire report, “due to difficulty obtaining construction and pollution permits or because they were simply too expensive.”

Last year the EPA tightened up particulate standards for every type of industry including concrete. Additionally, the agency last year used obscure visibility standards to try to put the throttle on coal-fired power plant, eliciting an eruption of protest from the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

“So much for that ‘all of the above’ energy plan the President touted last week,” says Congressman John Sullivan, Vice Chairman of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee in response to the new EPA mandate. “Today's announcement from EPA is an unprecedented attack on American made energy. EPA’s greenhouse gas rules are a backdoor attempt to enact a national energy tax that will have a crushing impact on consumers, jobs, and our economy- while doing little to protect the environment.”

OK, so maybe Obama will get the tax portion too. I stand corrected.
The move by the EPA continues to try to help Obama shore up his environmental base in front of the 2012 presidential elections.

At this point, it’s all Obama can do, considering that: 1) He has no energy policy; and 2) The American people know that he has no energy policy.

According to a recent Gallup poll, a stunning 58 percent of Americans don’t think that Obama is doing a good job managing energy policy. The poll also revealed that 57 percent of Americans don’t think Obama is doing a good job making the country prosperous. The numbers’ proximity to each other are likely not coincidental.

For 100 years the country has followed policies that tried to ensure that we have stable prices and a reliable sources of energy.

Obama’s policy of providing neither reliability nor price stability would be akin to the US announcing the unilateral departure from NATO.

Obama and company are hoping that the nudge the economy has seen from the loose money policies followed by the Federal Reserve will be just enough to convince Americans that the president should get another term.

But the numbers say otherwise, mostly because policies- like this newest EPA mandate promoted by Obama- have killed job creation in the US, while sparking pockets of inflation. At a time when prices are going up, the job market remains dismal, and incomes aren’t able to keep pace.

Conversely, the National Mining Association (NMA) is saying that the coal business won’t die- thanks to exports to emerging economies.

“Seaborne exports of coal are hitting record levels,” says Hal Quinn, the president and CEO of the NMA. “Last year U.S. mines exported more than 100 million tons of coal, up 40 percent from 2009 -- and the highest level in 20 years.”

In other words, the cheap coal that we won’t use is being used by other economies.

According to figures provided by the NMA:

? Coal for electricity generation in China in 2010 stood at 1.6 billion tons—by 2030 it will almost double to 3.1 billion tons.

? China’s industrial sector (steel, cement, petrochemicals) accounts for almost 40 percent of the coal demand at 1.2 billion tons—that is expected to almost double as well to 2.1 billion tons by 2030.

? China has already invested $15 billion in coal conversion infrastructure to transform coal into oil; by 2020 that investment will reach anywhere from $65-80 billion with a requirement of over 100 million tons of coal.

India is investing in a new electrification program and 80 percent of new capacity will come from coal, with an expected increase in coal demand of over 200 percent in just five years.

Still despite exports to other countries, slackening coal orders domestically are going to hurt workers and cause rates to rise for electricty.

“The uncertainty caused by these regulations could result in the loss of thousands of Ohio jobs and will increase electricity rates for families during tough economic times, in return for less reliable power,” Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman said in an e-mailed statement to BusinessWeek.com.

There is a reason why emerging economies have picked coal: It’s cheaper than natural gas over time and more reliable.

Already we have seen the enviro-whack jobs turn on natural gas, shutting down fracking operations around the country.

“This EPA is fully engaging in a war on coal,” West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said in a statement according to BusinessWeek.com.

“This approach relies totally on cheap natural gas and we’ve seen that bubble burst before.”

“It might sound good now, but what happens if those prices go up?” Manchin added.

Oh, it’s not if, it’s when.

Note: I knew that liberalism was a disease, but I didn't know that it was accompanied by a reading disability. But alas that's the case.

[Ryan Ruck]

EPA Official's 'Philosophy' On Oil Companies: 'Crucify Them' - Just As Romans Crucified Conquered Citizens

April 25, 2012

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) took to the Senate floor today to draw attention to a video of a top EPA official saying the EPA’s “philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies - just as the Romans crucified random citizens in areas they conquered to ensure obedience.

Inhofe quoted a little-watched video from 2010 of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official, Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz, admitting that EPA’s “general philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies.

In the video, Administrator Armendariz says:

“I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I’ll go ahead and tell you what I said:

“It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.

“Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

“It’s a deterrent factor,” Armendariz said, explaining that the EPA is following the Romans’ philosophy for subjugating conquered villages.

Soon after Armendariz touted the EPA’s “philosophy,” the EPA began smear campaigns against natural gas producers, Inhofe’s office noted in advance of today’s Senate speech:

“Not long after Administrator Armendariz made these comments in 2010, EPA targeted US natural gas producers in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming.

“In all three of these cases, EPA initially made headline-grabbing statements either insinuating or proclaiming outright that the use of hydraulic fracturing by American energy producers was the cause of water contamination, but in each case their comments were premature at best – and despite their most valiant efforts, they have been unable to find any sound scientific evidence to make this link.”

In his Senate speech, Sen. Inhofe said the video provides Americans with “a glimpse of the Obama administration’s true agenda.”

That agenda, Inhofe said, is to “incite fear” in the public with unsubstantiated claims and “intimidate” oil and gas companies with threats of unjustified fines and penalties – then, quietly backtrack once the public’s perception has been firmly jaded against oil and natural gas.

YouTube: EPA Official - EPAs "Philosophy" Is To "Crucify" And "Make Examples" Of US Energy Producers

So he wants the government to act like the Romans. Sounds like it's time for