Over the weekend, former Missouri Senator Kit Bond wrote in the Southeast Missourian about the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires power plants to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.  (News coverage of the new rule here and here.)

Senator Bond writes that this new regulation will have a serious impact on coal-fired power plants:

Every time an American family turns on a light switch, heats a home in winter or air conditions that home in the summer, that family will pay higher utility bills. Workers who depend on coal-fired plants for paychecks will face unemployment when plants are closed. Rural communities that depend on tax revenue from utilities to fund schools will struggle to keep doors open for students when coal-fired facilities are shut down due to the cost of complying with EPA’s regulatory onslaught. And farmers and businesses — from the local pharmacy to drugstore — will face higher energy prices, making it more difficult to stay in business — let alone create jobs.

Senator Bond notes that, together with the Utility MACT regulations, this new rule will cost jobs. He writes,

Recent analysis from the National Economic Research Associates shows that by 2020 the cost of just two of the coming onslaught of regulations the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rules — will be the loss of 1.4 million jobs and an averageutility bill increase, of 11.5 percent — and in some cases, more than 20 percent.

For more about the EPA’s regulatory agenda, be sure the visit the NAM’s No New Regs site.

The EPA has pursued an aggressive regulatory agenda, creating barriers for job creation, future investment and expanded operations by placing burdensome and costly rules on manufacturers.

Coal-fired power plants are the latest facilities to face EPA’s most recent round of regulations. Last week, one of the largest electricity providers, the American Electric Power Company announced that they will have to shutter five plants to comply with these absurd mandates.

Increasing the cost of energy and killing jobs won’t stimulate the economy or help reduce unemployment.

An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal cuts right to the chase:

The agency estimates that the utility rule will cost $10.9 billion annually but will yield as much as $140 billion in total health and environmental benefits. Sounds like a deal. But most of those alleged benefits are indirect—i.e., not from the mercury reductions that the rule is supposed to be for. Rather, they come from pollutants (“airborne particles”) that the EPA already regulates under other parts of the Clean Air Act. A good analogy is a corporation double-counting revenue.

The Journal concludes that the EPA is imposing “willful damage” and “the least Congress can do is force the EPA to delay the final rule…though a better option would be to junk it.”

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka speaks at a National Press Club luncheon on Friday, an appearance billed thusly:

Trumka will speak out on recent efforts to curb collective bargaining rights in several states, including Wisconsin and Ohio. He also will discuss the political outlook for the 2012 elections, and the impact of austerity budgets on local, state and federal workers.

All good topics. Here are a few others that the reporters could raise during the Q&A period that traditionally follows Press Club remarks.

• In a January 2010 National Press Club appearance you said: “I think you will see the Employee Free Choice Act pass in the first quarter of 2010.” And …”The president fully supports the Employee Free Choice Act, the Vice President fully supports the Employee Free Choice Act, a vast majority of the members of the House support the Employee Free Choice Act, a vast majority of the people of the Senate support the Employee Free Choice Act. And I think we are going to have the Employee Free Choice Act despite the determined efforts of the Republican Party.” So were you shining us on, deceiving your membership for tactical reasons, or are you just a lousy prognosticator? Did the failure of card check reflect organized labor’s lack of political influence? Your own lack of influence?



AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka addresses anti-coal crowd at April rally. (Photo: Energy Action Coalition)

• You began your career as a coal miner and served as President of the United Mine Workers before being elected to head the AFL-CIO. Yet at an April “Power Shift” rally in front of the White House, you joined environmental activists in demanding “clean energy” policies in which coal has no role. Demonstrators held signs declaring “Coal is Over” and “No More Coal!” (More photos here and here.) How can you, as a union president, make common cause with activists who want to shut down the coal industry?

• AFL-CIO affiliated unions are members of the Blue-Green Alliance, which includes such organizations as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Many people regard these groups as hostile to the industrial base of this nation’s economy. How do you reconcile union support for this alliance? According to a Department of Commerce study, green products and services account for at most 2 percent of private sector activity. How you can justify spending member dues on groups who have such a narrow focus and whose policies would eliminate unionized jobs in the energy and manufacturing sectors?

• Do you believe nuclear power has a role in America’s future energy production? Because AFL-CIO member unions are sending member dues to a group that includes the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the major opponents of nuclear energy.

• Should a company that currently has unionized operations in a state ever be allowed to locate new operations in a right-to-work state?

A thousand or so protesters marched by our offices on Monday, shouting, banging drums, carrying signs that identified them as environmental activists. We learned that the group came from a rally at Lafayette Square, the wind-up of something called the Power Shift Conference, organized by the Energy Action Coalition, which claimed to have attracted “5000 young Obama voters” to palaver on green energy.

Critical thinking is over

There are so many factions, groups, alliances and cadres involved in these efforts it’s difficult to determine who is most accountable for the various policy idiocies (Energy Justice!, 100 Percent Clean Energy Now!), but one person clearly on record is Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president.

Trumka shouted his slogans at the rally:

Because of your action, we’re moving past manufactured deficit hysteria. We’re moving past the same-old tired debates and toward jobs and a clean, green future.

You’re shifting America’s focus. You’re building power and political will to force our elected leaders to consider the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the jobs we have, and the future we need for ourselves and our children.

Manufactured deficit hysteria? Tell that to Standard & Poor’s.

Trumka and the other speakers excoriated the usual targets, the Chamber, Big Polluters, BP, Koch Industries, Exxon, etc.

Coal, the source of about half the nation’s electricity, was another subject of hate. Many of the marchers carried the sign featured in the photo above, “Coal is over,” and the agitprop media advisory announced the marchers planned to protest at “the headquarters of the electric utility Gen-On, which continues to burn coal in Virginia.” (Sure hope so. Without coal, Virginia gets much darker, colder and poorer.)

These activists are clear about their goal: They want to kill coal. They want to shut down coal-fired power plants.

In giving these activists his full-throated support, Richard Trumka is telling his union brothers and sisters in the coal-mining industry that their jobs don’t matter, he would as soon as put them out of work. The United Mine Workers of America have about 30,000 members, but to Trumka, these men and women are just tools of an exploitive coal industry.

What’s so astonishing is that Trumka comes from a coal mining family and was a miner himself before working his way up to President of the United Mine Workers of America and then moving to the AFL-CIO. He used to go down in the mine with men he now wants to put out of work.

When the AFL-CIO’s Trumka denounces “the same-0ld tired debates,” he’s really denouncing the jobs that make this nation run, including tens of thousands of union jobs in the mining industry. So much for solidarity.

Here’s the vote that ended the Congressional career of Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), a 14-term House member from the southwestern corner of Virginia.

It’s the 219-212 vote by which the House passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, aka Waxman-Markey.

Not to diminish the efforts of the winning candidate, Morgan Griffiths, the majority leader of the Virginia House of Delegates, who represents the city of Salem and portions of Roanoke County.

At The Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel comments: “If Mr. Boucher goes down, he likely won’t be the only coal-state Democrat to get ‘BTUed’ in this election.”

The National Association of Manufacturers has been vocal in calling for the Export-Import Bank to reconsider its 2-1 vote denying loan guarantees for a power generation project in India, a denial that could cost Bucyrus, the Wisconsin-based equipment manufacturer, and its suppliers some $600 million in sales and 1,000 jobs. (See earlier posts.)

This one, misguided decision aside, there are bigger issues affecting the Export-Import Bank that need to be addressed. NAM President John Engler addressed some of them in a new op-ed published at The Hill, “Rejecting U.S. deals and jobs undermine goal of doubling exports“:

Governments of other nations operate similar export-financing programs, but with more substantial government backing and without attaching as many anti-competitive restrictions to projects.

Ex-Im Bank’s financial support for exports reached a record $21 billion last year. But its counterpart north of the border, Export Development Canada, provided $80 billion to support Canadian exports, an even more impressive number when you consider the relative size of the U.S. and Canadian economies.

Japan’s equivalent agency did nearly $140 billion in support last year!

The Export-Import Bank is also is saddled with restraints that its competitors are not — environmental impact studies, economic impact tests, requirements that U.S.-flagged vessels carry the financed cargo, etc. These non-trade objectives are well-meaning but surrender advantages so other countries get their power plants and other equipment but from non-U.S. suppliers using non-U.S. financing.

Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of the Wisconsin-based manufacturer Bucyrus, was on CNBC’s Squawkbox this morning to discuss the Export-Import Bank’s handling of the loan guarantees to support Bucyrus’ sale of mining equipment to build a mine and power plant in India. The Ex-Im Bank rejected the financing because the Indian project involved coal, in the process surrendering potentially $600 million in sales to foreign competitors and costing 1,000 U.S. jobs. As we reported last week, the decision provoked intense reaction from industry and elected officials, and the Ex-Im Bank is reconsidering its decision.

Sullivan:

I think this will get done. There has to be a memorandum of understanding with our customer that hopefully will be completed this week, and then next Thursday it will go back for a revote. I am confident, I think, because of the situation today that this deal will get down.

We’ve got four more pending, though, and those deals will not get done with the current environmental policies at U.S. Eximbank.

And later in the interview:

I have a standing invitation from [Ex-Im Bank] Chairman Hochberg to come to Washington. We’ve got to talk about the follow-on. We have to get these policies aligned with U.S. technology, not Chinese technology. Otherwise, we’re out.

And you know, if you look at what’s in the marketplace today, there’s 250 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants being constructed. That’s a billion tons of coal. We have a trillion tons of reserves of coal in 77 countries around the world. We’re going to burn coal. This puts us on the sidelines. It basically puts us out of business, and it tells manufacturers like myself, don’t expand in the United States. If you’re going to expand, go to some of the countries that have that capability to back your products.

• Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “Bucyrus chief dug deep for support “
• Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “Bank’s reversal lifts shadow over Bucyrus“

From The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “U.S. agency’s action may kill Bucyrus deal, cost 1,000 jobs”

MILWAUKEE — Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India.

About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.

On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 million in coal mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said.

NAM President John Engler spoke to the Export-Import Bank chairman, Fred Hochberg, on Monday, and issued a statement following the conversation:

This is a case of ideology winning over common sense and one thousand American jobs. The mine will be dug and the plant will be built. Advanced technology will be put to use to minimize the environmental impact. The only question is whether U.S. companies will supply the equipment or if Reliance Power will turn to non-U.S. suppliers.

In Wisconsin and all across the country, American workers think the answer to that question should be clear.
(continue reading…)

The Sacramento Bee profiles the new executive director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, who comes on board the country’s largest environmental organization on March 15. Citing Brune’s prior leadership at the radical, fond-of-disruption Rain Forest Action Network, the Bee’s story is headlined, “New leader looks to fire up Sierra Club.”

By powering down the United States.

At the heart of that struggle, Brune says, lies America’s continued dependence on coal-fired electricity plants – plants which currently provide an estimated 45 percent of the nation’s energy but which are a major sources of greenhouse gas emissions…[snip]

“We must replace dirty coal in this country,” Brune said. “We must continue this fight until we convince our political and industry leaders that there are more economic benefits to be had by transitioning to wind power and other forms of clean energy.”

It’s fantasy to argue that “wind power and other forms of clean energy” can supplant coal, especially when Brune — as reported in this NewJerseyNews.com profile — opposes nuclear power.

Here’s what the Energy Information Administration had to say in its annual energy outlook about coal’s future role in the U.S. economy through 2035:

Total coal consumption increases from 22.4 quadrillion Btu (1,122 million short tons) in 2008 to 25.6 quadrillion Btu (1,319 million short tons) in 2035 in the AEO2010 reference case. Coal consumption, mostly for electric power generation, grows gradually throughout the projection period, as existing plants are used more intensively, and new plants, which are already under construction, are completed and enter service.

Brune’s leadership involves getting arrested in flashy protest actions with the usual suspects like Darryl Hannah and James Hansen.

Funny, too, that Brune rises to power advocating extreme action even as the anti-energy climate activists are in retreat scientifically and politically. When even The Washington Post has to acknowledge the seriously flawed “evidence”* being used to push a global economic restructuring — page one Monday, “Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda” — then the movement is losing steam. Can a radical program of civil disobedience fire up the more mainstream Sierra Club or just cost it members?

Continuing our look at this year’s State of the State addresses, we turn to West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat. In his 2010 address on Wednesday, Jan. 13, he did not mention manufacturing and the only reference to industry was a passing reference to taxation of industrial property.

But this exercise — searching only for the terms “manufacturing” and the like — is limited. Manchin, a Democrat, certainly gave manufacturers prominent play in his speech, especially in the area of energy and coal:

We have more than 1,000 megawatts of wind power in service or in development – that’s enough to power more than 250,000 homes! And we have the third-largest wind capacity of any eastern state.

The world’s first successful carbon capture and sequestration project is at AEP’s Mountaineer Power Plant in Mason County, and an advanced pilot project is capturing CO2 at the Dow Chemical plant in South Charleston.

These pilot projects will lead the way for implementation of this technology at coal-fired power plants around the world.

Plans are moving ahead on a coal-to-liquids project in Mingo County that will use state-of-the-art cleaner coal technology. Through this technology, West Virginia coal will be our primary energy source as we make the transition to the fuels of the future.

Manchin also gave a plug to developing the natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale.

Earlier posts on states of the state.