Here comes the beginning of the second holy grail goal of the Obama administration. This one comes with guarantees of billions for Chicago Jesus and his ideological co-horts. Get ready for “Carbon Trading” in the U.S. energy sector along a similar vein to the historical “Mortgage Trading” in the housing sector.

Listen closely tomorrow and you’ll hear some familiar catch phrases. Remember “if you like your plan you can keep your plan”, or “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor”, or “it will save the average family $2,500 per year on health insurance premiums”, or “we have to pass the bill (regulation) to find out what’s in it” etc… the nouns will change, the verbs and adjectives will remain the same.

WASHINGTON DC – President Barack Obama will Monday unveil what he called the “biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken” to fight climate change, a sensitive issue central to his legacy.

The White House will release the final version of America’s Clean Power Plan, a set of environmental rules and regulations that will home in on the pollution from the nation’s power plants, setting limits on power-plant carbon emissions.

Laying out how climate change was a threat to the health, well being and security of millions of Americans, and adding that time was of the essence, Obama said in a video released early Sunday: “Climate change is not a problem for another generation. Not anymore.” (more…)

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled that the EPA should have taken into account the financial costs to utility companies, states and affected citizens before deciding whether to set limits for the toxic air pollutants it regulated in 2011.  SCOTUS forcing the EPA to consider the wholesale costs to the people benefiting from the power generation.

This case arises from the EPA’s efforts to regulate pollution – and in particular mercury – from power plants. The question before the Court was whether, when determining whether to regulate the emissions from power plants, the EPA should take into account the cost to the plants of complying.

States and industry groups had argued that the EPA must do so, while the EPA argued that it does not have to consider costs until later in the process, when it issues specific pollution standards. Today the Court agreed with the states and industry groups, holding that the EPA’s refusal to consider costs when deciding whether to regulate was unreasonable.

The opinion remands the case to the D.C. Circuit for further proceedings. But from the opinion (embedded below) it seems likely that the agency will have to scrap their plans, try again and finding some mechanism to consider costs, before it can act on this issue.

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Recent Polls reflected more than 70% of Americans support the construction of the U.S. Keystone Pipeline and only 26% oppose it.

However, just like ObamaCare, President Stompy Feet stays ideologically committed to the minority position and has just vetoed the Keystone bill.

President Obama on Tuesday vetoed legislation authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, rebuffing the new Republican Congress amid a furious battle over Homeland Security funding.

The veto — just the third of Obama’s presidency — was made in private and without fanfare, reflecting the tensions in the Democratic Party over whether the pipeline should be approved. (link)

The President issued the following statement on his veto: (more…)

This is so typically Clintonian. Hillary is asked about whether or not she supports the Keystone Pipeline.
She’s frozen in political fear. If she supports it, she’s undermining the far left and fueling the Elizabeth Warren support crowd; if she doesn’t support it, she’s against 70% of the U.S. electorate’s position. So, she takes the position of “no position”.

From the same department who gave us the mysterious “Richard Windsor”, a ficticious name and email account -belonging to EPA Head Gina McCarthy’s predecessor Lisa Jackson- used to hide communication….

The smidgen stink is profound with this one. 

(Via Washington Times) The EPA is poised to “do an IRS” — similar to what the tax agency had to do with dismissed top official Lois G. Lerner — and officially notify the National Archives that it may have lost key electronic records, according to a think tank that’s suing to get text messages under an open-records request.
Justice Department lawyers told a federal court on Tuesday that the alert will be coming soon, in a case that’s shaping up as a significant battle over whether government agencies are required to keep cellphone text messages as “official” records.
In this case, researcher Chris Horner and the Competitive Enterprise Institute are trying to get a peek at Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy’s text messages, believing that she switched from emails to texting in order to talk about the agency’s controversial plans to crack down on coal power plants. (more…)

… and of course the media will just, well, cover for him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama defiantly dared congressional Republicans on Tuesday to try to block his efforts to act on his own and bypass a divided Congress that has thwarted his policy initiatives.
“So sue me,” he taunted on a sweltering day, as he pushed lawmakers to pay for road and bridge repairs. “I’m not going to apologize for trying to do something.”
Obama struck an aggressive tone in the face of a lawsuit threat from House Speaker John Boehner and in the wake of two defeats before the Supreme Court, including a unanimous decision from the court that he overreached when he appointed members of the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was in recess. (more…)

“I happen to be one who cheers and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion. Count me in as a rebel.” Ronald Reagan

Watching the drama recently on the Bundy ranch and surrounding public land in Nevada, we may be forgiven if we didn’t remember, or even know, that this is only the most recent skirmish in a years-long battle over local control of public lands.

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The studies -which have previously been highly accurate- now show that electricity prices will soon double.     They have risen 30% since President Obama took office.   The average family electricity bill is anticipated to be $600/monthly, by the end of Obama’s term….

(LA Times) As temperatures plunged to 16 below zero in Chicago in early January and set record lows across the eastern U.S., electrical system managers implored the public to turn off stoves, dryers and even lights or risk blackouts.
A fifth of all power-generating capacity in a grid serving 60 million people went suddenly offline, as coal piles froze, sensitive electrical equipment went haywire and utility operators had trouble finding enough natural gas to keep power plants running.
The wholesale price of electricity skyrocketed to nearly $2 per kilowatt hour, more than 40 times the normal rate. The price hikes cascaded quickly down to consumers. Robert Thompson, who lives in the suburbs of Allentown, Pa., got a $1,250 bill for January.
“I thought, how am I going to pay this?” he recalled. “This was going to put us in the poorhouse.” (more…)

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