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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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…)

The YouTube ID of Tt2yGzHfy7s?feature=player_embedded is invalid.
Why ?
(more…)

NEVADA […]  “I counted, they had 11 vehicles all with at least two agents in each one, maybe more,” he said. “They also had four snipers on the hill above us all trained on us. We were doing nothing besides filming the area.”

None of the occupants in the four family vehicles were carrying any fire arms, Bundy said.

Over their vehicle loudspeakers, the BLM officers ordered the family to leave the area, Bundy said.

“They said that we had no first amendment rights except for up by the bridge where they had established an area for that,” Bundy said.

The BLM has established two fenced areas near the City of Mesquite, that they have designated as free speech areas for members of the public to express their opinions.

This is a big one folks.   Mr. Cliven Bundy is well positioned to be the next “Randy Weaver”.  If the federal snipers take him out, we meet at the “Old Mill”, and ride at dawn !

The cattle were being rounded up by BLM officers as part of a crackdown on Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has refused to pay “grazing fees” demanded by the feds as a result of a re-classification of 600,000 acres of federal land in northeastern Clark County which Bundy claims has been in his family for generations.
FULL STORY – NEVADA – A man was arrested on Sunday afternoon in connection with the cattle roundup currently ongoing by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on nearly 600,000 acres of public land in northeastern Clark County. (more…)