Diana Furchtgott-Roth explains for National Review Online readers how the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan “punishes workers, consumers, and states that voted for Romney.”

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan for existing and new power plants stretches to a combined 2,328 pages, exclusive of supporting documents and fact sheets. The language is Orwellian, with talk of “a partnership between the EPA and the states under which the EPA establishes emission guidelines and the states take the lead on implementing them by establishing emission standards or creating plans that are consistent with the EPA emission guidelines.” It’s no partnership if Big Brother is imposing its will on the different states.

The Clean Power Plan would, by 2030, reduce CO2 emissions from the utility sector by 32 percent from 2005 levels. It would raise electricity prices by an average of 15 percent, discouraging energy-intensive manufacturing. …

… Of the ten states that will have to reduce emissions the most, seven voted for Romney in 2012, and the others all voted for Obama by a margin of less than 10 percent. Of the ten states that will have to reduce the least (or have leeway to increase emissions), eight voted for Obama in 2012.

The Clean Power Plan is thus a way of punishing the states that did not vote for Obama. What better revenge than to slow their economies and make them purchase credits from Democratic states such as California and Washington.