As you deal with especially low temperatures this morning in central North Carolina, David Stevenson of the Center for Energy Competitiveness offers a Daily Caller column that might send even more shivers up your spine.
At a time when federal incompetence is on display in foreign policy, the Veterans Administration, the CDC handling of Ebola, the IRS, and even the Secret Service, regulators want to nationalize the management of the electric grid. The result will be 30 percent higher electric bills, black outs, and no environmental benefits.
No matter, that the state-run grids are reliable, economically sound, and environmentally effective. Under federal control only the environment will be considered, with an expensive carbon tax and higher electric cost a specific part of the policy. Gina McCarthy, administrator of the EPA, said in Senate testimony July 23, the plan “is not about pollution control.” We have seen what “Obamacare” did to the health care industry. We can expect the same from “ObamaAir,” the combination of existing regulations, new proposed guidelines on existing power plants, and coming tighter standards on ozone emissions.
The new federal regulations on power plants may result in blackouts as early as 2020, according to the group charged with ensuring electric grid reliability. While the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) includes a disclaimer on taking a position on the regulatory plan, their list of concerns is thorough and devastating to the plan’s proponents.
So an electromagnetic pulse isn’t the only threat to the electric grid we ought to keep in mind.
