WASHINGTON D.C. — IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement in response to President Obama’s climate action plan:
“The president promised three years ago that he would find another way to ‘skin the cat’ after the twin defeat of his cap-and-trade legislation and the loss of the House majority in the 2010 midterms. Today we learn again what we already knew — President Obama is hostile to affordable energy sources and will use the full force of government to punish the millions of American men and women who work in these industries. Just this morning, a White House senior energy advisor admitted that there is a ‘war on coal.’ No surprise there.
“Because the president knows that he cannot possibly advance this backdoor energy tax through even the Democrat-controlled Senate, he much prefers to force his agenda through the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal bureaucracies where political appointees and loyal White House lieutenants can accomplish through executive fiat what he never could through legislation.
“There is nothing new in the president’s plan, apart from the fact that it is no longer secret. We will continue to see regulators squeeze affordable energy sources out of the market, more preferential treatment for “green” sources like wind and solar that cannot survive without mandates and subsidies, more loan guarantees for Solyndra-style companies to waste, more onerous rules and punitive tax measures designed to cripple coal, oil and natural gas producers, and all with the result that consumers will pay much more for less reliable energy.
“At precisely the moment that some climate scientists are suggesting that warming projections are flawed and federal analysts are projecting reduced electricity consumption due to cooler temperatures this summer, the President dusts off his failed energy agenda. The last thing that the 76 percent of all Americans who are living paycheck-to-paycheck need is the higher energy prices the President’s plan will produce.”
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