Obama’s War Against Coal: coming soon to YOUR electricity provider

The Obama administration’s EPA regulations (read: strangulations) will essentially destroy the coal industry, and that will hit YOU in the pocketbook. Just six weeks ago came this bad news [emphasis added]:

One of the country’s largest regional power grid operators, PJM Interconnection, today announced the results of its annual auction that locks in electricity capacity prices three years in advance. Today’s auction established capacity prices for 2015-2016, the first year electric generators will be required to comply with EPA’s costly Utility MACT rule. The results of the auction confirmed the predictions of Republican lawmakers who warned that EPA’s new power rules would drive up electricity costs for American consumers.

The auction set capacity prices at $136 per megawatt (MW) across the PJM footprint, which includes the Mid-Atlantic region and parts of the Midwest. This price is 8 times higher than the $16 per MW price that was set for 2012-2013. Electricity customers in parts of Ohio will be hit the hardest, with the auction setting the price for capacity resources in northern Ohio at $357 per MW, nearly triple the 2014-2015 price set last year. As explained by PJM, the “auction was impacted by an unprecedented amount of planned generation retirements (more than 14,000 MW) driven largely by environmental regulations, which drove prices higher than last year’s auction.”

President Obama’s EPA has issued and proposed a suite of costly new rules on America’s power sector that have already resulted in the premature closure of power plants across the country. Today’s auction shows how these plant closures will affect how much American families and businesses pay for electricity.

“The PJM auction forecasts a dim future where Americans will be paying more to keep the lights on. We are seeing more and more coal plants fall victim to EPA’s destructive regulatory agenda, and as a result, we are seeing more job losses and higher electricity prices,” said Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY). “The Obama administration continues to wage a war on affordable energy, and it is the American people who will suffer the consequences.”

Another trainwreck in the future: implementing Obamacare

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled on Obamacare, most of us have been strategizing on how to ensure that Congress repeals the bill and any related bills and regulations. But there’s another impediment that guarantees another type of trainwreck with the (un)Affordable Healthcare Act: that is, the implementation of the bazillions of regulations, taxes, and provisions -- a computer programmer’s nightmare. Think the Y2K panic in 1999 but much much worse. From Standing Pat :

Obamacare faces significant hurdles in implementation. Healthcare is complex, and made much more complex by state and federal regulations. It is administered using massive computer systems, some of them decades old. These systems are difficult to change and modify, yet they will all require modifications to comply with the raft of new regulations introduced by Obamacare. Private organizations face the added burden of making these changes while complying with SOX [Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002] procedures. It is no exaggeration to say that SOX doubles development time and doubles the staff needed to do development. SOX makes it very difficult to use modern rapid development methodologies and forces organizations to use older methodologies that are long on paperwork and short on results. . . .

Quoting from Politico:

If state health care exchanges survive the Supreme Court challenge to health care reform, the election and state tea party activists, health policy experts are worried they could still be brought down by a much more mundane problem: information technology.

Even states that are solidly committed to pursuing an exchange are facing major logistical challenges in building the computer systems that will be able to handle enrollment when exchanges open for business in 2014.

That’s largely because the system that will actually connect people to the right coverage will have to “talk” to many other systems, and the systems don’t use a common language. This includes a yet-to-be built federal “data hub” with tax and citizenship info, the enrollment systems of multiple private insurers selling exchange plans and — hardest of all — state Medicaid enrollment systems, many of which are not yet fully computerized.

[back to Standing Pat]: Anyone who has observed the Government’s sorry record on implementing complex IT systems on time and within budget just know that this is a disaster waiting to happen.

The federal government's healthcare power-grab can only make things worse. Another reason to demand that Congress repeal it.

UPDATE from Fox News at 5:17:

The Health and Human Services Department "was given a billion dollars implementation money," Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. "That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation."

"Oh boy," Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. "HHS has a huge amount of work to do and the states do, too. There will be new health insurance marketplaces in every state in the country, places you can go online, compare health plans."

The IRS, Health and Human Services and many other agencies will now write thousands of pages of regulations -- an effort well under way:

"There's already 13,000 pages of regulations, and they're not even done yet," Rehberg said.

OBAMACARE, THE SCOTUS DECISION, AND STATES' RIGHTS

It’s not over till it’s over. The 5-4 SCOTUS decision upholding Obamacare is prompting a wide range of reactions. According to Dov Fischer at American Thinker:

There is now a formal United States Supreme Court opinion on the books, overdue by nearly a century, holding that the federal government may not wield the Commerce Clause to impose on American citizens the obligation to buy health insurance or anything else we do not want. . . .

What is the point here? If the “federal government may not wield the Commerce Clause to impose on American citizens the obligation to buy health insurance or anything else we do not want,” under this ruling, they may instead wield the authority of Congress to impose a tax to coerce Americans to buy things they don’t want.

It’s actually worse than that. Andy McCarthy makes the case that

the Supreme Court decided that Americans have no right to due process. Indeed, the Court not only upheld a fraud perpetrated on the public — it became a willing participant. …

Chief Justice Roberts & Co. . . . said the American people are not entitled to an honest legislative process, one in which they can safely assume that when Congress intentionally uses words that have very different meanings and consequences — like tax and penalty — and when Congress adamantly insists that the foundation of legislation is one and not the other, the Court will honor, rather than rewrite, the legislative process. Meaning: if Congress was wrong, the resulting law will be struck down, and Congress will be told that, if it wants to pass the law, it has to do it honestly. . . .

Further, it shielded the political branches from accountability for raising taxes, knowing full well that, had Obama and the Democrats leveled with the public that ObamaCare entailed a huge tax hike, it would never have had the votes to pass. . . .

The ObamaCare mandate was enacted as a penalty flowing from Congress’s Commerce Clause power. It has been upheld as a tax flowing from Congress’s power to tax-and-spend under the General Welfare Clause. As the dissent sharply demonstrates, the contention that the mandate could have been enacted as a tax is frivolous.

State Governors, such as Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) are already stepping up to the plate by refusing to to “establish a federally mandated health care exchange in his state.” So has Democrat Governor John Lynch (New Hampshire). Media Trackers reports that Gov. John Kasich has announced that Ohio will not “create a health insurance exchange” with the federal government. It's an opportunity to call Kasich's office with words of solid support. PH (614) 466-3555 or e-mail him here.

Fischer further commented on the potential political consequences of the SCOTUS ruling:

Congress has a massive new mess awaiting it, all as voters prepare to vote for a new Congress and for 33 Unite States Senate seats, 23 now held by Democrats and their two “independent” allies. House Republicans solidly will vote symbolically to overturn the legislative monstrosity, and they will find endangered House Democrats breaking ranks with their leadership to vote with them. Senate Democrats facing reelection will be caught in a vise. Harry Reid will be trying desperately to prevent a vote on ObamaCare repeal from reaching the Senate floor, even as national news coverage focuses on the two national parties’ conventions.

Politico reports that "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday that the Republican-led House will vote on repealing the health care law soon after the July 4 recess.” It’s not too early to call the representatives from Ohio. Republican contact info is here.

SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OBAMACARE

SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OBAMACARE;

CLEVELAND TEA PARTY PATRIOTS RALLY TO REPEAL

In a 5-4 decision today the United States Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) as constitutional. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which upholds the individual mandate as a constitutional tax.

While Ohio citizens had gained protection from the federal healthcare mandate when the Ohio Healthcare Freedom bill was approved by voters last year, because of this ruling Ohio citizens and businesses are no longer protected and will continue to be adversely impacted by runaway spending in healthcare programs and policies already put in place by this administration.

While the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots could not disagree more with this ruling, as we respect the Rule of Law -- we will respect their ruling. But patriots can be assured the ruling does not bring the matter to a close.

Even though the SCOTUS ruling found Obamacare to be Constitutional, the ruling does not mean that Obamacare is good or fiscally sound legislation.

As we have since our first days in opposition to a government-run healthcare that will take away our freedom, strip us of our liberties, and further depress our already strained economy -- we remain steadfast and resolute in our calls for repealing Obamacare in its entirety and to defund any programs already in place.

And thanks to Mr. Instapundit for announcing today’s rally in downtown Cleveland!

HOLD HOLDER in Contempt for Fast and Furious

Fast and Furious:

Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force

HOLD HOLDER in Contempt!

Last week (June 20, 2012), Fox News reported that

President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by Republicans in the House.

Over the weekend, former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy (who wrote the book on the jihad organization led by the “Blind Sheik” in the first WTC bombing) published an analysis of Fast and Furious that is devastating to the administration assertions of Executive Privilege, and to the continued stonewalling by Holder himself. Essentially, McCarthy sets forth the internal organizational structures in the DOJ and how cases are categorized and funded; he makes the case that Fast and Furious was categorized as an OCDETF, that is Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. OCDETF cases are, by definition, under the direct authority of “Main Justice,” the AG’s DC department. Extracts from this Must Read [my emphases]:

ATF and the U.S. attorney had to apply to Main Justice for OCDETF status. A case gets approval for funding — which can run well into the millions of dollars — only if senior Justice Department officials, after studying the formally submitted proposal, determine that the investigation has great promise.

The Obama Justice Department made exactly that determination. And this was no rubber stamp — it never is, given the number of agencies across the country competing over the OCDETF pot of gold. Chairman Issa’s most recent memo (dated May 3, 2012) explains that, to win its OCDETF designation, Fast and Furious was “reorganized as a Strike Force including agents from ATF, FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component of the Department of Homeland Security.” Because of the investigation’s importance, a senior ATF agent (who later became a whistleblower) was transferred to Phoenix to help oversee the case.

…the defining features of OCDETF are investigative coordination under the Justice Department’s leadership and the liberal sharing of information across the department’s array of agencies. No OCDETF case is an outlier.

. . . in January 2010. It was then that the case became an OCDETF investigation. . . . It is a deliberate process. ATF and the U.S. attorney had to apply to Main Justice for OCDETF status. A case gets approval for funding — which can run well into the millions of dollars — only if senior Justice Department officials, after studying the formally submitted proposal, determine that the investigation has great promise.

The Obama Justice Department made exactly that determination. And this was no rubber stamp — it never is,

. . .

OCDETF cases get the attention of the Justice Department’s top hierarchy. What gets that level of attention gets the attorney general’s attention.

McCarthy cites chapter and verse, including memoranda that Darrell Issa has already received, not from Eric “Stonewall” Holder, but from whistle-blowers, that put the AG at the center of this deadly scandal.

Alert for this week: Call Rep. John Boehner to make sure he knows WE know about the OCDETF status of Fast and Furious. One American border patrol agent is dead, one ICE agent is dead, and hundreds of Mexican citizens are dead. And the House should vote to hold Eric Holder in contempt. For starters.

Rep. John Boehner:

• Phone (202) 225-6205
• Fax (202) 225-0704
• Or go here for Twitter, Facebook and other social media links to his office

How Congress Wrecked America's Road System

At one time chairing the House Subcommittee that handled funding for transportation nationwide, former Congressman Ernest Istook, now a Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, shares what he learned and gets to the root of the problem with the roads and highways in our country....

From News Max --

Why are our roads so congested?

It’s because of a wreck. By spending fuel tax money on things other than roads, Washington has wrecked the way we pay for highways. With dedicated revenue now drained away, roads are clogged due to wasteful practices by government.

Congested roads hurt our entire economy by slowing people and goods from getting where they need to go. 

This creates new forms of road rage. Contractors, state and local governments are angry because new transportation plans were due from Congress over 30 months ago. October of 2009 was the deadline to renew the legislation that governs roads, highways, rail and mass transit. The latest extension (#9) runs out on June 30.

Lawmakers are stalemated. This became inevitable years ago when Congress violated the trust of drivers who pay fuel taxes. What began in 1983 as a trickle of diversion is now a flood. Over a third of gas tax money is siphoned off for the insatiable appetites of those who want free or subsidized travel.

As noted by The Heritage Foundation’s Ron Utt: “only about 65 percent of federal surface transportation spending is used to support general-purpose roads, while the remaining 35 percent is diverted to high-cost, underutilized programs like trolley cars, transit, covered bridges, hiking trails, earmarks, administrative overhead, streetscapes, flower planting, hiking and bicycle paths, museums, ‘transportation enhancements,’ tourist attractions, and archaeology.”

One alternative that’s gathering support is to give fuel tax dollars back to the states so they can allocate the money. States might also politicize how it’s spent, but they can’t do worse than Washington has.

Our once-viable Highway Trust Fund is effectively broke while roads remain crammed, in disrepair, or both. Any talk of raising fuel taxes is beaten down by consumers. Drivers will pay higher prices if they must; but they rebel at higher gasoline taxes because they know the system misuses that money.

With trust funds almost empty, most Senators and Democrats are ready to break the logjam by borrowing billions so they can continue to shove money out the door in the same old manner. But a phalanx of House Republicans stands in the way. They insist on at least partial reforms before a new transportation bill is passed — reforms that won’t fix all the problems but at least will address some of the waste.

Here’s how bad the drainage of the trust fund has gotten:

The U.S. Department of Transportation for years tracked federal subsidies to different forms of travel. Recognizing that different vehicles carry different numbers of people, and for trips of differing lengths, USDOT measured the subsidies per passenger per each 1,000 miles travelled. The results: 

• Highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles.

• “Passenger rail received . . . $186.35 per thousand passenger-miles.

• “[Mass] transit received $118.26 [per thousand passenger-miles].”

The abuse became so embarrassing that the Transportation Department quit calculating the subsidies a few years ago. And Amtrak has stopped filing its monthly disclosures of per passenger subsidies on each train route. (They claim it’s caused by a “financial system conversion” that curiously has taken a year so far.)

The diversion of fuel taxes into non-road projects destroyed public confidence and public support for transportation taxes. The move away from the principle of “user pays” began in 1983 with applying some of the fuel tax dollars toward public transit. That trickle has become a flood of projects and non-drivers who ride at the expense of road users. That’s why transit fares are so cheap. Fares paid by transit users typically are less than half of a system’s operating costs and zero of its construction and capital costs.
 
Transit advocates deceptively claim they reduce congestion by not driving. They never mention that they enjoy subsidized rides even while they take away the money that could have improved the roads and eased the flow of traffic.
 
The diversion did more than create our backlog of needed highway projects. It also destroyed possible public support for raising fuel taxes — because people know the money would go into a tank that is riddled with holes.

Some of those leaks are the waste: Ever-rising construction costs are worsened by red tape such as environmental regulations, “prevailing wage” laws, union-protecting “project labor agreements” and the like.

When the governing principle of “user pays” is removed, our transportation system stalls and breaks down. Congress is mired in a political dogfight because too many want to receive while somebody else pays. It’s a prime example of what happens if we follow the credo of the Occupy movement.

So when you’re stuck in traffic, remember that somebody has been hurt in a wreck. That somebody is you, the driver who carries the load for everyone else.

Former Congressman Ernest Istook chaired the House subcommittee that handled funding for transportation nationwide. Now a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, he will host the “Istook Live!” daily talk radio show that will soon launch in syndication.

Tea Party Patriots: U.S. Supreme Court Obamacare Decision Tele-Town Hall

From the Tea Party Patriots National Support Team

The timing of the Supreme Court’s decision is subject to lots of rumor and speculations, but a look at what the cases the Court has yet to rule on and its past behavior might help give some indication of when we can expect the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare.

The Court is currently reviewing several other cases. Because The Court could decide to announce some decisions together, it will probably provide 12 separate rulings outside of the Obamacare case. As the Supreme Court Justices wind down this session, the Court may take their time and hand out their opinions separately over the course of days or weeks or choose to hand out several cases on a single day.

Many reliable sources speculate that the earliest the Court will announce its decision on Obamacare would be Monday, June 25th.

This could be one of the biggest rulings of this century and we want to bring you as much information as quickly as we can surrounding the ruling.

Within 2 days of the ruling we will be hosting a Tele Town Hall with some very special guests. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Congressman Steve King, Senator Rand Paul and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will all be joining us on the call to give you their take on what the Supreme Court decides. 

        

The date will be determined when the Supreme Court releases its decision and will either be the night of the ruling or the night following the ruling, but the call will be at 8pm EDT. We'd love to have you join the call!

Click Here to Sign Up Today

We will send an email as soon as we have set the date and the great thing is that once you sign up with your phone number, we will automatically call you to conference you into the call the night of the call.

We look forward to you joining us for this exciting event and yet another stop on the Road to Repeal!