Letter: EPA seems to pancake regulation upon regulation

The Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama and environmental activists continue to walk hand-in-hand as evidenced by Patrick Springer’s story published on Thursday.

The EPA is expected to release another major rule-making known as Utility MACT on Friday, which will cover hazardous air pollutants from coal-based power plants. Included among them is mercury, which would have been covered by federal regulations already except that environmental groups challenged the Bush-era Clean Air Mercury Rule because it allowed for trading mercury emissions between power plants. This prior proposal accomplished the same reductions in mercury but at a more affordable price than the technology standard now being considered by the EPA.

So the Utility MACT is as much about increasing the price of electricity from coal as it is about reducing emissions. This isn’t surprising from an EPA that is waging a war against fossil fuels, especially coal.

Coal-based electricity is an affordable, reliable and an environmentally compatible form of energy. North Dakota is one of 11 clean air states and the lignite industry recently completed another $1 billion investment in technologies to reduce emissions even further.

What the EPA appears to be doing is pancaking regulation upon regulation in hopes that they can drive the price of coal-based electricity up enough to where other forms of generation, such as wind and solar, can compete. However, renewables are not reliable, and they can’t compete without government interference through mandates and tax incentives.

Jerry Grosz, General Trading Co. president, Bismarck

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