by Spencer Brown
As appearing on Townhall.com

The Biden administration announced its latest move in the president’s now long-running campaign to “end fossil fuels” and force Americans through an “energy transition” that has destroyed the country’s energy independence, driven energy prices higher, and left Americans more vulnerable to blackouts.

Something of a retread of the Obama-era “Clean Power Plan,” the Biden EPA unveiled its new rule that would mandate most coal- and natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent over a five-year period beginning in 2035 or be shuttered by federal regulators.

This new rule — one that is being inflicted without assent from Congress — will require drastic and expensive retrofits of existing power plants and a redesign of planned future plants in the United States if they intend to remain in or start operations. Currently, only one of the hundreds of coal-fired power plants in the country has carbon-capture technology in place, according to The New York Times…

“EPA’s proposal is a sort of nationalization of the utility industry,” noted Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute. “While many utilities have mused about net zero by 2050, the EPA proposal would lock these musings into law. This would essentially give EPA control over utilities by forcing them to implement net zero,” Milloy — who also advised the Trump administration’s EPA transition team — explained. “As EPA knows that the net zero agenda is impossible, especially through mandatory carbon capture and sequestration, the utilities would need EPA’s forbearance to avoid violating emissions standards, putting them at the agency’s not-so-tender mercies.”

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