EPA: ‘Life Saving’ Regulations Will Inflate Electricity Prices

As the Enviormental Protection Agency (EPA) rolls out its new set of regulations that will apparently cut carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent by 2030 for the sake of combating global warming and will allegedly “save lives,” reports point out that the EPA’s own analysis admits that electricity prices will skyrocket due to the regulations.

According to the report by the Daily Surge, the EPA’s release regulatory analysis notes that electricity prices will rise by approximately 6.5 percent by 2020 because of the regulations which will force 19 percent of the country’s coal-fired power plants to shutdown and will decrease the overall production of coal by 28 percent.

“Under the provisions of this rule, EPA projects that approximately 46 to 49 GW of additional coal-fired generation (about 19% of all coal-fired capacity and 4.6% of total generation capacity in 2020) may be removed from operation by 2020,” the EPA says in its regulatory impact analysis of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan.

And electricity prices are not the only costs that will increase thanks to EPA Director Gina Mccarthy’s new regulations. Natural gas prices will rise by 11.5 percent because of the decrease in coal-fired power. An additional 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas will be used to make up for the lack of coal-fired power plants in 2020.

“Average retail electricity prices are projected to increase in the contiguous U.S. by 5.9% to 6.5% in 2020,” the agency reported. Prices will have increased by about 3 percent by 2030, the agency added. But the EPA added that  electricity prices will fall by 9 percent after 2030 because of lower energy demand and increased energy efficiency further cuts consumption.

Though the Natural Resources Defense Council, a close ally to Pres. Obama, claims that the EPA regulations will save Americans $37.4 billion on their electric bills in 2020 and create 274,000 jobs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce thinks otherwise.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the EPA regulations will increase energy costs by $17 billion per year and in total, the regulations will the cost the country’s economy $50 billion every year all while killing 224,000 jobs per year.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says “low natural gas prices and slower growth of electricity demand” have hurt coal’s competitiveness as a power source. But a major reason why coal plants are shutting down is because they “must comply with requirements of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and other environmental regulations.”

Closing coal plants will drive up natural gas prices by 150 percent over 2012 levels by 2040, this cost rise will cause electricity prices to jump 7 percent by 2025 and 22 percent by 2040. EIA does not predict power prices declining after 2030 due to lower demand and increased energy efficiency.

The EPA estimates that the new set of regulations placed on states will cost over $7 billion in 2020 and almost $9 billion in 2030.

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