Obama unveils plans to skyrocket your electric bill today

CO2 is not a pollutant. It's a necessity of life...

Via Discovery

President Barack Obama will Monday unveil what he called the “biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken” to fight climate change, a sensitive issue central to his legacy.
The White House will release the final version of America’s Clean Power Plan, a set of environmental rules and regulations that will home in on the pollution from the nation’s power plants, setting limits on power-plant carbon emissions.
Laying out how climate change was a threat to the health, well being and security of millions of Americans, and adding that time was of the essence, Obama said in a video released early Sunday: “Climate change is not a problem for another generation. Not anymore.”
“Power plants are the single biggest source of harmful carbon pollution that contributes to climate change,” added Obama, who made the battle against climate change a core promise of his 2008 election campaign.
“But until now there have been no federal limits to the amount of that pollution that those plants can dump into the air.”
He added that without imposing limits, “existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air weekly.

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EPA inflated monetary benefits of new regulations...

Crooks and liars...

Via Daily Caller:

The Environmental Protection Agency inflated the monetized benefits of a major air quality rule to justify imposing a harsher smog standard on U.S. counties, according to a new report by Energy In Depth (EID).
“EPA’s ozone rule could very well be the costliest regulation in U.S. history,” said Steve Everley, spokesman for the petroleum industry-backed EID. “If a rule of this magnitude is to be imposed, then the EPA should consider providing a far more scientifically robust ‘public health’ basis — one that doesn’t rely on inflated health benefits or a lack of appreciation for the very real economic costs.”
The EPA proposed its costly smog, or ozone, standard the day before Thanksgiving 2014. The agency mandated that ambient smog levels be lowered from 75 parts per billion (pbb) to levels between 70 ppb and 65 ppb. The EPA also solicited comments for an even lower standard at 60 pbb — one which could put almost the entire country out of compliance with the rule and cost $3.4 trillion by 2040.
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300 new regulations issued by Obama administration in 1st 7 days of 2015...

It's going to be a long year...

Via The Daily Caller:

This year is already seeing a wave of new regulations being published in the Federal Register as the Obama administration unveils 300 new rules in the first seven days of 2015, according to federal data.
Federal agencies have published 300 final rules, proposals for new rules and regulatory notices in the seven days since the new year began, according to the website Regulations.gov. The bulk of these new regulations are notices, which can lead to rulemakings, meetings and other government activities.
Rules having to do with energy, environment, public lands and agriculture make up the largest share of new regulations. Included in these new rules are proposed EPA air quality standards for lead, reforming coal and oil leases on Indian lands and adjustments for the total amount of fish people can catch off Alaska’s coast..

Obama's EPA has issued 27,854 pages of new regulations...

Change...

Via CNS News:

(CNSNews.com) — Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 3,120 new final regulations, equaling 27,854 pages in the Federal Register, totaling approximately 27,854,000 words.
Using the Regulations.gov website and data from the Federal Register, CNSNews.com found 3,120 final rules published by the EPA since January 2009 covering greenhouse gases, air quality, emissions, and hazardous substances, to name a few. The Federal Register publishes documents, including proposed rules, notices, interim rules, corrections, drafts of final rules and final rules but the CNSNews.com tabulation included only the final rules from the EPA.
For comparison with those final rules, the Gutenberg Bible is 1,282 pages long and contains 646,128 words.This means that the new EPA regulations issued by the Obama Administration now contain 21 times as many pages as the Bible and 43 times as many words.
Keep on reading…

Obama administration frees U.S. territories from a host of Obamacare regulations

What about the rest of us?

Via Daily Caller:

The Obama administration issued yet another waiver to get out of Obamacare — for all the U.S. territories.
The exemption, posted Thursday on a Department of Health and Human Services website, frees U.S. territories from a host of Obamacare regulations on health insurance markets. The territories already weren’t subject to much of the health care law — the individual mandate doesn’t apply to the territories and premium subsidies aren’t available.
What did apply were a host of regulations on the health insurance markets operating in the territories. Obamacare’s rules for insurance companies — providing mandated health benefits to all customers, limits on insurer profits, and guaranteed coverage for those with pre-existing conditions — all force insurers to take a hit, but in the territories, the sweeteners that make Obamacare a great deal for insurance companies in the states don’t apply.
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Obama's federal rules and regulations are costing average U.S. household $14,974 annually...

This is a backdoor tax increase by Obama.

Via The Washington Examiner:

Here's a sobering fact likely known to few Americans outside of the nation's capital: The federal government is the only government on earth that collects more than $1 trillion in taxes annually.

That's not unexpected since the U.S. also has the biggest single national economy in the world. It stands to reason the most productive economy would generate the most tax revenue.

But there is another way to look at that data point. Are there additional costs to Americans as a result of what the federal government does with its trillions in tax revenues?

Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute provides a definitive answer to that question today with publication of the latest edition of his annual compilation, "10,000 Commandments: An annual snapshot of the federal regulatory state."

Crews estimates the annual cost of compliance with the record number of new federal rules and regulations issued under President Obama at $1.863 trillion.

That works out to a $14,974 "hidden tax" every year for the average U.S. household. That's 23 percent of the $65,596 annual average household income in America.

Obvious: EPA can produce the data to justify their rules and regulations under the Clean Air Act.

If the data can not be shared and the results repoduced buy other, it's not science. Anthropogenis global warming has the same problem.

(CNSNews.com) – Seven months after being subpoenaed by Congress, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy conceded that her agency does not have - and cannot produce - all of the scientific data used for decades to justify numerous rules and regulations under the Clean Air Act.
In a March 7th letter to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), McCarthy admitted that EPA cannot produce all of the original data from the 1993 Harvard Six Cities Study (HSC) and the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) 1995 Cancer Prevention Study II, which is currently housed at New York University.[...]
The full committee, which issued its first subpoena in 21 years last August after being stonewalled by the EPA for two years, wanted the raw data from the studies so that their results could be replicated by independent researchers. (See EPA subpoena.pdf)
However, despite “multiple interactions with the third party owners of the research data in an effort to obtain that data,” McCathy wrote, some of the data subpoenaed by the committee “are not (and were not) in the possession, custody or control of the EPA, nor are they within the authority to obtain data that the agency identified.”
“EPA has not withheld any data in our possession that is responsive to the subpoena,” McCarthy stated. “The EPA acknowledges, however, that the data provided are not sufficient in themselves to replicate the analyses in the epidemiological studies, nor would they allow for the one to one mapping of each pollutant and ecological variable to each subject.” (See EPA letter to Smith March 7 2014 (1).pdf)

CBS Report: WH delayed imposition of unpopular regulations until after Obama was re-elected...

Politics is a game to Obama and his cronies...

Via CBS News:

In an effort to ease President Obama’s reelection bid, the White House delayed the imposition of a series of regulations affecting Obamacare and environmental protection ahead of the 2012 election, according to a new report in the Washington Post.
While the administration has said its approach to regulatory review is consistent with that of previous administrations, several former administration officials told the Post that the delays were longer under Mr. Obama than his predecessors, and that the motive behind them was clearly political.
The regulations in question governed some of the most politically sensitive aspects of the president’s agenda. One determined which Americans would qualify for subsidized health insurance under Obamacare’s federal and state exchanges. Another defined the minimum coverage standards that insurance plans must meet under the new law.
Several environmental regulations were also delayed, including a rule requiring cleaner gasoline and lower-pollution vehicles that critics in the oil industry warned would increase the cost of gasoline. That rule was ready in December 2011 but was only issued in March 2013. Other regulations delayed until after the election dealt with coal ash disposal and emissions caps on existing power plants, according to the Post.
Keep on reading…

Actual Good News: Shutdown is reducing new government regulations...

The longer the shutdown goes on, the more obvious it will become we don't need many of those furloughed government employees.

Via The Hill:

The government shutdown has all but turned off the regulatory spigot, reducing the flow of new rules from federal agencies to a trickle.

Regulators and proponents of stronger protections warn that rulemaking delays will jeopardize public safety and health. But some conservatives say the reprieve from red tape is welcome, even if it doesn’t last long.

“We’re very pleased that the Obama administration’s ongoing efforts to wreck the U.S. economy with more and more heavy-handed and colossally expensive regulations has been put on hold,” said Myron Ebell, director of the right-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute’s energy and environment center.

“By and large, the people writing those regulations and trying to get them promulgated are not in the office,” he said.
 

Sad: The Obama administration is getting ready to regulate your small town movie theater out of business...

I dislike liberal  Hollywood and the brainwashing they are going, so I rarely go to the movie theater anymore. It is a shame to see an iconic part of America go the way of the dinosaur. They have already been hit by the conversion form film to digital.

Via The Hill:

The Obama administration is nearing completion of a proposal to require that movie theaters offer technology so blind and deaf people can go to the cinema.
The draft rule, which is part of a decades-long effort by advocates for people with disabilities, would likely require thousands of movie theaters across the country to offer devices that display closed captioning and provide audio narration of what’s happening onscreen.

Disability associations say that the new regulation will make sure that blind and deaf people can appreciate the latest blockbuster just like everyone else.

But theater owners worry that a federal mandate will force small, rural and struggling theaters to close given the costs associated with the rule.
“These theaters can barely stay in existence and often need community support to break even,” the trade group wrote in a comment to the Justice Department’s 2010 precursor to the upcoming proposal. “To require them to install expensive closed captioning technology at this time is an undue financial burden that may result in these theaters closing.”

Read more here...

Obama advance his plan to destroy business through increased regulation...

Barack Obama's hatred of business knows no bound. He must truly be a Socialist at heart. In the latest attack on business, Obama is using the global warming fraud.

Via Bloomberg News:

President Barack Obama is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they have to consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects, from pipelines to highways.

The result could be significant delays for natural gas- export facilities, ports for coal sales to Asia, and even new forest roads, industry lobbyists warn.

“It’s got us very freaked out,” said Ross Eisenberg, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based group that represents 11,000 companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Southern Co. (SO) The standards, which constitute guidance for agencies and not new regulations, are set to be issued in the coming weeks, according to lawyers briefed by administration officials.

In taking the step, Obama would be fulfilling a vow to act alone in the face of a Republican-run House of Representatives unwilling to pass measures limiting greenhouse gases. He’d expand a Nixon-era law that was intended to force agencies to assess the effect of projects on air, water and soil pollution.

Image Of The Day: How Tall Is A Stack Of Obamacare Regulations…

Via Mitch McConnell:

Just take a look at this giant stack: one day’s worth of ObamaCare regulations. 828 pages in one day. Overall, there are nearly 20,000 pages – with many, many more to come. This is the owner’s manual for the health care law that’s supposed to make things better. Are you kidding? This law is a disaster waiting to happen.

WTH? Jail breaking Unlocking your cell phone is now illegal...

How many lobbying dollars did it take to buy this travesty of justice?  If you unlock your cell phone software in order to use a different network, it is now a copyright violation. This is kind of like buying a car and having the vehicle manufacturer install a GPS device that only allows it to be driven on their toll roads. Then, the government makes it a crime to disable the GPS.You can still get a HTC G2 Vision Google Cellphone - Unlocked from Amazon.


Via Mail Online:

A new law that makes it illegal to 'unlock' your cell phone and switch carriers goes into effect today and will carry fines between $2,500 and $500,000, and in some cases, prison time.

The change made by the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act will make it illegal for consumers to unlock mobile devices without the permission of their carrier.

The lock feature on mobile devices essentially allows carriers a way to prevent customers from switching to a new plan with a different company. Unless your phone came unlocked and are grandfathered in under the law, you're device is legally chained to your service provider.[...]

Now, it is illegal to unlock a phone from a carrier unless you have that carrier's permission.

'It wasn't a good ruling,' Rebecca Jeschke, a digital rights analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told ABC News. 'You should be able to unlock your phone. This law was meant to combat copyright infringement, not to prevent people to do what they want to do with the device they bought.' Keep on reading...

Shocking: All tose new rules issued by Obama last year cost $236 billion

No wonder the recovery is going so poorly...

Via The Hill:

The Obama administration issued $236 billion worth of new regulations last year, according to a report from a conservative think tank.

The analysis from the American Action Forum, led by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, found that the administration added $216 billion in rules and more than $20 billion in regulatory proposals in 2012. Complying with those rules will require an additional 87 million hours of paperwork, the report said.

The group put the total price tag from regulations during Obama’s first term at more than $518 billion.

American Action Forum credited the administration for erasing $2.5 billion in regulatory costs last year, but said that paled in comparison to $34 billion in regulatory compliance costs reported by top companies since 2009.

Change: AP admits Obama administration held off avalanche of new regulations for political purposes...

Think of this as the regulatory "fiscal cliff."

WASHINGTON (AP) —...For months, federal agencies and the White House have sidetracked dozens of major regulations that cover everything from power plant pollution to workplace safety to a crackdown on Wall Street.

The rules had been largely put on hold during the presidential campaign as the White House sought to quiet Republican charges that President Barack Obama was an overzealous regulator who is killing U.S. jobs.

But since the election, the Obama administration has quietly reopened the regulations pipeline.

In recent weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed rules to update water quality guidelines for beaches and other recreational waters and deal with runoff from logging roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, meanwhile, has proposed long-delayed regulations requiring auto makers to include event data recorders – better known as “black boxes” – in all new cars and light trucks beginning in 2014.

The administration also has initiated several rules to implement its health care overhaul, including a new fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions.

Debunking Obama's Claim, “I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.”

This chart from The Heritage Foundation’s James Gattuso and Diane Katz sets the record straight.

So is Obama a complete liar? Not exactly...

As the chart shows, Obama was misleading the American people. While talking about the total number of regulations, he failed to mention that his administration’s major new rules were far greater in number and costlier than those adopted under President George W. Bush. It was a point that Sunstein made as well, earning him a “Pinocchio” from the Washington Post for “omitting important facts.”

Up in Smoke: Obama Destroys Jobs At 'Roll Your Own' Cigarettes Stores

Obama is the great regulator and job destroyer...

On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.

The move comes a month after Illinois increased taxes on such roll-your-own machine-made cigarettes.

Marcia Smith, 47, of Lake County, decided after the state tax increase that she should move her Smokes & Such tobacco shops in Skokie and Gurnee to Wisconsin, where taxes on rolled cigarettes are lower.

If Obama signs the law, she said she’ll shut her doors.

Follow Up: Obama administration retreats on rules preventing farm children from doing chores

The person responsible for this proposal is too stupid to be on the taxpayers payroll. Will the Obama administration fire them?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under heavy pressure from farm groups, the Obama administration is dropping an effort to prevent children from doing hazardous work on farms owned by anyone other than their parents.

The Labor Department says it is withdrawing proposed rules that would ban children younger than 16 from using most power-driven equipment. The rules also would prevent those younger than 18 from working in feed lots, grain bins and stockyards.

The agency says thousands of comments have expressed concern about the impact of the changes on small family-owned farms. Many farm groups have complained that the rules would upset traditions in which children often work alongside relatives other than parents to learn how a farm operates.

Administrator of the EPA claims they are "crucifying" oil and gas companies

President Obama most pleased....

Via Foundry:

A video surfaced on Wednesday showing a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency comparing his agency’s philosophy with respect to regulation of oil and gas companies to brutal tactics employed by the ancient Roman army to intimidate its foes into submission.

EPA’s “philosophy of enforcement,” said EPA’s Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz, is “kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean: they’d go into little Turkish towns somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they’d run into, and they’d crucify them.”

“That town was really easy to manage for the next few years,” Armendariz added.

Keep on reading…

Former Obama donor and CEO of Darden Restaurants is losing the 'Hopey-Changey' feeling

Former Obama donor and CEO of Darden Restaurants Clarence Otis Jr. talks about Obama's job killing regulations.

Via HotAir:

Earlier this year, former Obama donor and CEO of Darden Restaurants, Clarence Otis Jr. met with the president to talk about putting Americans back to work. (It’s the parent company of Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse, so they have created a job or two in their time.) One has to wonder how well he thought that meeting went, given the recent editorial he penned for CNN

“Businesses adding jobs” is a headline every elected official loves to read. Sadly, it’s one that’s getting harder and harder to find because of a policy and regulatory landscape that makes it increasingly difficult for businesses to see why and where creating new jobs makes sense.

That’s especially true for me and my colleagues in the restaurant industry, who find ourselves facing a plate piled high with more and more federal, state and local regulations.

Regulatory mandates flowing from federal health care reform may be the most visible, but the list also includes measures such as new mandatory paid leave provisions that require us to change the way we accommodate employees who need to take time off when they are ill and ever more unrealistic requirements regarding employee meal and rest breaks that, in California for example, force our employees to take breaks in the middle of serving lunch or dinner.