…and Mr. Trump now has a lay-up on coal.
The Obama Administration has given Donald Trump an early Christmas gift, in the form of a punitive 11th-hour regulation on coal. Issued by the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), the rule takes effect Jan. 19 as a classic example of the job-killing rules that Mr. Trump has vowed to overturn.
Though issued Monday, the Obama Administration has been working on the Stream Protection Rule for six years. Ostensibly it’s about keeping American waterways clean. In reality it’s a power grab aimed at giving federal regulators more authority to make coal too expensive for anyone to mine or use.
No one should be surprised. In 2008 candidate Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that while people would still be free to build a coal-powered electricity plant under his energy policies, it would “bankrupt them” because of the costs his regulations would impose.
This is what Hillary Clinton meant in March when she said “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work.” It’s also what Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy meant last month when she said that a Trump Administration would fail in its promise to revive the coal industry because her agency had helped destroy the market for coal.
Under the Stream Protection Rule, federal regulators will have expanded power to draw up new standards that make it harder to get a coal-mining permit. OSM’s federal water standards would suddenly take precedence over the state standards that have long governed the industry under the Clean Water Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service would also gain the power to veto coal permits.
The aim is to take permitting power from states and impose a one-size-fits all standard. When this process started, 10 states signed onto Interior’s rule-making process as state cooperating agencies. But eight of the 10 later withdrew because Interior wasn’t interested in what they had to say.
All of this is legally dubious, given that the new rule conflicts with the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act–which specifically prohibits initiatives that duplicate other federal environmental rules.
Interior’s projections about the economic impact are laughable. OSM reckons the rule would cost a mere 124 coal-mining jobs a year. But instead of visiting operating mines, the wizards at OSM built their estimates on computer models. They even reported a net gain in jobs as miners are replaced by workers implementing the rule. Less mining but more workers: genius.
By contrast, a study commissioned by the National Mining Association says that at least a third of all coal-related jobs are at risk from this rule, and it would effectively leave almost two-thirds of total coal reserves in the ground. Which is the rule’s real purpose.
The good news is that the change of power in Washington makes this regulation not long for this world. The opposition includes Mr. Trump’s pick to run the Interior Department, Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, as well as most affected states.
Mr. McConnell has already announced that early next year Congress will use the Congressional Review Act to bury the new rule. Under the CRA, Congress has 60 legislative days to act after a rule goes into force, and a vote to kill it can’t be filibustered. The only obstacle will be the long line of other last-minute regulations that Republicans are setting up to repeal. So many rules, so little time.
As for Mr. Trump, he should thank President Obama for this and other going away presents. Every new President wants to start his term with some easy political victories that fulfill campaign promises, and Mr. Trump now has a lay-up on coal.
I don’t often quote full articles, but when the WSJ “promotes” a piece on Facebook, only to hide it behind the paywall… well, all bets are off.
One last act of an America-hating asshole before he leaves Office.
Trump will overturn it of course,and get honest working people back to work.
Watch the number of food stamp recipients drop over the next few years,currently at 44.5 million.
The thing is not that Trump will overturn one of the last acts of a douchebag but that doing so will unleash the inevitable tidal wave of eco-douches who will tie up gas/oil progress in court and with “protests”.
Obama is a gift that keeps on giving and by gift I mean curse.
In two years time these brutish final acts of America’s first communist president will serve the Republicans well for the mid-terms. It’s about Jobs.
So … the REAL question is … WHY didn’t Obama enact this Stream Protection Rule 6 years ago ? Does anyone REALLY believe that it took him 6 years to “craft” the Rule ? Nonsense. He simply didn’t want the business-crushing Rule to take place on HIS watch. And soil HIS presidency. And ruin HIS economic “recovery”. What a tool this affirmative-action, community-organizing FRAUD is.
This is JUST LIKE the $ 15.00/hr minimum wage Bullssshit. Why didn’t Obama simply issue an Executive Order making the minimum wage $ 15.00 the FIRST WEEK of his presidency ? Or run it through his Democrap Majority Congress in the first two years of his presidency ? Why doesn’t Jerry Brown make the CA STATE minimum wage $ 25.00/hr. ? Why not ? What is the “right” amount for State mandated minimum wage ? Huh ? Give me a number, all you Marxist tools !
A petulant out-going President leaving a scorched-earth legacy for his successor. Who’d have thought that might happen, eh?
Of course … that response will be IMMEDIATE and SEVERE … “Demonstrating, once-again, how Republicans want to KILL the planet” … blah, blah, blah …
Well, Mr. Trump will have a lot of cleanup in the woodpile for sure, this is a destructive commie no doubt, like he said 8 years ago he would fundamentally change America, fundaMENTAL in his case.
The left has always seen ‘the environment’ as a wedge issue. The only problem with that is the average person can’t ‘eat’ environment. What the hell good comes from driving the economy into the ditch to produce a cleaner world if you’re starving on government hand-outs?
The Obama-Nation’s™ parting gift of Christmas coal for Trumps shoe.
President elect Trump will simply heave it into the Christmas fire amongst the Yule logs.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group ‘True North’
That won’t burn well! 🙂
Obama and Trudeau will still try to ruin things for everyone.
This isn’t over.
This won’t be the last bomb he throws on the way out the door.
The last thing that the left wants is a bunch of happy, productive citizens with little need for government handouts. Economic success is Kryptonite to these creeps. It is fun to watch more and more low-information, blue-collar types figure out that Democrats are their enemies.
Obama “talked” ad nauseum about how he would DELIVER (usually as a cheque in the mail) hope and change. Turns out he actually made things worse for many if not most of the 96% demographic that voted for him as a block. Trump will facilitate employment for whomever is willing to WORK to MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR THEMSELVES should they wish to get off their donkeys and take one of the hundreds of thousands of jobs that the Donald will make available. If Trump can help the 96% demographic who voted for obama to break loose the bonds of welfare that the Democrats have used to enslave them, Trump may be come to be seen as the most important president since Lincoln for the said demographic.
Canada is about to get Trumped on tax competitiveness and we’re not even close to ready for it
American corporations and high earners will be getting tax cuts. Instead of stricter financial rules and yet more carbon restrictions, Trump will be loosening regulations to give businesses more leeway. Investors have responded with glee, adding a trillion dollars onto the value of stocks in the United States.
Canada has more reason every day to worry about our own competitiveness given what Trump is planning.
http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/fp-comment/blog.html?b=business.financialpost.com%2Ffp-comment%2Fjack-mintz-canada-is-about-to-get-trumped-on-tax-competitiveness-and-were-not-even-close-to-ready-for-it
http://www.50to1.net What is the TRUE cost of climate change? Is stopping it early really the cheapest plan in the long run? 50 to 1 explores the costs of stopping climate change vs adapting to it as and if it’s required, and uncovers a simple truth; it’s 50 times more expensive to try and STOP climate change than it is to simply
https://youtu.be/Zw5Lda06iK0
“I don’t often quote full articles, but when the WSJ “promotes” a piece on Facebook, only to hide it behind the paywall… well, all bets are off.”
After clicking on this and seeing the firewall, I almost didn’t click your follow up link to the rest of the article.
Thanks Kate.
I doubt President Trump will run out of idiocies of law to rescind in his pledge to cancel at a 2:1 ratio.
Hope Obamba settles back in his home country of Kenya after this, good riddance!
And the U. S. will honour him by adding him to Mount Rushmore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsIwFXfdsUA
If that happens, I guess Hollywood would produce a politically-correct remake of North By Northwest.
“A petulant out-going President leaving a scorched-earth legacy for his successor.” That is what commie scum do. Hopefully when Trump reverses all the destructive executive order policies that the commie anarchist Saul Alinsky’s acolyte enacted to destroy the US resource development he also reverses the off-shore moratorium that Obama and PM Butts signed earlier this week.
Because why would we want to prohibit coal mining companies from dumping debris and leaking toxic pollutants into nearby streams, or to require them to replant the trees and rehabilitate the landscape after a mountaintop removal site is exhausted.
Eli have you ever seen an open pit mine in Canada? It’s not a pretty sight. But, once
the land is reclaimed it is arguably better that it was at the outset.
I suggest you check it out. Here in Alberta highways pass through many mines you can stop and take photos of livestock and wildlife enjoying themselves on reclaimed land. Educate yourself.
Abtrapper is correct, mine-site reclamation is now required including both coal and oilsands mines. In almost every case the land is just as productive if not more after reclamation. That’s especially true with the oilsands where thousands of years of natural oil seeps had poisoned the land in places, and now it’s productive grassland and forest.
“Eli have you ever seen an open pit mine in Canada? It’s not a pretty sight. But, once
the land is reclaimed it is arguably better that it was at the outset. I suggest you check it out. Here in Alberta highways pass through many mines you can stop and take photos of livestock and wildlife enjoying themselves on reclaimed land. Educate yourself.”
I’m aware, abtrapper, I’ve visited those sites as well. And I agree with you, both that open pit mining is an eyesore and that the results of reclamation efforts are often impressive.
Which is why you should support the updated regulations, which merely makes the entirely reasonable expectation that surface coal mining companies undertake post-extraction reclamation efforts a requirement nation-wide. Where full reclamation is deemed to be not feasible for a particular site, no mining operations are allowed, ensuring that companies can’t get away with a half-assed reclamation effort, or worse, simply abandon an operation once the resources (and profits) are extracted.
Educate yourself: http://www.regulations.gov/document?D=OSM-2010-0018-10631
Obama wouldn’t last ONE WEEK in Kenya. There isn’t much call for “Community Organizer” in the Kenyan economy. Nobody in the entire nation has THAT much disposable income.
I’m sure this will be a great relief to all the independent coal miners who had to deal with the last 8 years of
terror from MSHA, EPA, OSHA and the state jackboots, and those that declared bankruptcy and sold all their equipment.
there is not one single act that Obama has performed that cannot be overturned, cancelled, defunded or otherwise changed, nothing.
It is one thing for the outgoing President to make spiteful, obstructionist legislation on Arctic drilling, but what causes PM Trudeau to say Me too and pass similar rules here?
There are no plans by any companies to drill in the Canadian Arctic, there are existing sources with much cheaper drilling conditions.Jr is just determined to poison the well of US/Canadian relations before trump is even sworn in. There can be no upside to comments by Dion and Jr denigrating Trump’s policies; presumably they do it for domestic appeal.
No other country in the world is making deals with President Obama, why would they when a totally different set of priorities and policies will appear within 30 days. The reality is Canada must manage relations with the US President whoever he is, alienating him for spite is not a sound or mature policy to pursue.
Re: the paywall…
If the Riders promote a game, the play the game behind a paywall (i.e. Stadium gates), are “all bets off” and you can break in to the stadium and watch for free?