Republicans are claiming the new climate rules will wreck the economy. They’re wrong

http://grist.org/politics/republicans-are-claiming-the-new-climate-rules-will-wreck-the-economy-theyre-wrong/

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Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its much anticipated plans to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, the source of about a third of U.S. emissions. It turns out the regulations will be pretty ambitious: a 30 percent decrease in emissions in this sector from 2005 levels by the year 2030 (though some say that is still not enough).

Critics are out in force, of course, and their chief tactic seems to be economic alarmism. Earlier this morning, the front page of Drudge Report displayed this image (bizarrely, as the new rules have nothing to do with oil and wouldn’t drive up gas prices):

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Indeed, the economic doomsaying arguments are everywhere in relation to the new EPA rules. Even before the rules were announced, the National Mining Association was running ads claiming that “an 80 percent cost hike [in electricity bills] is something we better get used to if extreme new Obama administration power plant regulations take effect.” Also prior to the rules’ actual release, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce put out a study asserting that the consequence of the regulations would be 224,000 lost jobs per year and a $50 billion annual economic hit (up through the year 2030).

And then, there were the elected Republicans: James Inhofe, the Oklahoma senator, claimed the regulations would “cost Americans a fortune.” John Boehner, meanwhile, called them a “sucker punch for families everywhere.” And don’t miss tweets like these from members of Congress:


Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS ✔ @RepGosar
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Bottom Line: new Obama-EPA rule for power plants will kill good-paying jobs in rural communities throughout the US. https://gosar.house.gov/press-release/rep-gosar-condemns-obama%E2%80%99s-new-cap-and-tax-plan …