Obama's EPA Killing Jobs

From the Washington Examiner: Anybody who wonders why the U.S. economy continues to stagger along with 9 percent unemployment and an anemic 2 percent quarterly growth rate need look no further than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Under President Obama's hand-picked administrator, Lisa Jackson, EPA is hog-tying the economy with dozens of proposed major new rules. One of them, which is aimed at coal-fired power plants that generate electricity, will add at least $18 billion in compliance costs by 2020. As Kathleen White of the Texas Public Policy Center told the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year, "never in its 40-year history has EPA promulgated -- at the same time -- so many costly new regulatory dictates. The rules on track to go into effect in the next three years could cost more than $1 trillion and result in hundreds of thousands of jobs lost."
It's not just the raft of new rules that is killing economic growth, however. Jackson and her EPA minions have been purposefully slow-walking the agency's already hideously complex process for approving permits in a crucial sector of the energy industry. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., asked the EPA inspector general to review the agency's permitting process for surface mining permit applications in the Appalachian region over the last two years. The EPA IG found that of the 185 permit applications it identified, only 56, or less than one-third of the total, had been approved. Almost half of the 185 required at least 731 days for EPA to complete its evaluations. That compares with the 144 days EPA claims is its average evaluation period for all mining permit applications. At least a third of the 185 were simply withdrawn from consideration, presumably because the applicants despaired of ever getting a response from EPA.
The IG report confirmed Inhofe's prior suspicion that EPA has been "systematically slowing the pace of permit evaluations in Appalachia. Even more troubling is that as our nation works to find ways to cut our national debt, EPA has increased its budget and staff to evaluate these permits. Instead of spending more and more taxpayer dollars to wage this war on affordable energy, the Obama-EPA should be processing and approving these permits to spur job creation, especially in areas such as the Appalachia that have significant employment needs. Equally important is the potential domestic energy production that these permits would provide." Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/11/obamas-epa-killing-economy-costly-rules#ixzz1etHE1PDy
When people say that a president cannot do much to help or harm the economy, they are wrong. The president and his administration can make it easier or harder for businesses to hire people by adding regulations or removing regulations. Obama and his administration have decided to make things tougher to hire people- they have put the environment first and jobs and people second.
And Obama is not the only killing jobs. Here in Nevada, Crybaby Harry Reid has killed 2 coal fired power plants for Northern Nevada. These power plants would have hired several hundred, if not more, construction workers and about 200 permanent jobs at each location. Instead, Reid has put all of his eggs into the green energy plants and that has turned into a disaster. Very few plants Reid has introduced have actually begun work in Nevada and they employ far fewer workers than the coal fired plants. In addition, most green energy plants in Nevada are near or are bankrupt.
So, Obama has the power to create tens of thousands and yet he chooses to side with a few hundred radical environmentalists. Shame. Shame. Shame.