The storm that hit the East Coast on June 29 has resulted in millions of Americans experiencing lengthy power outages and waiting in line for two hours or more just to buy a few gallons of gas.
I am one of those Americans.
While sitting in my house for several days without any air conditioning, with outside temperatures approaching 100 degrees fahrenheit, a thought suddenly appeared in my head.
This, my fellow Americans, may be a preview of Barack Obama's second term.
Do you think I'm crazy? Surely, it's unrealistic to think that a second term by our current President would result in extended power outages and lengthy gas lines, isn't it? Well, let's take a look at the facts.
It's clear to any American who reads the newspaper or watches the television that our current President absoutely hates fossil fuels, including oil and coal.
My blog of June 23 outlined his war on coal, illustrating how the EPA is deciding what policy it wants to change and then trying to find any scientific study to support it, and how the EPA's new mercury regulations will have little if any impact on human health but will essentially kill the building of any new coal-fired power plants. According to the experts, what will be the impact of these regulations?
According to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, EPA regulations will cause the premature retirement of up to 36 gigawatts of coal-fired generation, stressing the country's power grid and placing electric reliability at risk. http://www.kleanindustries.com/s/environmental_market_Industry_news.asp?ReportID=494299
http://www.nerc.com/files/2011LTRA_Final.pdf
Putting this in layman's terms, the NERC report says that our nation risks lengthy power outages because the country will not have enough power stations to meet the needs of consumers.
Outages due to power capacity issues do not occur on mild days when you don't need heat or air conditioning. These outages occur on the bone-shivering winter days and sweltering summer days -- the days when you can least afford to go without power. If the electric grid were to go down due to capacity issues, we risk having power outages across much of the country lasting days or even weeks. The week-long outages faced by millions of Americans this week may turn out to be a practice run for even longer outages in the years to come.
Now let's take a look at oil and gasoline.
The EPA's new Tier 3 rule demands that oil refineries reduce gasoline sulfur levels although the science suggests that the rule will produce little if any additional benefits to human health. Even more ludicrous is that the EPA is fining refineries for not blending cellulosic biofuel into gasoline and diesel fuel. The only problem is that cellulosic biofuel isn't commercially available. Of course, the cost of these fines and increased regulations will simply be passed on to U.S. consumers, or if regulations become too onerous, refineries will simply move to other countries, further increasing the cost of gasolina and reducing our supply.
http://cnsnews.com/node/549162
Couple these new refinery regulations with the Obama Administration's opposition to the Keystone Pipeline, as well as its opposition to drilling on public lands, in the Gulf of Mexico and off our shores, and we have significant pressure against increasing our domestic supply of oil, with similar pressure against refining oil domestically to produce gasoline in the most cost-effective manner.
In short, we face gasoline shortages and increased prices tomorrow because of the Obama Administration's policies of today.
If you are currently still without power like millions of Americans, you know what it's like to spend an entire day trying to find supplies of water, batteries and gasoline, or standing in line for an hour at the one restaurant in the area that's open and has power. You know what it's like to take a cold shower, only to begin sweating profusely minutes later when you walk into your 85-degree living room. You know what it's like to not have a phone that works because the landlines and cellphone towers are all down. You know what it's like to see your entire street pitch dark, knowing that all of your neighbors are in the same straits as you and your family. And you know what it's like to do this for days on end.
Sadly, I have a feeling that those of us who have suffered this week will be joined by millions of other Americans in the coming years for even longer outages and gas lines -- if our current President is reelected and our out-of-control EPA continues its overregulation.
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