The Patriot Post® · A Promise Kept

By Michael Oberndorf ·
https://patriotpost.us/commentary/12238-a-promise-kept-2012-01-09

Barack Hussein Obama-Soetoro is a sociopathic liar. He says what he thinks his audience on a given day wants to hear, promising the sun and the moon. The next day, he will say the total opposite, if that’s what the new audience wants. He’s not a flip-flopper, he’s a compulsive liar. However, there is one promise he made, back during the 2008 campaign, that it appears he’s not going back on and is actually going to keep. Unfortunately for the American people, it’s a promise that will cost us dearly, and possible destroy us as a viable economic nation.

In an interview on November 2, 2008, Obama-Soetoro outlined his plan to impose the so-called cap-and-trade system, a plan devised by radical inventors of man-made global warming, that he said would bankrupt the coal and coal-fired energy industry by imposing hugely expensive environmental restrictions on them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ). As it turned out, the American people, led by the Tea Parties, pressured Congress to kill this bald-faced attempt to wreck the economy.

Not to be deterred though, by the wishes of the people they are supposed to serve, the Marxists and neo-fascists in the Obama-Soetoro administration have made it clear that they intend to ignore the Constitution, end-run Congress, and impose their job-killing, economy-destroying agenda on America, whether Americans like it or not. And they have chosen the EPA – the unconstitutional Environmental Protection Agency – as the vehicle to do this.

The most recent among many draconian outrages imposed by the rogue EPA are a set of regulations called MACT – Maximum Achievable Control Technology. They are Barack Hussein Obama-Soetoro’s green and red Christmas gift to the nation. It is estimated they will result in the closing of some 60 coal-fired power plants, huge rises in the cost of electricity, and the direct destruction of at least 3000 jobs (http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2011/12/22/obama_sides_with_whackos_over_workers_kills_another_3000_jobs). The ripple effect from this, though, is likely to be tens of thousands of lost jobs and the human misery caused by this, and billions in economic losses. Merry Christmas, America!

These regulations require that power plants eliminate 90 percent of their emissions of mercury. However, power plant emissions of mercury, reduced over the years by energy producers, amount to a mere 0.5 percent of the mercury in the atmosphere. Most atmospheric mercury occurs naturally or is produced by industry in Communist China (http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2011/12/sizing-up-epas-mercury-rules.php?utm_source=CFACT+Updates&utm_campaign=644f7ac229-Mercury_regs_EPAs_Xmas_present12_21_2011&utm_medium=email#2138717). The simple truth is that this regulation will have virtually no effect on the environment, but will indeed, as promised by Barack Hussein Obama-Soetoro, bankrupt the coal and coal-fired electricity production industries.

As usual, the “science” involved is questionable, at best, and flat-out phony, if one prefers not to sugar-coat. All of the environmental “crises” since the 1960s have been manufactured by the radical left. They have been based on lies and faked, twisted, and made-up data. America’s environment, outside the Democrat controlled urban areas, is one of the cleanest in the world. Over 90 percent of the country is farmland or forest or undeveloped open space. I repeat: There is NO environmental crisis.

The EPA has a long history of draconian over-regulation. Nowhere in the Constitution is such an agency, with power to control the use by Americans of their private land, authorized in any way, shape, or form. Yet it’s allowed to continue its destructive rampages, generally unchecked and unimpeded by Congress, and in spite of horror stories galore. The EPA needs to be defunded, immediately, and then shut down and dismantled as quickly as is possible.

As has become the norm of late, this situation is not just the result of an out-of-control executive branch running wild, but of the failure of Congress to do their Constitutionally mandated duty to rein them in. It cannot be emphasized enough, repeated too many times: We need to clean out Congress in 2012, replacing the corrupt, spineless parasites infesting both houses with honest and honorable men and women who will adhere to the Constitution – the supreme law of the land. We need to elect public servants who will commit to shutting down unconstitutional, and therefore illegal, agencies and departments such as the EPA, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.

Not only would this restore sanity to government, it would eliminate most of the spending that has allowed Democrats and RINO establishment Republicans to force Americans into debt to the tune of over $15,000,000,000,000 dollars. It would also eliminate the massive economic burden of regulations whose sole purpose is to give government control over private property and business, and justify an ever-expanding, increasingly opulent bureaucracy.

New Year’s Resolution: Take Back America!