DEAR EDITOR:
Hypocritical presidential rhetoric was on full display last Monday when President Obama proclaimed that it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress.
Setting aside for a moment that overturning unconstitutional laws is part of the Supreme Court's responsibility and has been since 1803 (Marbury vs. Madison), something else happened last week that highlights the president's hypocrisy. His administration's unelected EPA quietly released proposed rules that will in effect ban construction of new coal-fire power plants and will force the shutdown of currently operating plants. These new rules will cost jobs not only in the power plants themselves but also in the coal mining industry. Not to mention that the cost of electricity will skyrocket for both homes and businesses. Most of us are struggling to just to keep up with already increasing prices on necessities. Do we really need to have our electric bills go up as well?
Meanwhile, these new emissions rules will have little effect on the actual global emissions anyway and may even actually increase those emissions in the long run. Emissions from U.S. power plants have been decreasing while those from China have been increasing. Less U.S. demand for coal will cause the price to go down, effectively subsidizing China's use of coal and increasing their emissions.
If you are concerned about global warming - and I'm granting here for the sake of argument that man-made global warming exists - you understand that global emissions are the problem. The new rules will not change global emissions at all (and potentially could increase them) so what is exactly the point of having these new rules, particularly in light of the fact that they will cost jobs and increase expenses in U.S. households while subsidizing China's manufacturing industry.
So our president is concerned about an unelected Supreme Court overturning laws made by elected officials while his own unelected EPA is proposing rules that will cost jobs, increase consumer and business costs, and subsidize China. Can we really afford four more years of this kind of hypocrisy?
-- Martha C. Yoder, West Farmington