Contact: Chris Rochester
608.237.7290
crochester@maciverinstitute.com
[Madison, Wisc…] The John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy recently joined 17 other think tanks from around the country in submitting comments to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) on its Clean Power Plan and the devastating impact it will have on consumers nationwide.
“Despite all the research and public testimony from last year that showed the EPA’s draft rule would cost Wisconsin consumers hundreds of dollars more a year in higher electricity rates, the EPA’s final rule was actually worse than the original,” commented Brett Healy, president of the MacIver Institute.
“Up to now, the faceless, unelected bureaucrats at the EPA have shown no willingness to listen to the concerns of the American public. That is why it so vital that the MacIver Institute and our partners continue to demand that our voices, the voices of hard-working Americans, be heard by the President and his agency,” Healy said.
According to the testimony, “States are being immediately and irreparably harmed by EPA’s illegal effort to force states to reorder their electrical generation systems. Twenty-seven (27) of the 47 states subject to the Clean Power Plan are challenging it in court.”
The testimony goes on to note that 120 organizations have sued the EPA over the Clean Power Plan and that many legal experts believe it will be eventually overturned by the courts.
According to National Economic Research Associates (NERA), the Clean Power Plan will increase average nationwide average electricity prices by 11-14 percent a year and cost the economy up to a total of $292 billion to meet the new standards.
For all the economic pain and hardship that the rule will impose on the American consumer, it will have very little effect on so-called climate change. An analysis shows that the new regulations will reduce the rise in temperature by 0.018 degrees Celsius in the year 2100.
“Given all the legal uncertainty over the validity of the rule and the irreversible harm it will do to our economy in the short term, the EPA should halt the Costly Power Plan until the Courts have sorted out this mess”, Healy said. “If the EPA insists on ramming this draconian rule down our throats, it will throw the American economy and our way of life back into the Stone Age.”
A MacIver Institute and Beacon Hill study found that the CPP would cost Wisconsinites 21,000 jobs and $1.82 billion in disposable income by 2030. It also found that the CPP would cause the average household electric bill to jump $225 and would cost the average Wisconsin factory an extra $105,094 per month if implemented.
The CPP would increase electricity rates in Wisconsin by up to 29 percent, according to modeling studies conducted by Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission.
The testimony submitted to the EPA on January 20 was spearheaded by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Others signing onto the testimony include: Mississippi Center for Public Policy (Mississippi), The Pelican Institute (Louisiana), Rio Grande Foundation (New Mexico), The Platte Institute for Economic Research (Nebraska), The John Locke Foundation (North Carolina), The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions (Ohio), Federalism In Action (South Carolina), Great Plains Public Policy Institute (South Dakota), Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (Oklahoma), Freedom Foundation of Minnesota (Minnesota), Montana Policy Institute (Montana), Competitive Enterprise Institute (Washington, DC), Kansas Policy Institute (Kansas), Idaho Freedom Foundation (Idaho) and the James Madison Institute (Florida).
The MacIver Institute, a Madison-based free market think tank, has been a leader in demonstrating the Clean Power Plan’s cost to the Wisconsin economy and rate payers.
