Friday, February 20, 2015

Close the EPA

EPA regs could cost Wisconsin 20,000 manufacturing jobs Posted on February 20, 2015 Written by watchdog.org
Wis­con­sin is poised to lose more than 20,000 man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs by 2023 because of the Obama administration’s pro­posed reg­u­la­tions on cut­ting car­bon emis­sions that crit­ics say will have min­i­mal envi­ron­men­tal effects.
The 4.19 per­cent reduc­tion in man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs puts Wis­con­sin at the fifth high­est drop in the coun­try, accord­ing to a study released this week by the Her­itage Foun­da­tion, a conservative-leaning think tank based in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.
The only other states that would expe­ri­ence a higher per­cent­age of job losses are New Hamp­shire, Idaho, South Dakota and Nebraska.
Nation­wide, the pro­posed U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency guide­lines cham­pi­oned by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama would elim­i­nate more than 1 mil­lion jobs, with close to half com­ing from the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try, the report says.
The sug­gested rules would also decrease the gross domes­tic prod­uct by $2.5 tril­lion over 15 years, accord­ing to the study.
“This is going to have a tremen­dously dev­as­tat­ing effect on the econ­omy, and for no envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits,” Her­itage Foun­da­tion fel­low Nick Loris, who co-authored the report, told Wis­con­sin Reporter.
The Clean Power Plan, pro­posed by the EPA last year as part of Obama’s cen­ter­piece strat­egy on cli­mate change, calls for a 30 per­cent cut in car­bon diox­ide and other green­house gas emis­sions by 2030. The pro­posal estab­lishes dif­fer­ent tar­get emis­sion rates for each state due to regional vari­a­tions in gen­eral mix and elec­tric­ity consumption.
But some have argued the restric­tions will have lit­tle, if any, influ­ence on global tem­per­a­tures or cli­mate.
Eric Bott, direc­tor of envi­ron­men­tal and energy pol­icy for Wis­con­sin Man­u­fac­tur­ers and Com­merce, said the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is only respon­si­ble for roughly 4 per­cent of global man­made green­house gases. A 30 per­cent reduc­tion would equate to approx­i­mately 555 mil­lion met­ric tons in 2030 or just 1.3 per­cent of pro­jected emis­sions in that year.
“These reg­u­la­tions aren’t about reduc­ing haz­ardous, toxic pol­lu­tants,” Loris said. “It’s all about cli­mate change emis­sions and the real­ity is, whether you believe cli­mate change is a cat­a­strophic prob­lem or not, these reg­u­la­tions won’t do any­thing to mit­i­gate global tem­per­a­tures, and the cost will be significant.”
Wis­con­sin and its lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries would be among those hard­est hit.
More than 458,000 Wis­con­sin work­ers have man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs, which amounts to 16 per­cent of the state’s total employ­ment, or twice the national aver­age, accord­ing to data com­piled by Todd Stu­art, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Wis­con­sin Indus­trial Energy Group.
But 20,421 of those jobs would be elim­i­nated by 2023 due to the Clean Power Plan, accord­ing to the Her­itage Foun­da­tion study.
Wis­con­sin Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sioner Ellen Nowak esti­mates the added costs to res­i­dents and busi­nesses will be in the range of $3 bil­lion to $13 bil­lion. That total for the entire coun­try would be $284 bil­lion in 2020, accord­ing to a Novem­ber study by Energy Ven­tures Analysis.
The same report also states the aver­age Wis­con­sin house­hold would see an annual util­ity bill increase of $485 by 2020, a 28 per­cent hike. The aver­age national increase would be $680 a year.
“These reg­u­la­tions, in essence, act like a huge tax on, not just Amer­i­can fam­i­lies and busi­nesses, but obvi­ously the energy-intensive ones,” Loris told Wis­con­sin Reporter.
Some man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies in the state have seven-figure energy bills every month and would have a tough time sur­viv­ing a large increase, Bott said.
Loris believes some busi­nesses would be able to “swal­low the higher costs,” but that likely would lead to less invest­ments in new equip­ment and infra­struc­ture, lay­offs and higher prices for consumers.
“A big part of the prob­lem with these reg­u­la­tions is that fam­i­lies aren’t just hit when their energy bill comes in the mail,” Loris said. “They are hit again and again through all the goods and ser­vices we pay for because energy is in just about every­thing we make and cre­ate. It will have a tremen­dous rip­ple effect through the economy.”
Bott also has con­cerns over the por­tion of the Clean Power Plan that allows states to have dif­fer­ent emis­sion rate guide­lines. He says that pro­vi­sion is pun­ish­ing states that have already been work­ing on reduc­ing green­house gas emis­sions by giv­ing them stricter requirements.
That could force some firms to move out of Wis­con­sin, Bott said.
“There’s a real inequity in terms of com­pli­ance costs cre­ated between states and that opens the door­way for large com­pa­nies that oper­ate in local states to ship pro­duc­tion in order to avoid those huge cost increases,” Bott told Wis­con­sin Reporter.
The EPA has delayed final­iz­ing the Clean Power Plan until this sum­mer, a move some say was made to stave off legal challenges.
Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walker said in his State of the State Address in Jan­u­ary he plans to work with Attor­ney Gen­eral Brad Schimel to pre­pare a law­suit against the fed­eral gov­ern­ment over the car­bon emis­sion regulations.
Bott also indi­cated it’s likely Wis­con­sin Man­u­fac­tur­ers and Com­merce will engage in lit­i­ga­tion on the pro­posed rules.
EPA regulations would eliminate 586,000 manufacturing jobs in the US.

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