June 23, 2019 - The Obama presidency was an era of bureaucratic overreach.

No bureaucratic agency was more arrogant, or heedless of its legal boundaries than EPA.  No Obama regulation would have been more ruinous than the so-called "Clean" Power Plan.  The "CPP" was so egregious that the Supreme Court put it on hold.  Good thing.

This week Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced that EPA is scrapping the CPP.

This is big.

CFACT has been been exposing and fighting this destructive plan since its inception.

EPA devised its authority for the CPP by converting 80 words in the Clean Air Act into 2,690 pages of regulations and appendices. The unprecedented plan required that utilities return the nation’s overall CO2 emissions almost to 1975 levels, while our population grows by a projected 40 million.

The CPP would have cost a fortune to tax and ratepayers and would have chased still more American manufacturing jobs overseas.

CFACT's Adam Houser attended the announcement and posted details at CFACT.org:

“The Affordable Clean Energy rule — ACE — gives states the regulatory certainty they need to continue to reduce emissions and provide affordable and reliable energy for all Americans...  The contrast between our approach and the Green New Deal, or plans like it, couldn’t be clearer. Rather than Washington telling Americans what type of energy they can use, or how they can travel, or even what they can eat, we are working cooperatively with the states to provide affordable, dependable, and diverse supply of energy that continues to get cleaner and more efficient.”

While the federal government loosens the regulatory screws on our energy economy, state and local governments are moving in the wrong direction.

The New York legislature adopted a whopper.  We posted details at CFACT.org:

The New York State Legislature just passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to sign the bill into law. This measure contains new mandates for the state to eliminate net carbon emissions in the next thirty years, by 2050, equal to just 15 percent of the 1990 levels. By 2040, just two decades from now, 100 percent of the state’s electricity generation is supposed to come from “renewable” resources, such solar and wind power.

The new law also authorizes numerous state agencies to issue regulations to achieve greenhouse gas emission limits that govern nearly every aspect of the private economy, including energy, health, housing, transportation, agriculture, economic development, and utilities. And, the new climate law also must be considered when agencies issue any permits, contracts, licenses “and other administrative approvals and decisions.”

Climate change policy now governs everything in the state of New York.

New York had better watch out.  Business owners and the middle class are fleeing states like California that impose unaffordable energy and climate policies.  If New York's not careful Wall Street and the rest of it producers could very well shrug and bid the Empire State adieu.

In short, this week saw a huge step in the right direction at the federal level and a huge step in the wrong direction in New York.

America needs an affordable, abundant energy future.  When energy costs rise, people and businesses vote with their feet. 

Policymakers take notice.