FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Contact: Paul Chesser, [email protected]
202-670-2680

Upon learning that Senate leaders are preparing legislation that will implement President Obama’s Clean Energy Standard, American Tradition Institute executive director Paul Chesser has one message: Stop!

"As was shown in our study from a few weeks ago," Chesser said, "a national Renewable Energy Standard will not only hammer an already-bloodied economy, but it will actually cost lives."

Chesser referred to a Clinton-era EPA report that stated, “people’s wealth and health status, as measured by mortality, morbidity, and other metrics, are positively correlated. Hence, those who bear a regulation’s compliance costs may also suffer a decline in their health status, and if the costs are large enough, these increased risks might be greater than the direct risk-reduction benefits of the regulation.” Likewise President Obama’s regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, stated in his book "Laws of Fear" that it can be credibly argued "that an expensive regulation can have adverse effects on life and health."

Politico is reporting today that Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are "hash(ing) out details on the plan which would increase the nation’s reliance on cleaner burning sources of energy…." According to the report, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the two Committee leaders have an agreement on the standard. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech, called for a 80 percent Clean Energy Standard by the year 2035.

American Tradition Institute, in its study released on Jan. 28, found that a 30 percent by 2021 standard — a pace likely necessary to reach the president’s goal — would likely cost the economy $120.6 billion in 2021 and $2.385 trillion over the 20-year period that follows. As those impacts flow through the economy they will produce massive net job losses, reduced wages and disposable income, and millions of dollars in lost investment.

"Inevitably, these massive costs for so-called ‘clean energy’ compliance will require lower-income families to spend more on electricity and less on other basic needs such as food and health care," Chesser said. “The original purpose for these schemes was to solve global warming, which few people even talk about as a problem any more, unless they are telling a joke.”

See ATI’s two-page summary of the Effects of Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard Legislation on the U.S. Economy. (PDF)

See ATI’s Study of the Effects of Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard Legislation on the U.S. Economy. (PDF)

For an interview with American Tradition Institute executive director Paul Chesser, call (202)670-2680 or email [email protected].