President Obama on Saturday tried to bolster public support for new rules his administration will announce next week on coal-firing power plants, arguing their carbon emissions are a national health crisis – beyond hurting the economy and causing global warming.
“We don’t have to choose between the health of our economy and the health of our children,” Obama said in his weekly address. “As president and as a parent, I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that’s beyond fixing.”
The cost of carbon pollution “can be measured in lost lives” and roughly “100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks will be avoided” in just the first year that the standards go into effect, Obama said in the address, recorded Friday at the Children’s National Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., where he visited young asthma patients.
The new, unprecedented rules, which sidestep Congress, are set to be announced Monday and reportedly attempt to cut emissions by as much as 25 percent over 15 years.
Obama’s attempt to reduce greenhouse gases, which he and supporters blame for global warming, also are being met with strong opposition from the energy industry, big business and congressional Democrats and Republicans, who argue Obama’s green-energy agenda is tantamount to a “War on Coal.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argues the rule will kill jobs, increase electricity prices and close power plants across the country.
The group is releasing a study that finds the rule change would result in the loss of 224,000 jobs every year through 2030 and impose $50 billion in annual costs.Read the rest of the story HERE and watch a related story Below:
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