Wasting Away in Obamaville: MACT Rule May Shut Down a Whole Town

Nice town ya got there. Would be a pity if Democratic policies happened to it.

For more than 90 years, the coal-fired power plant in Glen Lyn, Va., has been churning out electricity and contributing to local prosperity. Of late, it has generated nearly a quarter of the revenue for the $1 million budget of the town.

Yet when the plant ultimately shuts down to comply with new federal air pollution regulations by the end of 2014, says Town Manager Howard Spencer, so too might the community of 200.

“If the town lost all of that revenue,” he says, “we would struggle to even continue to be incorporated.”

An Associated Press analysis has found that more than 32 mostly coal-fired power plants in a dozen states will be forced to close because of the new, more stringent regulations. Another 36 plants are at risk of closing.

That’s a lot of jobs the administration is regulating away, while another 20,000 are being aborted via the president’s XL pipeline shenanigans. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, President Obama’s anti-economic growth czar, is announcing the MACT rule’s implementation this afternoon. She wants you to know that she’s killing jobs and possibly a whole town for the children.

Lisa Jackson has a surprise in store today when she releases EPA’s first-ever rules for mercury and air toxics emissions from power plants.

The finalized rules include so-called safety valve provisions that would give some power plants an extra year – beyond the three or four usually allowed under the Clean Air Act – to comply with the utility MACT, a source close to the agency tells POLITICO.

DETAILS – Jackson will unveil the rule at 2 p.m. today at the Children’s National Medical Center, where she’ll be flanked by doctors and the hospital’s CEO.