Here's an issue on which the Libertarians won't be able to help us with a nominee for attorney general: South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley threw us in with eleven other yahoo states suing to stop the federal government from making coal-fired power plants less dirty. The Environmental Protection Agency wants to use the really successful Clean Air Act to reduce carbon pollution.
AG Jackley is wasting his vital law enforcement resources by chasing the "War on Coal!" bogeyman for his partisan pals. Jonathan Chait dissects the Republican rationale behind the lawsuit and finds it lacking:
- Republicans claim the new EPA regs will increase electric bills by 10% a year, but that claim is based on analysis of federal actions well beyond the EPA coal proposal and ignores the savings from conservation and reduced health costs.
- The Heritage Foundation is saying the EPA's proposal would kill 600,000 jobs and $2 trillion in GDP. However, Chait notes that Heritage modeled a complete phase-out of coal, not the EPA's actual plan, under which we would keep using coal, but more efficiently, reducing coal use by 30%.
- Jackley's fellow Republicans seem to think that the U.S. has no obligation to reduce carbon pollution as long as China, India, or anyone else is producing carbon pollution. Chait says that's morally bonkers:
I have seen no morally cogent explanation as to why the entire burden of sparing the world from runaway global warming should fall on the countries that have contributed the least to its existence. Developing countries have already made the significant concession that they will not be allowed to follow the cheap dirty-energy developmental path used by the West.
...Given that, as noted above, people in developing countries are giving up a chance to use a proportionate share of the world’s historic carbon budget, minimal reciprocity dictates that the United States make some contribution. The Obama administration expects the American people to sacrifice in order to secure the agreement of people in other countries to sacrifice. That’s how collective action works [Jonathan Chait, "Republican Climate Policy Keeps Getting Less Intelligent," New York Magazine, 2014.08.05].
Attorney General Marty Jackley is wasting South Dakota's time and good name on this irresponsible pro-pollution lawsuit when he could be prosecuting more important cases. But oops! We said coal, so AG Jackley has to swing into action on behalf of big, dirty business. And we said collective action, so we can't count on South Dakota Libertarians to bring that up as another reason to replace our misguided attorney general.
But wait: Now the permafrost is melting, and Siberia is burping methane, so I guess we might as well do whatever we want until the tide comes in, right?
So, how many coal mining jobs in South Dakota is Jackley saving?
re: "until the tide comes in"
I should be a better person, but .....
http://youtu.be/ppYgrdJ0pWk
Wasting SD's good name?? I'm not so sure SD has that great of a name. We send our version of Michelle Bachman to congress to do NOTHING, vie with MS for the lowest educational/teacher funding, back presidential impeachment, restrict women's reproductive rights, offer some of the lowest wages,... Jackley has to walk that Repub line so he can have a clean conservative slate when he runs for governor.
There's nothing unique about this lawsuit. It's crony capitalism taken to its logical conclusion.
The righty financial interests and the coal interests are one and the same. ALEC, the Heritage Foundation and the Republican Party are subsidiaries of the fossil fuel and nuclear interests. This is just another way that South Dakota Republicans can use taxpayer dollars to attract and launder fat cat corporate campaign donations.
$2.5 trillion stored in South Dakota banks:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-economy/america-360/how-citibank-made-south-dakota-the-top-state-in-the-u-s-for-business-20130710
Well Larry, that's great for Sioux Falls, doesn't do a damn thing for the rest of the state. SF can have it, I wouldn't live in that toilet for any amount of money.
96 Tears asked a great question, how many jobs are in jeopardy in South Dakota, also how much is South Dakota dependent on?
http://interested-party.blogspot.com/2013/12/north-dakota-claims-its-own-river-silt.html
Roger, do we have any coal-burning plants in South Dakota? I would think that a decline in coal power without a decline in demand would promote development of wind and solar, which could create more jobs in South Dakota.