Once more Joe Romm goes to lengths trying to push a falsehood. Yes it is true that ‘automation’ has replaced jobs in the oil and coal industry but that doesn’t mean “regulations” have not lead to many jobs being lost also, which he fails to address. All businesses automate to an extent which reduces jobs but to say “regulations” have not caused job losses is 100% a lie. “Obama’s regulations have caused electric power companies to shutter over 400 coal-fired power plants that would be too costly to upgrade with the pollution controls required to meet EPA’s NEWEST REGULATIONS (which BTW were not needed.) According to the Sierra Club, the coal-fired plants retired last year equals the entire coal capacity of Britain.” Furthermore, because of these “REGULATIONS” the shuttering of coal-fired power plants has caused coal production in the United States to fall to its lowest level in 30 years. Joe didn’t bother to mention that did he? Of course not because this little fact goes against his liberal narrative that “regulation” did not cause job losses and that it is only automation that did. According to a study by NERA Economic Consulting, 47,000 megawatts of coal will be prematurely retired due to the so-called “Clean Power Plan” which are NEW REGULATIONS. The study projected that it will hike electricity prices in all 47 states that are subject to the regulation. An IER study shows that electricity prices from existing coal-fired power plants being retired [because of the NEW REGULATIONS] are half the cost of a new natural gas combined cycle unit and about a third of the cost of a new wind turbine, which indicates why the above studies project much higher future electricity prices when implementation of the rule is completed. Americans will have to pay much higher electricity prices [thanks to the NEW REGULATIONS]despite the minuscule benefits of the Clean Power Plan [new REGULATIONS], which reduces global carbon dioxide emissions by less than 1 percent and global temperatures by 0.02 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to EPA’s own models. Even EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy admitted the fact when she recently told Congress that EPA cannot measure the impact of the proposed Clean Power Plan [new REGULATIONS] on global temperatures, because it would likely be incredibly small. http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/killing-american-industry-coal/