ANALYSIS/OPINION:
We have an early heavyweight candidate for “Lie of The Year.” It’s President Obama’s fantastic claim that his new Environmental Protection Agency regulations will lower your electric bill.
It’s a claim on a par with his 2013 “Lie of the Year” win for claiming that, under Obamacare, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” that you could keep your doctor and a typical family’s insurance premiums would fall by $2,500 a year.
Mr. Obama wants to lull us into inaction against his EPA plan by brainwashing Americans with the big lie he offered Monday: “Your electricity bills will shrink as these standards spur investment in energy efficiency, cutting waste and, ultimately, we’re going to be saving money for homes and for businesses.”
The president wants us all to forget his 2008 admission that his energy agenda will cause electricity rates to “skyrocket,” all under the pretense that he is saving our planet through more government and more bureaucracy. How can the president promise lower electric bills when every credible study insists that the proposed restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions will increase the costs of energy?
The EPA’s own impact analysis states that average retail electricity prices by 2020 would increase under the plan by 5.9 percent to 24 percent above current projections.
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The pretended savings don’t come from the EPA’s new requirements, which the Natural Resources Defense Council acknowledges make electricity more expensive. Supposed savings are to come from reducing electricity consumption, meaning consumers first would have to pay through the nose and buy costlier energy-saving appliances.
The Natural Resources Defense Council’s brief conveniently omits the high costs of the appliances. It’s the same tactic used when those insisting on more fuel-efficient automobiles fail to mention the far higher sticker prices of those cars.
The Natural Resources Defense Council carefully selected 2020 as a year of “moderate” rises in electricity rates because it’s before the highest rates would kick in, which is in 2030. So the council deliberately avoids dealing with the full impact of the EPA’s scheme while trying to deceive by trumpeting “lower electric bills.”
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Despite Mr. Obama’s promises, the new EPA standards instead will increase the costs of everything for each home, family, individual and business in America. It also will push jobs overseas where energy, the lifeblood of business, is more affordable.
Mr. Obama’s approach is disgraceful yet all too common in today’s era of government by propaganda, where government works to manipulate us by controlling information and releasing it selectively and deceptively.
The EPA scenario is a classic example, giving only a partial cost picture, excluding capital or startup costs and mentioning only operating costs thereafter; carefully selecting time frames to give a false impression; jumping back and forth between unit prices (like dollars per gallon), or benefits (like miles per gallon) or ratios (percentage changes), all according to what fits the propaganda purpose.
Mr. Obama is fond of saying “millions” may be benefiting from a program. But in a nation of 320 million people, “millions” might be merely 1 percent of the population or even less.
With its new EPA regulations, the Obama administration effectively is trying to turn our home, our place of business, our auto, every appliance, our entire way of life, into a Chevy Volt, where any fuel savings are overwhelmed by the higher cost of the product itself.
An electric car sounds nice, futuristic and environmentally responsible. But most of us simply cannot afford one.
That’s why Mr. Obama tries to brainwash us, so that we’ll accept it anyway.
• Ernest Istook is a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma. You can listen to his daily radio talk show, noon to 3 p.m. Eastern, online at kzlsam.com. Get Mr. Istook’s free email newsletter by signing up at eepurl.com/JPojD.
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