How Goes The Pivot?

According to an August 3rd Fox News report, President Obama has once again turned his focus on jobs.

With the debt-ceiling debate in Washington's rear view, President Obama emerged from the partisan rubble vowing -- as he has many times since taking office -- to devote his energy to jobs.

Americans "want us to get this economy growing and adding jobs," the president said.

The call echoed his 2010 State of the Union pledge to make jobs his "No. 1 focus."

This isn't the first time Obama has decided he would focus like a laser on jobs.  After his most recent pivot, Dr. Clark Jensen counted seven other times when the president promised that his focus would be on jobs.

Obama has stated at least 7 times, during his administration, that he would focus on jobs.  Here are the dates he said we needed to improve the job situation and promised that, “he was on it.”

February 2009, in a speech to Congress, Obama said his economic plan was to focus on jobs.

November 2009, during the Health Care debate, Obama promised again, “This is my administrations overriding focus.”

January 2010, he said, “What they can expect from this administration, and I know what they can expect from you, is that we are going to have a sustained and relentless focus over the next several months on accelerating the pace of job creation, because that’s priority number one.”

April and May 2010, Obama did a “Main Street” tour to stop and talk about jobs to the people on the street.

June 2010, he talked about the “beginning of the recovery summer.”

December 2010, he said, “And I think we are past the crisis point in the economy, but we now have to pivot and focus on jobs and growth.”

January 2011:  Obama talked about job creation in the State of the Union address and launched the “Startup America” initiative.

And just recently after the debt ceiling was raised, he once again said we needed to “pivot” towards job creation.

Is it just me or does it seem to you like he is having a lot of trouble staying focused.

Well, since the good Doctor asks, I think Obama is remarkably focused but not on jobs, unless you want to count killing off non-union jobs as a political favor to his labor union base of support.

In today's Wall Street Journal we get another example of Obama saying one thing while doing another when it comes to jobs.  At a time when an unprecented number of Americans are out of work, the Environmental Protection Agency is rewriting air-pollution rules in a way that is expected to shut down a significant percentage of our coal-fired power plants.

The EPA is currently pushing an unprecedented rewrite of air-pollution rules in an attempt to shut down a large portion of the coal-fired power fleet. Though these regulations are among the most expensive in the agency's history, none were demanded by the late Pelosi Congress. They're all the result of purely bureaucratic discretion under the Clean Air Act, last revised in 1990.

As it happens, those 1990 amendments contain an overlooked proviso that would let Mr. Obama overrule EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's agenda. With an executive order, he could exempt all power plants "from compliance with any standard or limitation" for two years, or even longer using rolling two-year periods. All he has to declare is "that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so."

Both criteria are easily met. Most important, the EPA's regulatory cascade is a clear and present danger to the reliability and stability of the U.S. power system and grid. The spree affects plants that provide 40% of U.S. baseload capacity in the U.S., and almost half of U.S. net generation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which is charged with ensuring the integrity of the power supply, reported this month in a letter to the Senate that 81 gigawatts of generating capacity is "very likely" or "likely" to be subtracted by 2018 amid coal plant retirements and downgrades.

That's about 8% of all U.S. generating capacity. Merely losing 56 gigawatts—a midrange scenario in line with FERC and industry estimates—is the equivalent of wiping out all power generation for Florida and Mississippi.

I'm going to edge out onto this limb and suggest that shutting off 8% of our power will hurt rather than help job creation.  Does anybody really believe that Obama will delay the power shutdown?

Comments

[john lawless]

Perry's first move should be to shut down the EPA. That place is loony progressive heaven.

[Tom Bowler]

I hear you, but that would never fly. However, its enforcement powers could be curtailed. We all want to protect the environment, but the EPA has gotten way out of hand.