President Obama’s newfound support for an ‘all-of-the above’ energy policy glosses over how his administration’s job-crushing regulations are forcing energy producers out of business.  Just last week, “GenOn Energy Inc., the third-largest U.S. independent power producer…said it expects to shut about 13 percent of its generating capacity by May 2015, including facilities in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey” because of excessive regulations, the Washington Times reports.  And they’re not alone – the Obama administration’s onslaught of new regulations on energy producers is shutting down plants and putting Americans out of work across the United States:

• ILLINOIS: “Ameren Corp. says stricter clean air rules that take effect next year are forcing it to shutter two of its oldest Illinois power plants by the year's end and eliminate 90 jobs. … Ameren said new regulations … were the primary reason it was choosing to permanently mothball them.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10/5/11)

• OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND: “FirstEnergy Corp. said Thursday that new … regulations led to a decision to shut down six older, coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, affecting more than 500 employees. The plants, which are in Cleveland, Ashtabula, Oregon and Eastlake in Ohio, Adrian, Pa. and Williamsport, Md., will be retired by Sept. 1. They have generated about 10 percent of the electricity produced by FirstEnergy during the last three years, the company said.” (Associated Press, 1/27/12)

• MASSACHUSETTS: “The owners of the coal- and oil-fired Salem Harbor Power Station announced yesterday they will shutter the plant within three years” because “regulations and facility upgrades make the plant too costly to operate. … Some Salem residents and officials bemoaned the loss of a business that pays more than $4 million in taxes each year and provides about 150 jobs.” (The Boston Globe, 5/12/11)

• WEST VIRGINIA: “American Electric Power said that if all of the federal…proposed rules took effect, the company would shut down five coal-fired power plants in 2014, retire some others in 2014 or 2015, and convert several from coal to natural gas - at a cost of 600 power plant jobs. … ‘Let me be clear, it’s decisions like the one made by AEP today that demonstrate the urgent need to rein in government agencies…preventing them from overstepping their bounds and imposing regulations that not only cost us good American jobs, but hurt our economy,’ [Senator Joe] Manchin [D-W.V.] said.’” (The Associated Press, 6/9/11)

• TEXAS: “Texas’ largest power generator, Energy Future Holdings, said Monday that it must shut down two coal plants and three mines, cut 500 jobs and spend as much as $1.5 billion to comply with new federal” regulations. … “The state grid operator has said the new rules make it harder to keep the lights on and could boost electricity prices by around 10 percent.” (Dallas Morning News, 9/12/11)

In a letter to the White House last week, Speaker Boehner challenged the Obama administration on its burdensome energy regulations that “stand to cost 180,000 American jobs per year and would force the premature retirement of 12 percent of America’s coal-fired energy generation,” according to a study by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) cited in the letter.  The same study estimates that Americans in regions covering all or portions of 24 states could face a 12-23.5 percent electricity price spike, and total job losses by 2020 could top 1.4 million, Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy & Power Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) noted in a hearing last year. 

Senate Democrats had a chance to stop job-crushing regulations on energy producers by acting on the bipartisan Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act last year, but they took a pass on saving American jobs and protecting families from soaring energy prices.  If President Obama is serious about supporting an all-of-the-above energy policy, he should urge Senate Democrats to quit stalling and pass the nearly 30 other bipartisan energy and jobs bills – many of which roll back government barriers to American energy production and halt excessive, job-destroying regulations – that are awaiting action in the Democratic-led Senate. 

With gas prices on the rise and putting the squeeze on American families and small businesses, there is no excuse for Senate Democrats to continue stalling on House-passed American Energy Initiative legislation.  Learn more and follow the progress of these, and other bipartisan, House-passed jobs bills on the Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators website at jobs.gop.gov, and be sure to “like” the American Energy Initiative on Facebook for updates on what House Republicans are doing to help address skyrocketing gas prices.