Political Quotes

“The Kansas Corporation Commission calculates that compliance with the rule as proposed would cost the State $5 to $15 billion, the equivalent of a 10- to 30-percent increase in electric rates. The loss of cheaper and more reliable coal units will increase the power prices by as much as 25 percent on grids that serve about a third of the Nation's population, according to the Brattle Group in Massachusetts. Now, I have gone on and talked about how much more this would cost State by State. There isn't time to go over all of it now. But let's stop and realize the cost of this. NERA's analysis of the increased cost if we were to adopt these programs projects that the cost to comply with the EPA's plan could be a total of $479 billion or more, with 43 States having double-digit electricity increases and 14 States potentially facing peak-year electricity price increases exceeding 20 percent. I say this because--who is having to pay this? Everybody pays it, and they have to pay it equally. It has to be the most regressive type of increase in taxation that we could have. If you have a pilot program, with a family that is in poverty they have to spend the same amount of money for their electricity. That is a must, not a luxury. It is something they have to have. So they could easily spend half of their expendable income on electricity price increases, while wealthy people might only face a 1-percent increase of their income.…”