— The talk coming from the Obama administration about generating jobs has created some high expectations. But the Environmental Protection Agency must not be listening, because it’s pursuing a regulatory agenda that will undermine economic recovery and discourage hiring.

EPA is preparing to begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s largest power plants and industrial facilities in January.

Carbon mitigation will require utilities and manufacturing companies to make costly environmental improvements in order to meet EPA objectives. But most of the economic pain will be inflicted on households and small businesses. Consumers could see their monthly power bills climb.

Pennsylvania and the nation need jobs. But when upgrades to existing power plants and factories are considered too expensive, the response could be to retire many of the facilities. Some manufacturers might move their operations to countries in the Middle East and Asia that have no intention to control carbon dioxide, with a loss of many jobs as a consequence.

EPA’s plan is the brainchild of environmentalists and bureaucrats who seem willing to ignore the fact that 15 million Americans are unemployed and that the nation is struggling to recover from a bad economy. Although cleaner air and less atmospheric pollution are worthwhile goals, we should be giving higher priority to economic recovery and getting people back to work.

Besides, any reduction in U.S. greenhouse emissions is likely to be canceled out by an increase in emissions resulting from China’s rapid industrialization.

Instead of imposing onerous command-and-control regulations, it would make more sense to increase investment in natural gas and other low-carbon energy sources that can meet carbon mitigation goals and stimulate the economy.

The American desire for gasoline and other petroleum products should not go unheeded either. We need to ramp up oil production to reduce our nation’s reliance on OPEC countries in the Middle East that are still funneling petro-dollars to rogue countries and terrorist groups.

Administration policies, however, are constricting our nation’s oil and natural gas production. Although the government lifted its moratorium on drilling in most of the Gulf of Mexico two months ago, the Interior Department has yet to issue any new permits that would allow production to resume.

To make matters worse, President Obama recently rescinded an earlier decision to expand oil and gas drilling in the resource-rich eastern Gulf  and off the Atlantic coast.

Oil and gas production in those areas would have supplied the nation with enough oil to fuel 2.4 million cars and natural gas to heat 8 million homes for 60 years. More importantly, it would have provided tax revenue to fund research and development of improved methods for oil and natural gas recovery and other energy technologies.

The administration’s actions speak for themselves. Curtailing production of fossil fuels that account for 85 percent of the nation’s energy supply is nonsensical. And imposing carbon regulations on utilities and industries during a time of economic stress and heavy unemployment is irresponsible.

For all its rhetoric about creating jobs, the administration is giving greater attention to its environmental agenda than it is to pulling the country out of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

While there is still time, Congress should put a hold on funds EPA will need to enforce its greenhouse-gas regulations.

That might get EPA’s attention.



John J. Interval of Clarion is a professional petroleum geologist.