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Economic Strangulation by Regulation

9/4/2016

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​ We are in year 8 of the recovery from the financial crisis and ensuing recession, and we have yet to see a year of 3% GDP growth.  Once again, I will put the blame on an anti-business Obama administration coupled with crippling regulation.  Here is a prime example:  Since he took office, the Obama and his administration have approved close to 50 wind farms that would cover more than 200,000 acres of public land, subject to approval by the EPA, who in this instance appears to be the problem and not the solution.  Since 2009 only 15 have been approved with the rest stuck in EPA hell ​with years of mandatory environmental analysis ahead or have been cancelled outright.  Is it no wonder then that renewables (not counting hydro) are only a small fraction of our energy output.  ​The Power Company of Wyoming exemplifies exactly this issue with its massive 1,000 turbine wind farm still waiting for construction to begin almost a decade after it was proposed and with $50 million in administrative costs sunk into the project (CNBC).  Another example is the Massachusetts Cape Wind Farm that was suppose to have 130 wind generators and supply 1/3 of the Capes electricity, but after being held up in court for more than 10 years, it became financially unfeasible.  Let me try to put this in perspective and look at the Erie Canal that was built in 1817.  The canal is 363 miles long with 35 locks.  Here's the kicker, with nothing more than horespower and manpower and very little use of steam engines that were invented in the late 1790's, it was built in 7 years.   This is worse even in with other energy sources.  If you were to stack all the applications necessary to get approval for a nuclear power plant one on top of another, they would be higher than a 3 story building.  
  The energy situation continues to worsen with the closing of approximately 100 coal fired generation plants, and Clinton stated that she plans on putting the coal industry out of business.
     Is it any wonder that the american economy stagnating because of "strangulation by regulation."

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    John Tommasi is a retired Senior Lecturer of Economics & Finance from Bentley University and  the University of New Hampshire.

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