Bangor Daily News:
Elected leaders at all levels know that Americans want three things right now: jobs, jobs and jobs. If the policies you support create jobs, your constituents will probably make sure you keep yours for a long time. If the policies you back kill jobs, you’ll be joining the long unemployment line this November. This simple political reality is what has made the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent announcement to overregulate America’s biggest renewable energy source so perplexing.
Just a few short months before a contentious election that has many Democrats fighting for survival, the EPA made final a job-killing mandate that will stall development of biomass energy plants from coast to coast. Under the EPA’s scheme, carbon-neutral power generated by sawdust, wood chips and other forestry byproducts will be subjected to the same costly permits and red tape as the country’s oldest coal-burning factories.
On July 2, 18 Democrats in the U.S. Senate joined numerous Republican colleagues in sending the EPA a critical letter, which noted that the EPA’s plan “has already forced numerous biomass energy projects into limbo.” Additionally, 63 bipartisan members of the U.S. House of Representatives urged the EPA to reverse course, saying biomass electricity production “would help stimulate the economies of rural communities surrounded by federal lands by creating jobs.” Sen. Susan Collins, Sen. Olympia Snowe and Rep. Michael Michaud were among the letter’s signers.
The rest here.