Not that we should expect any better from a group funded by the Koch brothers (read the Rolling Stone demolition of these truly heinous individuals and their “toxic empire”) and other fossil fuel interests, but the bizarre “60 Plus Association” (“the conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons” — seriously!) has really outdone itself on this one. Check out the Citizen Vox takedown of this propagandistic drivel.
The group relies on a sleight-of-hand to make its claim: It cites only the EPA’s projection that electricity prices will increase under its rule (Clean Power Plan Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) Table 3-21) while ignoring the projection, just a few pages later in the very same document, that electricity bills will actually decline. The rule includes efficiency measures that will result in consumers using significantly less power. (RIA Table 3-24). So raw electricity prices will go up a bit, but we will use less power-and pay less overall.
Also, 60 Plus looks only at the agency’s analysis for 2020, rather than its longer-term projections. What happens in the long term is obviously more important. It’s also much more favorable.
[…]
60 Plus points out that electricity prices will rise 6.5 percent in 2020, but it ignores that actual bills will rise by less than half that (3.2 percent) in 2020 and will decline 5.3 percent by 2025 and 8.4 percent by 2030. The numbers are even more favorable under the EPA’s other major scenario, in which states band together and comply in regional groups rather than comply separately. There, bills would fall by 8.7 percent by 2030…
It will be interesting to see if any corporate media outlet is gullible enough to pick up this “study.” If they do, let’s see if they properly identify this group as bought and paid for by fossil fuel interests…
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