EPA Administrator McCarthy: The ‘Polar Vortex’ Is a Climate Change ‘Wake-Up Call’

‘I am a little tired of people pointing to the Polar Vortex as a reason not to act on climate. It is exactly the opposite. It is a wake-up call’

EPA Administrator’s Flimsy ‘Wake-Up Call’ on Climate Change: The Polar Vortex (Mediaite)

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy must hope you have a short memory.

In a press conference on Monday announcing the EPA’s program to institute new rules for power plants, which aim to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030, McCarthy spent much of her time explaining why the new regulations were both existentially vital and simultaneously no big deal.

McCarthy dismissed the concerns of those who suggest that the new regulations will increase the cost burden on power providers who will pass on those expenses to consumers in the form of increased electricity rates. Even if there were rate hikes, McCarthy said, they would merely amount to “about the price of a gallon of milk per month.” This is an odd statement if her aim is to create the impression that power rate hikes are a cost burden everyone could absorb.

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