In January 2008, when Barack Obama was trying to put some distance between himself and other Democrats seeking the party's nomination, he touted his green policies. In particular, he talked about his intentions to put regulations in place that would shut down coal plants around the country.
Speaking in San Francisco, candidate Obama said: "If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them."
Enter 2012, and a record number of coal-fired generators are set to be shut down. As the Daily Caller reported, because of the "stiff federal environmental regulations" the Obama administration has put in place, 175 generators are scheduled to be phased out. That represents "8.5 percent of the total coal-fired capacity in the United States."
Of these 175 generators, 57 are scheduled to be taken offline in 2012.
In other words, the "cost of compliance" with Obama-era regulations is simply too high, thus coal-fired plant owners find themselves right where Obama said they would were he elected. Now they can either shut the generators down or keep them online and inch ever closer to bankruptcy.
How's that for "hope and change"?
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