Unrealistic energy numbers

Figures don’t lie? I read with great interest the opinions stated by Brett Healy in the commentary “Congress must kill Clean Power Plan” in the June 11 Journal Sentinel Crossroads section. He states too many opinions to be able to cover all of them in one letter, but I want to deal with a few.

One of the most important is “we must cut regulations on the industries that literally power our economic growth — oil, natural gas, and coal.” All the job stats I have seen for the last few years point out that the fastest growing energy sources, and therefore jobs, are in the clean energy fields.

Should we just stick out heads in the sand and hope that promoting the industries of the early 1900s is going to drive our economy and make our lives better? The last statistic I saw said there are more than a half-million jobs in clean energy now compared to fewer than 100,000 in the coal industry. Which will be the driving force in the future?

He goes on to state that the Clean Power Plan promoted by President Barack Obama will be nothing but negative on the economy. Now come his figures: CPP would cost consumers an addition $214 billion by 2030; 45 states would see double-digit increases in electricity costs and 16 states would see increases of 25% or more; CPP would increase the average electricity price in Wisconsin by 19%; the average household electric bill would jump $225 a year; cost the economy of Wisconsin 21,000 jobs, and result in $1.82 billion less in disposable income.

I would be really interested in how all of these “facts” were arrived at and who were the main psychics who came up with these pie-in-the-sky stats? I feel as if the writer had one main objective: confuse the reader with statistics that have no basis in fact (really, you can predict what is going to happen by 2030?) to promote your ideology. Kansas was supposed to turn into Utopia because they were going to make it a trickle-down economy. How’s that working out for the Republicans in power and the people there?

As the old saying goes: “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” Think for yourself and be an informed voter.

Earl Larson Franklin