The Heritage Foundation - Leadership for America

In his weekly radio address, President-elect Barack Obama promised a national “Economic Recovery Plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011.” One might think that would mean Obama had promised to create 2.5 million new jobs. But as the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and many other outlets noted, Obama was only promising to “save or create” 2.5 million jobs. So a year from now when unemployment hits double digits, it will undoubtedly be comforting when Obama tells us, “Well, sure the job situation is bad but it would have been so much worse if I hadn’t spent three trillion in taxpayer dollars on windfarms.”

There is something you can do today to prevent future job losses, and it will not cost you, or the American taxpayer, trillions of dollars. As you are reading this, bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency are deciding whether to implement an all-encompassing plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA believes a 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act gave the agency the unchecked authority to centrally plan our entire economy. The Advanced Notice for Proposed Rulemaking the EPA released earlier this year envisions federal regulations that would bring heavy burdens to one-fifth of all food service businesses, a third of all health care businesses, half of the entire lodging industry, and even 10% of all buildings used for worship. The EPA even claims the power to set speed limits and regulate your lawnmower.

Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis estimates the EPA plan will cause a net job loss of more than 500,000 by 2011, and will destroy 2.9 million manufacturing jobs by 2029. Obama energy adviser Jason Grumet signaled that the Obama administration would use the EPA plan as a job-loss cudgel to force Congress to adopt Obama’s equally pernicious job-killing cap-and-trade plan.

You can help stop the EPA dead in its tracks right now. As part of the regulatory process, the EPA must take comments from the public before issuing its final ruling. The Heritage Foundation has set up StopEPA.com to make it as easy as possible for you to let the EPA know what you think. But the EPA is not forced to listen forever. The agency will stop taking comments this Friday. Before it’s too late, click here to make your voice heard.

Quick Hits:

• Obama and other Democrats are rapidly ratcheting up the size of their stimulus plan, currently topping out at $700 billion.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Sunday that not helping the faltering auto industry is “not an option.”
• The builders’ lobby is next in line after the auto industry, asking for its own $250 billion bailout.
• Obama named New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner as his secretary of bailouts.
• Socialist allies of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez won a hefty majority of state governorships Sunday, but the opposition secured important victories by winning the mayor’s seat in greater Caracas and two economically vital states.