How Scott Walker Killed 600 Jobs And Will Kill Many More

This story is three months old, but there is something that I think keeps it very relevant today.

Back in October, it was announced that they were going to close the nuclear power plant in Kewaunee. The closing would mean that the state is losing another 600 high paying jobs, which is going to devastate the entire region.

Scott Walker immediately blamed the EPA and regulations:

The proposed closing at the Kewaunee Power Station highlights the need to decrease unnecessary federal regulations slowing the process for companies, like Dominion, to take advantage of economies of scale and keep their businesses profitable and open.

Twice last year, we reached out to the federal government to encourage them to get cumbersome EPA regulations out of the way of job creators. I will continue to push for changes that can protect jobs.

In March 2011, Governor Walker joined 16 other governors to send a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget about the proposed rule of section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act on cooling water intake structures. The governors expressed concern about the potential unnecessary cost imposed on facilities resulting from this rule, as well as the potential impact of these costs on consumers.

In July 2011, Governor Walker followed up with a letter directly to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking them to again review section 316(b), in order to find a better balance between implementation costs and environmental benefits that would best serve Wisconsin.

If there is one thing that I've learned in my years of blogging and just from life in general is that you can talk to the boss or you can talk to who knows what's going on.

Fortunately, the reporter of this story, Thomas Content, did more than just take Walker's word for it. He asked someone who knows what's going on. In this case, it was a senior vice president at Dominion, the company that owns the power plant (emphasis mine):

Daniel Stoddard, senior vice president of nuclear operations at Dominion, declined to provide details about the negotiations toward a possible sale of Kewaunee.

The prospect of increased regulations, while a concern, wasn’t the main factor in the decision to permanently close Kewaunee.

“Certainly anything that impacts cost or increases costs doesn’t help the situation by any means,” said Stoddard. “But I can’t say that’s the primary driver.”

The plant has become uneconomical because of low natural gas prices, and the boom in domestic natural gas production tied to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Those low natural gas prices have prompted other utilities to shift more of their power generation fleets to natural gas from coal.

I'm sure the gentle reader is fully aware that the Scott Walker and the Republicans have sold out our state to the out of state mining companies who have already moved in to start raping the land and polluting our waters.

And they could open up the state even more with the upcoming legislation.

Now some squawk radio sheeple might come along and say it creates soooooo many jobs.  Well, it might or might not, but past practice says it's not that many and then they are going to out-of-state folks already employed by the out-of-state mining companies.  And they are doing nothing to pay the bills, legal and otherwise, they are creating for the taxpayers of our state.

I have recently learned that they want to open a fracking mine about ten miles from the castle, so now it's done gotten personal and thus moved up to a front burner. I'm not paying much higher taxes so some out of state contributor to Walker's campaign can poison any more of our water.

Expect a lot more of this in the near future, John Doe willing.