Presidential action impacts local utility

When industry and their jobs start looking for community locations, Sikeston has two distinct advantages - central location on major highways and low utility rates.

If the Obama administration has their way, the low-utility competitive advantage here will disappear.

And your rates will skyrocket in the words of our President.

Obama this week proposed through executive order a wide array of sweeping regulations that will devastate our coal-fired utility in Sikeston.

The new regulations are part of this administration's obsession with addressing climate change through the eventual elimination of all coal-fired power plants.

But what Sikeston residents need to know is that the emission outputs from the Sikeston plant are fully within the federal guidelines and have been virtually since this plant opened in the late 1970s.

I have said many times that elections have consequences. And this impending disaster is just one local example of those consequences.

Granted, we can contact our elected officials - which we will - and sound the alarm of the actual impact on Sikeston.

But Obama bypassed Congress which has consistently voted against these draconian measures.

So our elected officials are somewhat in the same boat as we are - reluctant spectators.

The visionaries who approved this local plant all those years ago were careful to take into account the emission output of this plant.

For goodness sakes, do you think anyone locally wants to live in a community that would be potentially harmed by unsafe emissions?

Do you think anyone locally wants to raise their children in a potentially unsafe environment?

But Obama and his cohorts have made coal public enemy number one and that puts Sikeston on the target list.

In the weeks and months ahead, local officials will start to learn exact details on the full impact of this federal overreach.

But I can tell you now, the news will not be good for economic development and it will not be good for your pocketbook.

For those who supported this President, this is the result of supporting a leftist administration.

If higher taxes and frightening health care changes are not enough to concern you, the day will arrive when your monthly utility bill will scare the hell out of you.