Too much government control negatively affects the people

October 22, 2024

We have all probably noticed that over the last few decades, and likely almost as long as the country has existed, the federal government has been growing and has gotten much bigger, much more powerful, and mind-bogglingly expensive.

While the addition of new government departments, agencies, offices, etc., and their increases in size, may have been intended to improve government functioning, and were done for the best of reasons, that has often not been the result.

While the elements of government are constitutionally under the control of the administration and Congress, that leadership changes fairly often, and with those changes come different ideas about how government should work. But most of the personnel in the various administrative departments and agencies stay in their positions for years or decades, and while they are there they develop their own ideas about how their part of government should work.

These concepts frequently are at odds with what is expected by the people, and what best serves their interests. As a result, terms like “deep state” and “administrative state” have arisen to describe them.

Complaints about this troubling problem are not unusual, and quite often highlight true problems caused by a particular area of government. But the complaints quite often fall on deaf ears, or do not have needed support to change things. A recent correspondence from the CEO of a South Carolina electric cooperative to its customers is a good example.

Palmetto Electric Cooperative President and CEO, A. Berl Davis Jr., identified and explained one such problem brought on by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Davis began by discussing referees in a football game, who he said often operate as if they are more important than the game itself. “I think of the Environmental Protection Agency the same way,” he wrote. “The role they fill is a critical one, but their recent set of regulations on power plants is a bad call. Unfortunately, the consequences will be much worse than merely losing a ballgame. The EPA’s latest interference in the energy industry threatens our access to reliable, affordable electricity. It’s one more reason our cooperative’s energy costs are rising, along with inflation and the increasing price of wholesale power from one of our primary power sources, Santee Cooper.”

EPA’s recent rule aimed at existing coal and new natural gas power plants requires them to either greatly reduce their output or install carbon capture and storage. “In theory, carbon capture and storage, or CCS, might sound like a neat idea. A power plant’s carbon emissions could be injected deep underground rather than released into the atmosphere,” Davis wrote. “But in practice, CCS is unproven and unbelievably expensive. No utility in the country has successfully pulled off CCS at the level the EPA is requiring for America’s fleet of power plants.”

This action’s expense results in higher prices for consumers, and also puts power suppliers in a crisis. As he explains it, “South Carolina urgently needs more power supply, not greater restrictions on our existing power plants or the ones our state needs to build. Our state has already struggled to supply sufficient electricity during the coldest hours of the winter, such as when freezing weather led to rolling blackouts in parts of South Carolina during Christmas 2022. And South Carolina’s power needs are only increasing amid the state’s rapid population and economic growth.”

Some help can come from solar farms, he notes, but also recognizing that solar power is not always there when it is needed, like on cold winter mornings and at night when the sun isn’t shining.

“To keep up, we will need to be able to rely on 24/7 energy sources including natural gas and, at least for now, coal. Yet the EPA seems intent on throwing its yellow flag and ejecting those reliable power plants from the game,” Davis wrote. “The job of keeping the lights on is hard enough during a challenging time for the energy industry. We don’t need the government making it any harder or more expensive for you.” And this problem affects other states, too.

He said further that Palmetto Electric Cooperative is joining other organizations to fight the EPA’s dangerous rules in court and in the Congress.

Decisions like this one are made by bureaucrats in government offices, not by the one law-making body that we have: Congress. Where the environment is concerned, decisions like this one are often the result of political positions and ideals, not on actual problems and needs, and the effects they will have on the people that the bureaucrats exist to properly serve.

The “administrative state” must be brought under control. Our government needs to be reduced in its degree of control, its size and its cost. Its focus must be restored so that it works for the good of all of the people, not just the political faction that most government employees favor, whatever that may be.

In the election next month there is the opportunity to do one of two things: either continue the current trend and increase the size, cost and control of government by electing radical Democrat liberals/socialists, or say a loud “no” to that.