Phil Kerpen

Natural-gas companies and environmental groups team up to kill affordable energy.

By Phil Kerpen
July 16, 2012 4:00 A.M.

In June, the U.S. Senate voted, in effect, to shut down at least 35 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, 10 percent of America’s coal-fired power, by failing to overturn new mercury-emission rules for power plants. But even that’s nothing compared to what could well be President Obama’s most enduring, and senseless, legacy: the power-plant greenhouse-gas regulations, bought and paid for by the natural-gas industry, set to become permanent after the election, likely ending coal-fired electricity in America.

Read the rest at National Review Online and fight back at WarOnCoal.com.

By Phil Kerpen
Published July 09, 2012 FoxNews.com

On the heels of the widespread exposure of President Obama’s health care law as a massive middle-class tax hike, his decision to bring back his infamous plan for “tax hikes on the rich” is an economic and political disaster.

Read the rest at Fox News Opinion.

A couple of weeks before President Obama's big immigration dictate, his IRS issued a more quiet but no less outrageous edict that attempts to up-end the ability of states to opt out of his health care law's new entitlement.

When the law was written, its supporters assumed states would be eager to participate and get access to enormous subsidies from federal taxpayers. Instead, more than half the states challenged the constitutionality of the law in court, and at least that many are likely to refuse to set up the so-called exchanges through which the new entitlement subsidies flow.

Now the IRS, likely at the direction of an Obama White House increasingly concerned that the whole law will crumble due to the number of states opting out, is scrambling to bureaucratically rewrite the law and allow subsidies to flow through federal exchanges.

Read the rest at American Commitment and urge Congress to repeal the health care law at NoMandateTax.com.

By Phil Kerpen
Published July 03, 2012 FoxNews.com

The Constitution is a document of specific, enumerated, and therefore limited federal powers that has, unfortunately, been stretched over the years to accommodate an ever larger and more intrusive federal government. Chief Justice John Roberts recently struck another blow against limited government by creating a new, unrestrained power to use taxes to compel activity (even if the proponents of the tax insist vehemently that it is not a tax!).

President Obama no doubt rejoiced, not just because his health care law would stand, but because he has long seen the Constitution’s limits on federal power as a problem to be overcome.

Read the rest at Fox News Opinion.

Thursday morning’s high drama was intense out front on the Supreme Court steps, where I had the honor of standing with my friends from the Tea Party Patriots. The nervous energy before the decision was palpable. The concern about the future of our country that brought so many activists into the tea party movement in the first place had only intensified since, and the contrast between their intelligent, heart-felt speeches and the hypnotic chants of the counter-protesters was stark.

Read the rest at American Commitment.

There has never been a more “shovel ready” project in history than the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been exhaustively engineered, studied, reviewed, and re-reviewed as Obama tries to kill the project without admitting that’s what he’s doing. At stake are about 20,000 immediate jobs, a secure supply of North American oil, billions in private investment, and the global efficiency benefits of connecting a major crude source to the world’s most efficient refining center. The latest news is that rather than simply say “yes,” Obama is conducting yet another open-ended study.

Read the rest at American Commitment.