Before any rational discussion of the economic or scientific merits of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan can begin (it will be announced Monday), it is necessary to take his rhetoric about its benefits off the table.  The president stated Sunday that his plan is “protecting the world we leave to our children.”  To be generous to the president, that is a gross exaggeration.

By the Environmental Protection Agency’s own calculations, the plan will reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide by about 10% from what they are now projected to be in 2030. Since by that time the U.S. will be producing less than 20 percent of global CO2 emissions, the result is at most 2 percent less growth in global emissions.

Based on the calculations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that will make less than one-tenth of a degree of difference in global temperatures.

Contrary to the president’s claims about saving lives and reducing energy costs, his own EPA has found that the drastic cuts they are ordering will increase electricity costs, while doing next to nothing to slow the pace of climate change.