Electricity Freedom Act could offer support for Kentucky's energy sector

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Last week we reported on the Intrastate Coal and Use Act, a powerful new tool to combat those at the Environmental Protection Agency who feel perfectly justified in picking winners and losers in the states' energy markets.

But that's not the only new tool available to the states - or the only piece of model legislation - to defend the states' Constitutional freedoms found in the 9th and 10th Amendments. Also available to tweak some of these bureaucrats' overreaching attitudes is the Electricity Freedom Act.

The Electricity Freedom Act - also passed at the American Legislative Exchange Council's task force on energy and the environment - declares that states have no obligation to enact a tax on consumers of electricity by forcing utility companies to generate power from unproven alternative energy sources.

With the current administration about to embark on a second term, such an act is unfortunately necessary. 29 states have already passed so-called "Renewable Portfolio Standards" in recent years - regulations that force power companies to abandon affordable energy sources in the name of radical environmentalism.

This model bill should come as relief to those living in the Bluegrass State, where 93% of electricity is generated by - you guessed it - Kentucky coal.