[MADISON] Wisconsin utility companies will be forced to raise electrical rates in 2012 thanks to new regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be imposed on Wisconsin, explains the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Public Service Corporation announced that rates will be increased by 6.8% instead of 3.4% due to a ruling on “Cross-State Air Pollution.” Large energy users such a paper mills and other troubled industries may see their energy costs increase by 9%.

The EPA ruling is intended to require installation of pollution control equipment on Wisconsin’s coal fired power plants, which adds to utility costs, and will not be complete by January, forcing Wisconsin to purchase power from other states and to use more expensive fuels.

“By sending the EPA to Wisconsin, the federal government’s goal is not environmental improvements. The goal is centralization of power. The tactic is to employ unelected, unresponsive, unscientific bureaucrats to further increase Wisconsin dependence on Washington through arbitrary and economically crippling regulations,” explains Terry Gray, Libertarian Party of Wisconsin Chair.

“This isn’t about clean air, which is adequately monitored by our own Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. This is about a sovereign state seeking a level of independence as guaranteed by the Constitution and a federal government which seeks to undermine the American system of federalism and the Bill of Rights.”

A Wisconsin businessman with a multi-state, international industry commented, calling the move, “economic suicide.”

Libertarians advocate for the Wisconsin Legislature to invoke the Tenth Amendment and send the unconstitutional EPA, invented by President Richard Nixon, back to Washington.

The LPWI is Wisconsin’s third party. Libertarians seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals control their own lives and are never forced to compromise their values or sacrifice their property.

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