U.S. electricity consumers struggling to pay utility bills are getting hurt by U.S. EPA's crackdown on coal-fired power, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity said in a report today.

The lobby group's 15-page analysis says people making $50,000 a year or less spent 12 percent of after-tax income on energy in 2001. In 2013, they are projected to spend 20 percent of their income on energy. The estimate for Americans making less than $30,000 per year is 27 percent.

ACCCE is using the numbers to tout coal's contribution to cheap electricity and fight back against EPA efforts to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants.

"While American families fight to secure their economic footing, new EPA regulations are adding to their burden with higher electricity and energy costs," ACCCE President Mike Duncan said in a statement.

He said, "A typical American family is spending almost twice as much for energy today, and the cost increase is even more dramatic on lower-income, senior and minority families."

Eugene Trisko, an attorney who has worked closely with the United Mine Workers union, prepared the report for ACCCE. He cited new numbers released by the Energy Information Administration indicating that coal prices will reach $3.08 per million British thermal units by 2040 compared to $7.83 per MMBtu for natural gas.

The report also says, "Electricity prices have increased by 54 percent in nominal dollars since 1990, below the rate of inflation, while the nominal prices of residential natural gas and gasoline have nearly doubled and tripled, respectively, over this period."

Environmental groups say reports like ACCCE's ignore the lifetime costs of coal, including health and safety issues that stem from its mining and burning. They say power price increase estimates from environmental regulations are overblown.

Last year a small Alaska research and advocacy group called Ground Truth Trekking found that states' use of coal did not always correlate with lower energy prices (Greenwire, March 12, 2012).

But the National Mining Association noted that power is usually distributed on a regional rather than state level. Boosters like NMA and ACCCE want people to pay more attention to the social goods of cheap power.

Click here to read the ACCCE report.