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The EPA’s Regulatory
Avalanche
By Kathleen Hartnett White
The nation’s most powerful regulatory agency, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), is on a collision course with America’s still
fragile economic recovery. As I outlined in a report published Monday
by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, 10 to 25 major EPA rules are
scheduled to take effect over the next few years, each with a
multi-billion dollar price tag and highly debatable benefits for public
health.
In 2010, EPA regulations accounted for $23 billion of the estimated $26
billion total cost of new federal regulation. Expect a far higher tab
from this new batch.
Consider the mercury rule restricting emissions from power plants,
finalized last December 21. At $11 billion, the rule is the EPA’s most
expensive ever.
An independent analysis by the National Economic Research Association
found that the rule could increase average retail electric rates
between 12 and 24 percent and lead to 180,000 annual job losses through
2020. The National Electricity Reliability Council concluded that the
rule, in conjunction with other EPA rules, could force the closure of 8
percent of the nation’s total electric generation.
For such a costly rule to be justified, common sense begs for
commensurate benefits. Although EPA claims huge benefits from the rule,
only $6 million, or 0.004 percent of the $140 billion of alleged health
benefits, come from reducing mercury. The rest supposedly derive from
coincidental reductions in fine particulate matter (i.e. dust) long
regulated by EPA at a level fully protective of human health.
Even total elimination of mercury emissions from U.S. power plants
would not decrease the risk of mercury exposure at harmful levels.
Deposition of mercury is a global phenomenon to which U.S power plants
contribute less than 0.5 percent. Natural sources such as volcanoes and
fires dwarf all man-made releases.
Nevertheless, EPA devised a safe mercury limit two to three times
stricter than the World Health Organization and the federal Food and
Drug Administration.
The mercury rule is just the beginning. Using the same faulty analysis,
the EPA has cranked out new restrictions on everything from cement
kilns to industrial boilers and new federal ozone standards approaching
or below natural levels that would exist without human activity.
The EPA has also asserted authority to regulate carbon emissions. EPA
is now treading lightly on greenhouse gases, but federal courts may
force EPA to regulate as the law requires. This means, by EPA’s own
estimate, regulation of more than 6 million facilities – including
hotels and schools – and the need for 230,000 additional EPA employees.
The sheer volume, stringency, and speed of EPA’s new regulations might
suggest that America has an air quality crisis. Indeed, this is exactly
the impression that the agency’s top brass conveys. On HBO’s “Real Time
with Bill Maher,” Administrator Lisa Jackson said, “We are actually at
the point in many areas of this country where on a hot summer day, the
best advice you can give is don’t go outside. Don’t breathe the air. It
may kill you.”
The reality is quite different. As EPA’s own data indicates, the last
several decades have seen remarkable improvements in air quality in the
United States. Since 1970, aggregate emissions of the six criteria
pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act have decreased 53 percent.
EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory documents a 65 percent reduction since
1988. And mercury emissions have declined by 58 percent between 1990
and 2008.
EPA’s actions over the past three years represent a disturbing
departure from the relatively balanced incremental, scientifically
justified regulations evolving over the 40-year history of the Clean
Air Act. The Act, however, no longer furthers cost-efficient regulation
based on rigorous science. And its broad delegation of authority to EPA
is easily manipulated by activist regulators determined to impose
energy policies repeatedly rejected by the U.S. Congress.
Absent decisive congressional action, it may be many years before our
economy digs out from the crushing cost of the EPA’s regulatory
avalanche.
Go to the link below to download Kathleen Hartnett White’s paper, that
reviews 10 EPA rules now adopted, proposed, or scheduled for proposal:
Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR);
Electric Utility Maximum Available Control Technology Standards for
Hazardous Air Pollutants (Utility MACT);
Industrial Boiler MACT;
Portland Cement Kiln MACT;
Cooling Water Intake Structure Rule (CWIS);
Coal Combustion Residuals Rule (CCR);
Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS);
Particulate Matter (PM) NAAQS;
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Regulation of Stationary Sources;
GHG Regulation of Mobile Sources.
Kathleen Hartnett White is director of the Armstrong Center for Energy
and Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She was
commissioner and chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality from 2001 to 2007.
Read the article and more at Mail Magazine 24
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