EPA Should Go Ahead With Air Toxic Regs

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has delayed  its proposed regulations on toxic air pollutants emitted by power plants because of intense lobbying from Republicans in Congress, but a study by Navigant Consulting shows the rules would produce net benefits of up to $139.5 billion and create 115,520 environmental jobs.

The proposed Toxics Rule would limit emissions of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury; non-mercury metals such as lead and arsenic, and acid gases such as hydrogen chloride, from coal-fired power plants. It applies to power plants that have refused to upgrade their pollution controls. 

"The Clean Air Rules have been expected for almost 10 years and went through a detailed inter-agency review and cost-benefit analysis a few months ago. Now, under the guise of needing more analysis, some in Congress seek further delay to allow companies to continue to operate power plants without adequate pollution controls," says Joseph Otis Minott of the Clean Air Council.

Navigant’s study, Why EPA’s Mercury and Toxics Rule is Good for the Economy and America’s Workforce," shows the Utility Toxics Rule (also known as the Utility MACT) will prove even more beneficial than EPA’s conservative analysis suggests.

"Although the EPA’s Regulatory Impact Analysis already shows that the benefits of the proposed Toxics Rule dwarf its costs, I found that it also overestimates compliance costs, contrary to the claims of those calling for additional study and delay," says Charles Cicchetti Ph.D, a senior advisor to Navigant Consulting, Inc. who co-authored the study.

"In my analysis of both the Toxics Rule and what is now being called the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, I have identified a combined additional $16.5 billion in annual benefits to help the economy recover, including additional labor cost savings from avoided lost work days, reduced health and insurance costs, and increased employment." he says.

Regulating toxics emitted by power plants would have these benefits:

• $52.5-$139.5 billion a year ($10.5 billion more than EPA’s analysis)
• 115,520 new jobs (79,550 more than EPA’s analysis)
• $4.5 billion in healthcare savings (compared to EPA’s $3.445 billion)

Additionally, EPA’s analysis doesn’t account for the $7.17 billion increase in gross domestic product and the $2.7 billion increase in tax revenues expected to result from the Utility Toxics Rule.

"It is time for Congress to look out for the American people first and not the minority of power plants owners that failed to install pollution controls. Delaying the Utility Toxics and Cross-State Air Pollution rules harms the economy and the public’s health," Minott says.

Avoided Costs Are a Huge Benefit

The rule, proposed in March of this year, is designed to reduce toxic air pollution and safeguard the public from the premature deaths, asthma attacks, heart attacks, hospital admissions and other avoidable illnesses it causes.

While the EPA measured employment losses from the perspective of employees, Navigant’s report quantifies the losses incurred by employers since they typically pay for sick days and other benefits, in addition to wages for each employee.

Beyond paying employees sick leave and related payroll taxes and benefits, employers also incur additional costs due to lost productivity. Also, while EPA included some reduced health and insurance costs in its analysis, it did not consider resulting reduced administrative expenses.

"The health benefits that the EPA’s Toxics Rule will provide are indisputable. When you add in the additional economic benefits of cleaning up or shutting down old, dirty power plants, it’s like paying Americans to have less mercury and acid gases in the air they breathe," says Minott. "As Dr. Cicchetti says in his report, the nation is seldom offered such a starkly obvious public policy choice as EPA’s Toxics Rule."

"These benefits are in contrast to the excessive costs imposed by continued reliance on increasingly obsolete and uneconomic power plants, many of which are long past their useful lives and can no longer compete with newer cleaner technologies," notes John Kassel, President, Conservation Law Foundation.

"This study shows we don’t have to choose between environmental progress and economic gain. EPA’s air toxics standards will create many billions in economic benefits and tens of thousands of new jobs, while protecting public health and the environment," says Howard Learner, Executive Director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, based in Chicago.

Here’s the study: