The Hill News

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faced scrutiny on Capitol Hill again this week over the high costs of its record number of environmental regulations.  During a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee, the agency’s air chief denied consequences of the Clean Air Act on jobs and the economy and argued that her agency’s rules relating to automobiles and fuel economy actually creates jobs and support small businesses.

These claims echo those of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who testified earlier this summer before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and cited specious economic benefits of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

An EPA report “The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020” states that the economic value of the Act’s air quality improvements will “reach almost $2 trillion for the year, a value which vastly exceeds the cost of efforts to comply with the requireme! nts of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.” The EPA report goes on to state that “Even if one were to adopt the extreme assumption that air pollution has no effect on premature mortalityâ€"or that avoiding such effects has no valueâ€"the benefits of reduced non-fatal health effects and visibility improvements alone are more than twice the total cost of compliance with 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment requirements.”

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