From the Los Angeles Times:
The EPA estimates that up to 12,000 lives could be saved annually from heart attacks, lung disease and asthma attacks by implementing the new standards.
From Grist:
But what about the effects on jobs specifically? There will be short-term employment effects, no? EPI's Josh Bivens takes a look at that question in an analysis released yesterday, which homes in on the employment effects of the upcoming toxics rule. He does what too few economic analysts do and takes into account the fact that the economy is currently in a state of excess capacity, with low demand and high unemployment. In that situation, regs that bring investment capital off the sidelines do not necessarily divert it from other productive uses; it's just sitting there, idle.
After balancing the negative (higher utility costs and energy prices) and positive (investment in pollution control sector) employment effects, Bivens concludes, "claims that this regulation destroys jobs are flat wrong: the jobs-impact of the rule will be modest, but it will be positive."
As noted in the Los Angeles Times article, the ozone rules have been delayed four times since 2010, even though the EPA head noted recently that the current Bush-era rules were "not legally defensible." Now we're delaying them for yet more "review," and it's going to cost jobs, money and lives.
All so that a very small set of businessmen and ideologically incompetent, economy-wrecking Republicans don't get the goddamn vapors. Or so they can keep giving the rest of us vapors, or something.