Via
Grist:
[T]here is extensive literature showing that the costs of environmental regulations are more than offset by a broad range of economic, public health, and jobs-related benefits. Additionally, initial cost estimates are consistently found to be exaggerated. Economists and researchers who have compared actual costs with initial projections report that regulations generally end up costing far less than the dire predictions from industry and even, as an RFF study [PDF] shows, below cost projections by the Environmental Protection Agency. [...]
Though costs have always been highlighted by industry -- and many policymakers -- the fact is that public benefits associated with environmental regulations consistently outweigh the costs. For example, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently released its thirteenth annual Report to Congress [PDF], detailing the estimated benefits and costs of federal regulations, finding that:
The estimated annual benefits of major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB from Oct. 1, 1999, to Sept. 30, 2009, for which agencies estimated and monetized both benefits and costs, are in the aggregate between $128 billion and $616 billion, while the estimated annual costs are in the aggregate between $43 billion and $55 billion.
For clean air and water regulations promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the same time period, the estimated aggregate annual costs range from $26 to $29 billion, while benefits range from $82 to $533 billion [PDF].
Doesn't this sound familiar, at this point? In an effort to cut tens of billions, we lose hundreds of billions?
These regulations aren't anti-business, they're just common sense. Limiting pollution saves us all money. Lots of money. But once again, we are so bent on catering to the needs of a very small subset of people (for ideological reasons, for lobbying reasons, for what-the-hell-ever reasons) that we're willing to damage both citizen health and the wider economy just so we can achieve ... what, exactly?
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