Since taking office, Donald Trump and his series of industry lobbyists at the EPA, FDA, and Interior Department have made an express point of deregulating toxic chemicals. And whether it’s allowing more heavy metals up smokestacks, blessing toxic sludge entering streams, or refusing to ban pesticides that have been proven to harm both people and the environment, the excuse that Trump gives is the same—it saves money. Whenever Trump recites all the “wins” he’s had over the last two years, he’s certain to mention something about all the billions supposedly saved by knocking down these regulations.
Not surprisingly. Trump is wrong. Not just wrong on the morality of allowing companies to disperse chemicals that wipe out everything from butterflies to brain cells. He’s simply wrong on the dollars. As The Guardian reports, it’s Trump’s de-regulation that is expensive. Placing tight restrictions on toxic chemicals could actually save billions.
As an example of how this works, look at lead in gasoline. Compounds containing lead were originally added to gasoline decades earlier because engines of the day were having a hard time getting around problems of “knocking” without lead’s octane-enhancing properties. But long before lead was removed from the nation’s fuel supply, both engines and fuel formulation had changed enough that it was no longer necessary. Even so, both oil companies and car companies fought the idea of dropping lead because it was simply easier to keep on doing what had been done — even though that meant a layer of lead was literally spreading over the world and contained in every breath.
But studies have shown that phasing out lead from gasoline generated an astounding $200 billion a year in “stimulus” to the economy. That stimulus comes because led levels in children “plummeted” after the EPA ruled to eliminate lead. The benefits of that act have appeared everywhere. In health care. In education. In industry. And, many would argue, in a sharp decline in crime.
A new study published in health and science journal The Lancet indicates that other chemicals out there are having a similar effect on the economy — and the combined effect is even worse than that of a blanket of lead.
The Lancet researchers estimated that one particular group of chemicals — those that disrupt the endocrine system—contribute to disease and generate costs that are equal to one percent of the GDP in Europe. But that’s Europe. In the United States, the affect of these chemicals is worse. Much worse.
The annual costs associated with endocrine disrupting chemicals were estimated to be $340 billion in the United States. That’s not just the cost of treatment for diseases associated with these chemicals, or the cost of lost work time from those affected. It’s also the cost of 11 million IQ points lost to the effect of EDCs in the environment, food supplies, and products. And yes, an IQ point is an arbitrary unit and not really reflective of someone’s worth as a person—but as this study shows, there is a connection between that arbitrary value and someone’s worth when it comes to a lifetime of earnings.
That effect can be hard to see because it’s distributed. As the report notes, “If one child loses IQ points, the parent or teacher may not even notice.” But the impact of 100,000 or 1 million or 11 million IQ points has an impact that’s felt by the nation. Over the course of a lifetime, each lost IQ point can mean an almost 2% drop in personal economic activity. For a child who might generate $1 million over a working lifetime, the cost might be about $20,000. Again, spread out over decades, that loss might not even be apparent to an individual. But the more people who suffer damage, the more zeroes pile up in the net effect.
And, as previous studies have found, EDCs can have a more direct and obvious effect in promoting disease and disabilities profoundly affect lives.
The reason that Trump can make the argument that deregulating chemicals saves money is because it’s so easy to point at the people who get that money—the millionaires and billionaires who run and own the companies involved. The reason that it’s so hard to show the much greater amounts that are saved through regulation is because that cost is dispersed across the population. You don’t have to die of lead poisoning to be affected. You don’t have to live in Flint to suffer from the cost of decisions made there. And you don’t have to be aware of the effects of EDCs and other chemicals to find your life, and your nation, deeply affected by their use.