-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is completely put of control. Now it wants to implement new regulations that would destroy 183,000 private sector jobs every year. Yes, even after Obama has destroyed the economy and jobs we do have he wants to destroy even more.
The EPA’s new rules, according to PennEnergy, would be disastrous to our already flagging economy.
The analysis, done on behalf of ACCCE by NERA, relies on state-of-the-art modeling tools, as well as government data for almost all of its assumptions. NERA’s analysis projects that EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and proposed Maximum Achievable Control Technology, coal combustion residuals, and cooling water intake requirements for power plants would, over the 2012-2020 period:
- Cost the power industry $21 billion per year;
- Cause an average loss of 183,000 jobs per year;
- Increase electricity costs by double digits in many regions of the U.S.;
- Cost consumers over $50 billion more for natural gas; and
- Reduce the disposable income of the average American family by $270 a year.
PennEnergy and other energy companies were urging Congress to pass the TRAIN Act (H.R. 2401) being introduced by Rep. John Sullivan (R, OK). Sullivan’s legislation would create a committee to analyze 10 EPA regulation changes to see if they need to be altered or eliminated. The House has since passed it.
Spokesmen at the White House has said that Obama will likely veto this bill if it reaches his desk.
While the Administration strongly supports careful analysis of the economic effects of regulation, the approach taken in H.R. 2401 would slow or undermine important public health protections.
Obama’s new EPA regs aren’t just anti-Jobs regs, though. Heck, after all as the Daily Caller notes it creates jobs. Well, if you consider 230,000 new government jobs real jobs! Which no one of any sense would.
The EPA is asking taxpayers to fund up to 230,000 new government workers to process all the extra paperwork, at an estimated cost of $21 billion. That cost does not include the economic impact of the regulations themselves.
“Hiring the 230,000 full-time employees necessary to produce the 1.4 billion work hours required to address the actual increase in permitting functions would result in an increase in Title V administration costs of $21 billion per year,” the EPA wrote in the court brief.
(H/T Gateway Pundit)