Energy Policy Analyst William Yeatman tells the story of how the EPA is forcing a power plant in New Mexico to install $370 million worth of equipment to improve visibility in a nearby park. Peer-reviewed research says the visibility improvement has a 35 percent chance of being perceptible to the human eye. New Mexican electricity consumers, meanwhile, will be able to perceive their bills going up by an average of $82 per year.
EPA
One of the major developments in regulation over the last 30 years has been the rise of cost-benefit analysis. At first, agencies squirmed and resisted. But then they realized something: they’re in charge of their own accounting. It’s not an independent audit. There’s no third-party involved. An agency is free to use its own standards and its own measures when calculating its own regulatory costs and benefits.
When it’s that easy to game the system, of course agencies are going to lowball their costs and highball their benefits. This is on full display in the Office of Management and Budget’s pithily titled “Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local, and Tribal Entities.” [PDF]
On page 13 of the report, Table 1-1 lists cost-benefit numbers for selected agencies for their major rules (costing $100 million or more) over the last ten years. It can be hard to quantify costs with precision, so agencies typically report a range estimate. EPA, for example, estimates that its major rules cost from $23.3 billion to $28.5 billion over the last decade.
Benefits are much trickier to calculate. EPA estimates that its major rules have had benefits of $81.8 billion to $550.7 billion — a range of nearly a factor of 7. They might as well say they have idea. Why such a large range? Because EPA is trying to put dollar figures on items such as its air quality rules lowering the number of premature deaths. To do that, they have to pull numbers out of thin air.
As my colleague Angela Logomasini noted in a post in January, the EPA has rebuffed the desperate pleas of lawmakers and residents to un-ban certain pesticides for the treatment of bed bugs. When asked why Ohio’s Gov. Ted Strickland’s request for an emergency exemption to use two very effective, but banned pesticides to fight the parasites, Lisa Jackson, head administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency replied that bed bugs were simply “a nuisance.” “We’re lucky – bed bugs don’t carry disease. But if you have to sleep in a bed and worry about being bitten all night, it sort of messes with your mind. And we get that,” said Jackson. How nice.
Clearly Ms. Jackson hasn’t spent much time speaking with people who have had bed bugs. More than a mere nuisance, they can force families to shell out thousands of dollars in repeat treatments, hospital visits (if reactions to the bites are severe), medication such as antibiotics, damaged relationships, damaged psyches, and damaged careers. Despite her sympathy, Ms. Jackson denied Ohio’s request for an emergency exemption.
At the time, Jackson believed that bed bugs do not carry disease. Unfortunately, we know better now. A recent study out of Canada found bed bugs carrying the drug-resistant strain of the Staphylococcus bacterium (also known as the MRSA and a “superbug”). While they have not been able to conclusively prove that the bed bugs are spreading the disease to their human hosts, their carrying the disease while causing the host to scratch the skin certainly seems like it would increase the likelihood of infection. In an article in the June 2011 issue of Emerging Infectious Disease, a CDC public health journal, discussed the possible correlation between increasing rates of MRSA infection and increasing infestations of bed bugs.
Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government notes here that one of the reasons the American economy is stuck in neutral is that investors in new projects are being stymied by environmental regulations. The example he gives is a huge proposed new copper and gold mine in Alaska called the Pebble Project that is being studied to death.
The co-owners of the Pebble Project are a British and a Canadian company. They want to invest billions of dollars in a mine that would probably create close to a thousand high-paying jobs for at least fifty years. It would also add tens of billions of dollars to the American economy and pay billions of dollars in royalties to the State of Alaska, which owns the land and subsurface rights.
The Pebble Project’s owners have reportedly already spent $125 million on the environmental research reports required to open the mine. But opponents have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to deny a Clean Water Act permit for the mine before the owners have even applied for an operating permit. Incredibly, the EPA is seriously considering this outrageous petition. And even more outrageously, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson this spring attended and spoke at a reception for opponents of the mine, which was hosted in the Supreme Court by retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor!
Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s regulatory czar, announced today that the administration intends to repeal regulations from 30 different agencies. CEI Vice President for Strategy Iain Murray thinks this is a good step, though a small one. He estimates today’s proposal would save about $1.5 billion, which is one-tenth of one percent of the $1.75 trillion total burden of federal regulation.
Congress can always change the law if it chooses. For example, it passed the 1991 Civil Rights Act, which overturned many Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But you would never know that from reading Virginia Senator Jim Webb’s letter today in the Wall Steely Journal. In it, Webb defends his vote against a Republican amendment to block EPA regulation of carbon dioxide, an amendment supported by many Virginians because the EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide would wipe out thousands of Virginia jobs in industries that emit carbon dioxide. (Carbon dioxide is the gas needed by plants to conduct photosynthesis. It is not poisonous or dirty, and humans emit carbon dioxide every time they breathe.)
Webb claims he voted against the amendment because the amendment would have been “a violation of the Supreme Court holding in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency,” a case that interpreted a provision of the Clean Air Act to potentially expand the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
The amendment would have greatly reduced future energy costs, thus saving countless jobs. In 2008, President Obama admitted that under his greenhouse gas regulations, people’s utility bills would “skyrocket,” and coal-fired power plants would go “bankrupt.” The EPA’s own internal documents show that the administration’s global warming regulations will result in a massive “loss of steel, paper, aluminum, chemical, and cement manufacturing jobs.”
This is a few days old, but it’s worth mentioning: “EPA Tangles With New Critic: Labor.”
The labor unions were supportive of the Waxman-Markey bill in the House, and are clearly much more aligned with Democrats than Republicans, especially given the collective bargaining issues that have emerged in the past month. However, they aren’t supportive of EPA’s current efforts to regulate mercury, carbon dioxide, etc. The article quotes a union leader:
“If the EPA issues regulations that cost jobs in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Republicans will blast the President with it over and over,” says Stewart Acuff, chief of staff to the president of the Utility Workers Union of America. “Not just the President. Every Democratic [lawmaker] from those states.”
This is certainly true, and it would seem to counter the (rest of) left’s argument that none of these costs are trivial, that EPA regulations will actually create jobs, are a free lunch, etc.
On January 13, the Environmental Protection Agency vetoed the issuance of a Clean Water Act permit by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Mingo Logan Coal Company for the Spruce No 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. This is the first time EPA has used this authority.
We’re in the midst of a difficult economy, and EPA’s unprecedented action will result in the loss of 250 jobs, paying on average $62,000, so you would think the EPA has compelling case against the Spruce No 1 Mine. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.
I audited the EPA’s veto, titled “Final Determination of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Pursuant to 404(c) of the Clean Water Act Concerning the Spruce No. 1 Mine, Logan County, West Virginia (“Final Determination”), and what I found was troubling.
The document is pure environmental hyperbole. It is riddled with mistakes, incorrect citations, and false certainty. Indeed, virtually all of the EPA’s definitive claims about the “unacceptable adverse impacts” to non-insect wildlife are unsupported by the literature it cites. Among the lowlights:
- The EPA’s claim that “6.6 miles of high quality stream” will be buried conveniently omits the fact that 99.6% of the streams are intermittent or ephemeral, that they scored “below average” on a habitat assessment, and that they fall well short of meeting West Virginia’s definition of “high quality” streams.
- The EPA asserts that five species of fish would be buried, despite the fact that no fish were found at the site.
- The EPA commits numerous referencing mistakes, including direct two misquotes. Throughout the document, the EPA draws incorrect conclusions from the literature it cites.
- The EPA has a serious language problem. Science writing is performed in the conditional. EPA, however, almost uniformly uses the declarative case. As its veto is based on a literature review, the EPA repeatedly infers certainty where there is none.
See for yourself. In Chapter 5, titled “Basis for Determination,” the EPA explains the “unacceptable adverse effects” that justify its decision. Below is table of contents for the EPA’s “Basis for Determination.” For all the sections within which the EPA makes dubious claims, I’ve created a link to my review. Each link contains the EPA’s thesis (or theses) for that section, taken directly from the text of the document, and then a rebuttal in italics.
V. Basis for Determination
A. Section 404(c) Standards
B. Evaluation of Impacts
C. Unacceptable Adverse Impacts on Wildlife within the Spruce No. 1 Mine Project Area
2. Salamanders & Other Herpetofauna
3. Fish
*A Note on the Legality of the EPA’s Use of “Direct” Impacts To Justify Its Veto
D. Unacceptable Adverse Impacts on Wildlife Downstream of the Discharge of Dredged or Fill Material from the Spruce No. 1 Mine
1. Increases in Pollutants Harmful to Wildlife
a. Selenium
2. Macroinvertebrates
a. Impacts Due to Changes in Water Chemistry
b. Food Web Effects of Altered Macroinvertebrate Communities
3. Salamanders & Other Herpetofauna
4. Fish
a. Potential To Promote the Growth of Golden Algae
b. Increased Exposure to Selenium
In summary, the EPA has evidence that certain genera of pollution-sensitive insects would be harmed downstream of the Spruce No 1 Mine, due to increases in salinity discharge from the project. Everything else (i.e., all of the EPA’s claims about amphibians, fish, and birds) is either scientifically unfounded or legally irrelevant.
The EPA’s Ad Hoc “Science”
When the EPA first objected to the permit, it was much more honest about the underlying science. In a letter dated September 3, 2009, in which the EPA first expressed its Clean Water Act concerns about the Spruce No 1 Mine to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it said that
“Since the issuance of the permit in January 2007, new information and circumstances have arisen which justify reconsideration of the permit. Based upon prior research and confirmed in 2008 by research conducted by EPA, we are concerned data were available and was not evaluated…In particular, we are concerned about the project’s potential to degrade downstream water quality, and to cause or contribute to potential excursions of West Virginia’s narrative water quality standards”
The 2008 study cited by the EPA in the letter provided evidence that saline effluent from mountaintop mining operations in Appalachia harmed certain pollution sensitive insects. According to the EPA, this “new information” engendered concerns about “the project’s potential to degrade downstream water quality.” In the Final Determination, however, the EPA states that its “conclusion that the Spruce 1 Mine as authorized would cause unacceptable adverse effects on wildlife is not dependent on a conclusion that West Virginia’s water quality standards will be violated at or downstream of the site (Final Determination p 51).”
Between the September 2009 letter and the January 2011 Final Determination, the EPA changed its justification. In the EPA’s initial objection to the Spruce No 1 Mine permit, it stated that its concern was the degradation of downstream water quality. And by “degradation,” EPA was referring to the extirpation of certain pollution-sensitive insects. But in its Final Determination, the EPA claims that degraded water quality is not its concern. Instead, it broadened its objections to include “unacceptable adverse impacts” to wildlife caused by the Spruce No 1 Mine. What happened?
It appears as if the EPA believed that its initial objection to the Spruce No 1 Mine-that it would harm pollution-sensitive insects-wasn’t meaty enough to justify an action that would prevent the creation of 250 well-paying jobs. After all, few Americans would rally around an administration that is willing to trade jobs for bugs. So the EPA tried to expand its case against the mine, in order to incorporate “adverse impacts” on birds, amphibians, and fish. This sort of ad hoc “science” would explain why the EPA’s Final Determination is shoddy when it addresses adverse impacts to non-insect wildlife.
Who Governs: EPA or Elected Officials?
So, the EPA is guilty of environmental hyperbole. In its Final Determination, the EPA alleges “unacceptable adverse impacts” to amphibians, fish, and birds, but after you strip away all the pseudoscience, the EPA’s veto is based on the project’s adverse impacts to insects that aren’t even endangered species.
To the average environmental scientist, the extirpation of pollution-sensitive insects alone is enough to justify the shutdown of all surface coal mining in Appalachia. In July 2010, I attended a public peer review of the EPA’s “The Effects of Mountaintop Mines and Valley Fills on Aquatic Ecosystems of the Central Appalachian Coalfields,” and almost every scientist present (there were fourteen) was genuinely shocked-SHOCKED!-at the loss of entire orders (genera) of pollution sensitive insects downstream of surface mines.
I bet 9 out of 10 environmental scientists would oppose mountaintop mining, based solely on its adverse impact to insects. But I also bet that 9 out of 10 American non-scientists (and 10 out of 10 West Virginians) would oppose a plan to forsake 250 well paying jobs in order to protect bugs. Therein lies the rub: Elected officials, not scientists, establish priorities in this country. Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
In West Virginia, the people have spoken through their elected officials, and their support of the Spruce No 1 Mine is unequivocal and adamant.
In 2010, by a unanimous vote, the West Virginia State Legislature resolved that its definition of “water quality” are satisfied when “the aquatic community is composed of benthic invertebrate assemblages sufficient to perform the biological functions necessary to support fish communities…” In effect, the Legislature was saying that the State of West Virginia is concerned about insects only insofar as they support fish. It was a direct response to the EPA.
Shortly after the EPA’s veto, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin led a rally to protest the decision. According to the Governor, “We must stand up and show federal regulators that we will not retreat from their unfair actions. We will continue the fight not just for the Spruce Number One mine but for every coal miner, coal company and for our way of life.”
The State’s entire Congressional delegation also is on record with strong denunciations of the EPA’s veto. Here’s a roundup of statements from their press releases on the matter:
- Senator Jay Rockefeller: “I am deeply angered by the EPA’s decision to revoke the Spruce Mine permit.”
- Senator Joe Manchin: “I plan to do everything in my power to fight this decision.”
- Representative Nick Rahall: “The good news, if there is any, may be that by EPA’s finalizing this threatened action, the matter can now be taken before the courts, where I hope it will receive a thorough hearing and expeditious reversal.”
- Representative Shelley Moore Capito: “I respectfully request a legislative hearing on these new water quality requirements as soon as possible.”
- Representative David McKinley: “This is appalling.”
A unanimous legislature, the governor, the entire Congressional delegation…every single statewide elected official in West Virginia gives priority to job growth over insect-protections. This sentiment extends to the local level, too:
- Logan County Administer Roscoe “Rocky” Adkins: “As it is, it’s a huge hit and it will cost us a lot of services that will not be provided in our communities.”
- Logan County Delegate Rupert Phillips: “It’s like the EPA doesn’t want us to work. Give us our permits and we can work. Let us work. We are hard-working people and we want to work. Coal have given us our freedom.”
- Logan County School Superintendent Wilma Zigmond: “Coal keeps the lights on and our schools running.”
The people of West Virginia, through their public officials, have expressed their belief that jobs are more important than insects. The EPA is wrong to reverse these priorities.
Outgoing Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland says EPA’s response for help in the state’s battle against bed bugs is simply “not enough.” He petitioned the agency to approve an emergency, indoor use of the pesticide Propoxur. But the agency will only allow a one-time application in the state’s senior-citizen residential centers. In Today’s Columbus Dispatch, Strickland says EPA’s plan would “inadequately treat one small extension of the problem rather than the root.”
The product is acutely toxic to people who use it improperly, but it has no reported carcinogenic effects. According to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the agency won’t allow its use indoor because the possibility of adverse effects on children. She suggests that bedbugs are a serious “problem” and a “nuisance” but that the chemical might amount to “a cure that’s actually worse than the disease.”
She dismisses the likelihood that Propoxur could provide more benefits than risks. “If used wisely and against the right kind of pest, then I think it [Propoxur] will probably offer far more benefit than risk,” bedbug expert Dr. Richard Pollack of the Harvard School of Public Health told The New York Times in 2009.
However, if Jackson really wants to protect kids from toxicity and the “nuisance” of bedbugs, she should approve limited, home-use of the pesticide DDT. It helped eradicate bedbugs in the United States during the 20th century, but they returned a few decades after the EPA banned DDT.
Despite hype to the contrary, DDT is extremely safe for humans. In 1990, the Lancet reported: “The early toxicological information on DDT was reassuring; it seemed that acute risks to health were small. If the huge amounts of DDT used are taken into account, the safety record for human beings is extremely good. In the 1940s many people were deliberately exposed to high concentrations of DDT thorough dusting programmes or impregnation of clothes, without any apparent ill effect.”
But the greens’ campaign against chemicals doesn’t allow for rational approaches. Greens won’t even support DDT use to control malaria’s deadly toll around the world — allowing millions of children to die annually.
The impact such extremism is now being felt in the United States, with bedbugs just one problem. In 1992, a National Academy of Sciences report warned: “A growing problem in controlling vector-borne diseases is the diminishing supply of effective pesticides … Some manufacturers have chosen not to reregister their products because of the expenses of gathering safety data [under EPA regulations]. Partly as a result, many effective pesticides over the past 40 years to control agricultural pests and vectors of human disease are no longer available.” It looks like we may all soon have bedbugs in our homes and possibly many more dangerous pests to control.
The EPA told Virginia earlier that it would impose costly measures on Virginia Counties, measures so costly that they would result in record property tax increases in places like Fairfax County Virginia. The measures were designed to make the Chesapeake Bay cleaner. The EPA left open the door to less costly measures to achieve the same goal if Virginia could suggest any to the EPA’s liking.
Virginia has now attempted to do just that, submitting a $7 billion plan to make water going into the Chesapeake Bay purer. But The Washington Examiner reports that the EPA will likely reject it in favor of more costly measures.
So it looks like Virginia taxpayers will be paying at least $7 billion, probably a lot more, to comply with the EPA’s costly mandates. (Virginia, like most states — but unlike the federal government — has a constitutional requirement that it maintain a balanced budget, so it can’t just borrow and spend the $7 billion, it has to raise taxes to pay for it, or dump the cost on its municipal governments to raise themselves through higher property taxes.)
In addition to higher property taxes, homeowners in liberal Washington suburbs face costly new “green building” regulations at the hands of local governments. For example, the Arlington County Board is also mulling new energy regulations that could increase the cost of home renovations by as much as 40 percent.
Taxpayers in Maryland counties like Montgomery may also end up paying increased taxes due to the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay regulations.
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