Is the EPA a Job Killing Machine? (Hint: No.)

[ProSense]

Is the EPA a Job Killing Machine? (Hint: No.)

— By Kevin Drum

Is the EPA a job-killing machine? On the off chance that empirical evidence still matters to anyone, Dave Roberts summarizes a bit of recent research into this question from the Economic Policy Institute. First up, Isaac Shapiro takes a look at the costs and benefit of several new EPA rules:

The dollar value of the benefits of the major rules finalized or proposed by the EPA so far during the Obama administration exceeds the rules’ costs by an exceptionally wide margin. Health benefits in terms of lives saved and illnesses avoided will be enormous. Expressed in 2010 dollars:

• The combined annual benefits from all final rules exceed their costs by $32 billion to $142 billion a year. The benefit/cost ratio ranges from 4-to-1 to 22-to-1.
  
  
• The combined annual benefit s from four proposed rules examined here exceed their costs by $160 billion to $440 billion a year. The benefit/cost ratio ranges from 12-to-1 to 32-to-1.

OK, fine: the rules will save lives and improve our health. But at what cost in the tidal wave of jobs lost just to get a bit of mercury and soot out of the air? EPI's Josh Bivens runs the numbers for one of EPA's biggest initiatives, the "air toxics" rule. Here's the final tabulation:



So there are job losses in some sectors and job gains in others. The middle estimate for the aggregate effect is +61,000 jobs. When you account for spending multipliers, the aggregate effect is somewhere between 77,000 and 166,000 jobs.

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[ProSense]

1. Bachmann: Repeal The ‘Job-Killing’ EPA

Think Progress: Bachmann: Repeal The ‘Job-Killing’ EPA

[blueclown]

2. You mean the right-wing lies?

I'm shocked. Shocked.

[bhikkhu]

3. Because it was great back when rivers were catching fire

all those things back in the 50's - 70's that few people remember today. I bet nobody really remembers what it was like in the cities on hot days in traffic, how you could spend a whole day nauseous just from breathing the air.

And so on...like so many things, the EPA came about to take care of some really rotten conditions, and it has been very successful. Turn it around the other way, and we'll be marching full speed to third-world status. You know what kind of jobs you get in a country where the natural environment is dead or dying.