Via Mark Thoma, Brad Plumer:
Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.
Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. …
So, who’s right? This month, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which conducts policy research for members of Congress, has been circulating a paper that tries to calmly sort through the shouting match. … And the upshot is that CRS is awfully skeptical of the “train wreck” predictions. …
the report says, industry groups have almost certainly overstated the costs. …
In one example, the EPA estimates that an air-transport rule to clamp down on smog-causing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide would help prevent 21,000 cases of bronchitis and 23,000 heart attacks, and save 36,000 lives. That’s $290 billion in health benefits, compared with $2.8 billion per year in costs by 2014. “In most cases,” CRS notes, “the benefits are larger.”
From Thoma:
I think it’s hard to deny that there is market failure in the electricity generation industry. The externalities are pretty clear. If this was about making markets work, then the debate ought to be about how best to force firms to internalize all of the costs of production (and if some firms are unprofitable when they are forced to pay all costs, then that’s the market speaking and Republicans ought to listen). …
But that’s not how the debate is carried out. It seems to be more of a knee-jerk reflexive defense whenever supporter’s interests are threatened in any way. Politicians in particular hide behind a call for free markets without ever explaining how letting markets be free to fail, and fail badly, is the best choice for society (not in every case, of course, there are certainly those who are ideologically consistent).
ALEC’s dire warning about the end of coal production in America brings to mind this classic TNR post, “Women’s Suffrage and Other Visions of Right-Wing Apocalypse.” It’s strange to imagine that same-sex marriage could destroy America, when we know from past conservative pronouncements that child labor restrictions, auto emissions regulations, and Medicare destroyed it long ago.
