ShareThisWASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency, charged with the monumental task of keeping the air pure and the streams clear, is under persistent attack this campaign season for contributing to the nation's economic woes through what one would-be president characterized as a "regulatory reign of terror."
Republican presidential candidates have viciously attacked the EPA with Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, calling for its elimination. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich promotes an overhaul to essentially disembowel the agency. Before dropping out of the race Thursday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry promoted changes -- prohibiting it from regulating greenhouse gases and various other pollutants -- that would render the EPA toothless.
"If you look at the EPA's record, it is increasingly radical," Gingrich said during a Jan. 8 debate in New Hampshire. "It's increasingly imperious. It doesn't cooperate, it doesn't collaborate, and it doesn't take into account economics."
The attacks have proved so overwhelming that President Barack Obama felt motivated to visit EPA headquarters on Jan. 10 and jump to the beleaguered agency's defense.
"We don't have to choose between dirty air and dirty water or a growing economy," Obama said.
The GOP attacks are ironic given that the EPA was created during a Republican administration -- under President Richard Nixon in December 1970 -- and charged with comprehensively regulating environmental pollutants.
But Republicans have become increasingly disenchanted with the agency, maintaining that its regulatory activities have cost the nation jobs and increased power costs. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, said the EPA's "unprecedented wave of stringent and inflexible regulations pose a serious threat to the economy."
Whitfield cited two new rules issued by the EPA on Dec. 21: the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which a federal court has been blocked from implementation, and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, known as the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology, or MACT, rule. The regulations were implemented as the result of 1990 Clean Air Act amendments and will impose billions of dollars of new costs and complex regulatory requirements on America's power sector.
The cross-state regulation requires 27 upwind states to reduce sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions to limit pollution problems in downwind states. Meanwhile, the new air toxic standards establish levels for emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases -- standards that the industry insists will force the shutdown of some older coal-fired plants. The EPA estimates implementing the rules will cost $9.6 billion. The power industry asserts it's more likely to cost in the range of $100 billion, a sum that will have to be passed on to utility customers.
The new anti-pollution rules will have the greatest impact on states that rely predominantly on coal for power production.
"Put simply, EPA's Utility MACT, when combined with the myriad other regulations proposed, enacted, or currently planned by the agency, presents a near and present danger to the nation's economy and the reliability of the electric grid," said Scott H. Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the rules, 20 years in the making, are needed to protect the public health and will "benefit the American people for years to come."
"By cutting emissions that are linked to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses like asthma, these standards represent a major victory for clean air and public health and especially for the health of our children," Jackson said.
Dr. Albert Rizzo, national volunteer chair for the American Lung Association and a pulmonary and critical care physician in Newark, Del., cited the move as "a huge victory for public health."
"The Lung Association expects all oil and coal-fired power plants to act now to protect all Americans, especially our children, from the health risks imposed by these dangerous air pollutants," he said.
The EPA notes that the nation has never had limits on emissions of mercury and other air toxins before. The new rules are expected to prevent more than 100,000 heart and asthma attacks each year while providing important health protections to the most vulnerable.
Despite the enormous implementation costs, EPA insists the value of the air quality improvements for human health alone will total $37 billion to $90 billion every year.
(Contact Bill Straub of The Evansville Courier in Indiana at williamgstraub(at)yahoo.com
