EPA’s Regulatory Dream is Job Creators’ Nightmare

July 20, 2011

Obama’s EPA Says it Will “Stick to Its Guns” With New Regulations That Job Creators Call “the Most Expensive Environmental Regulation Ever Imposed”

Business leaders last week met with officials at Obama’s EPA, urging them to reconsider their latest regulatory onslaught that the Manufacturers Alliance says will destroy 7.3 million jobs by 2020. But as usual, the EPA refused to budge.
It’s not hard to see why job creators are voicing their concerns about the EPA. Just last week the EPA doubled-down on mandates for businesses to use technology that “doesn’t exist.” Similarly, the EPA released new rules that would even put national parks like Yellowstone out of compliance.
You’d think that with a weak economy and high unemployment, Obama’s EPA might tread lightly with new job-destroying regulations. On the contrary, the agency has put out 20 new rules—and counting.

BACKGROUND:

Business leaders last week met with officials at Obama’s EPA, urging them to reconsider their latest regulatory onslaught that the Manufacturers Alliance says will destroy 7.3 million jobs by 2020. But as usual, the EPA refused to budge:

EPA TO “STICK TO ITS GUNS” AND CONTINUE ITS JOB-DESTROYING REGULATORY ONSLAUGHT: “Nine top business and industry officials walked into EPA headquarters Friday afternoon to tell agency chief Lisa Jackson exactly what they think of her plans to tighten the federal ozone standard. But they left the meeting convinced that EPA planned to stick to its guns and are now taking their case to a higher power: The White House. They say the stricter ozone standards would hurt both industry and President Barack Obama’s chances for reelection.” (Robin Bravender, “Industry: EPA Hurts Obama in 2012,” Politico, 7/15/2011)

MANUFACTURERS ALLIANCE: EPA OZONE RULE WILL DESTROY 7.3 MILLION JOBS BY 2020. (Paul Bedard, “New Fears EPA Smog Rule Will Cost 7.3 Million Jobs,” U.S. News and World Report, 7/19/2011)

BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE: EPA’S OZONE RULE WILL BE “THE SINGLE MOST EXPENSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION EVERIMPOSED.” (Robin Bravender, “Industry: EPA Hurts Obama in 2012,” Politico, 7/15/2011)

WSJ: EPA “TRIES TO SCUTTLE OIL TRANSPORT” PROJECT THAT WOULD CREATE JOBS. (Editorial, “Jobs in the Pipeline: The EPA Tries to Scuttle Oil Transport from Canada’s Tar Sands,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/7/2011)

EPA RAMMING THROUGH NEW COAL RULES THAT JOB CREATORS CALL “UNREASONABLE, UNNECESSARY AND DISRUPTIVE.” (Ryan Tracy and Tennille Tracy, “EPA to Require New Pollution Cuts,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/8/2011)

It’s not hard to see why job creators are voicing their concerns about the EPA. Just last week the EPA doubled-down on mandates for businesses to use technology that “doesn’t exist.” Similarly, the new EPA ozone rules are so unreasonable that even national parks like Yellowstone would be out of compliance:

EPA IS PUNISHING JOB CREATORS “FOR NOT BUYING A PRODUCT NO ONE MAKES” AND “DOESN’T EXIST”: “Today’s pop quiz: What happens if the government mandates the consumption of a product that doesn’t exist? Naturally, the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to punish the gasoline refiners because they can’t buy a type of alternative fuel that no one is making. Consumers will be punished too.

“The 2007 energy bill vastly increased the volume of corn ethanol that must be blended into gasoline, though it also included mandates for cellulosic ethanol. These are the second-generation fuels made from stocks like switchgrass or the wood chips that George W. Bush invoked in his 2006 State of the Union. At the time, no such fuels were being produced on a commercial scale, but cellulosic producers and the green lobby assured Congress they were just about to turn the corner, and both the Bush and Obama Administration furnished handsome subsidies.

“The EPA set the 2011 standard at six million gallons. Reality hasn’t cooperated. Zero gallons have been produced in the last six months and the corner isn’t visible over the next six months either. The EPA has only approved a single plant to sell the stuff, operated by Range Fuels near Soperton, Georgia. The company used to be a press corps favorite and has been lauded by the last two Presidents, but it shut down its cellulosic operations earlier this year to work through technical snafus.” (Editorial, “Cellulosic Ethanol and Unicorns,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/15/2011)

UNDER NEW EPA OZONE RULES, EVEN NATIONAL PARKS LIKE YELLOWSTONE AND THE GRAND CANYON WOULD BE FORCED “OUT OF COMPLIANCE”: “Now, Mr. Eisenberg said, he is hearing the standard will be set around 65 ppb. ‘Anything in that range would be too low,’ he said. It would even force respected national parks like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon out of compliance.” (Tim Devaney, “EPA Ozone Proposal Draws Fire,” The Washington Times, 7/17/2011)

You’d think that with a weak economy and high unemployment, Obama’s EPA might tread lightly with new job-destroying regulations. On the contrary, the agency has put out 20 new rules—and counting. Sadly, Americans have come to expect as much from an agency that admits it “does not take jobs into account” when creating regulations:

ROUGHLY 20 NEW REGULATIONS FROM EPA ALONE IN LAST TWO YEARS: “The plan put forth by EPA is a good example. There have beenroughly twenty regulations proposed or finalized over the past two years at EPA that the Chamber has weighed in on in one way or another, ranging from greenhouse gases to boiler emissions standards to numeric nutrient criteria. The costs to industry in these twenty rulemakings are steep, and in virtually each case EPA has not adequately performed statutorily-required analyses of job impacts, economic impacts, small business impacts, and other burdens. Yet EPA’s plan identifies only two of the twenty – the lead paint rule and vehicle greenhouse gas regulations – and in both cases still fails to address the fundamental complaints made by industry.” (Bill Kovacs, “One Small Step …”, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 5/26/2011)

EPA ADMITS THEY DON’T CONSIDER JOBS IMPACTS IN RULE-MAKINGS:“The Obama administration has repeatedly said job creation is a top priority, but apparently the memo seems to have missed the bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This became evident when EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus testified Thursday before an Environment and Energy subcommittee hearing that his agency does not take jobs into account when it issues new regulations. ‘We have not directly taken a look at jobs in the proposal,’ Stanislaus said, referring to a regulation that would govern industries that recycle coal ash and other fossil fuel byproducts.” (John Rossomondo, “EPA Official Says Jobs Don’t Matter,” The Daily Caller, 4/16/2011)

“EPA CHIEF STANDS FIRM” AS JOB-DESTROYING NEW REGULATIONS THAT WILL HIT “EVERY CORNER OF THE ECONOMY” LOOM: (John M. Broder, “EPA Chief Stands Firm as Tough Rules Loom,” The New York Times, 7/6/2011)