Bad Theory, Bad Legislation

The House’s campaign to undercut environmental laws has now migrated to the Senate. Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky, is expected to offer a resolution this week to block a new federal regulation requiring cuts in soot- and smog-forming gases from power plants east of the Mississippi River. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat of West Virginia, and Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican, are then expected to try to delay all new rules governing power-plant pollution.

These are bad bills, and Senate leaders should stop them from going forward. Weakening clean-air rules would harm public health. And the fundamental premise, that environmental regulation destroys jobs, is simply wrong.

Earlier this year, the Economic Policy Institute conducted a study of a proposed rule that would require power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other airborne toxics. It said that investment in new controls would actually create 92,000 jobs beyond those that might be lost through plant closings and higher electricity prices. Other studies of clean air laws have come to similar conclusions: These rules are job creators, not killers.

That hasn’t stopped Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, from accusing President Obama of killing jobs by “vastly expanding” Washington’s regulatory reach. Even moderate Republicans, like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, wrongly blame the “uncertainty and cost created by new federal regulations” for unemployment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/opinion/bad-theory-bad-legislation.html?nl=todaysheadlines&adxnnl=1&emc=tha211&adxnnlx=1320775319-01ZPKFI9wAoT6zRJOQ2ufQ

older facilities would be forced to cease operations. Typically, older facilities are protected from this sort of thing by "grandfather" clauses which provide exemptions for unachievable standards.