Review of Environment Rules Finds Benefits Outweigh Costs

[radfringe]

Review of Environment Rules Finds Benefits Outweigh Costs
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
Published: September 28, 2003

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 — The White House office in charge of reviewing federal regulations has reported that the benefits of some major environmental rules appear to exceed the costs by several times and that the net benefits may be even larger than previously acknowledged.

In its annual review of the costs and benefits of regulations, the Office of Management and Budget examined a sampling of major rules and found that the total benefits, to the extent they can be measured, were at least triple the costs.

In this report, which was described on Saturday in The Washington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency was found to have produced significantly greater net benefits than last year's report acknowledged. But the change was mainly due to accounting technicalities.

[jenm]

1. technicalities

Yeah, they looked back ten years to when they actually had measurable successes, namely the reduction in acid rain from the enforcement of EPA regs. The article didn't say how far back they went in last year's report.

The EPA has been muzzled on global climate change, airborne health threats from the WTC, and the necessity of bringing coal-fired plants in compliance with the Clean Air Act. Now there's supposedly a movement in Congress to make the EPA a cabinet department. Will this serve to further politicize the actions of what used to be an independent watchdog agency dedicated to the public interest, while serving as a canard demonstrating Bush's environmentalism? Stay tuned...

[radfringe]

2. when "COOKING"

it's all in the presentation.... :sigh: