According to a new study by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) the costs to American families and businesses of just two new EPA rules will exceed $17 billion per year and could reach $200 billion over the next 20 years. These rules are just one small part of a veritable avalanche of new rules that will impose costs in the hundreds of billions on Americans, for hardly any demonstrable environmental benefit. They are in addition to EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations and nearly 30 other rules coming your way in the next few years. TPPF’s Kathleen White has been at the forefront of efforts to increase awareness of the unprecedented regulatory onslaught. (See here and here).
The NERA study focuses on just two of these rules, the Clean Air Transport Rule (CATR) and Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT). The two new rules would dramatically increase the retirement of coal fired power plants, and force significant demand to shift to natural gas, which will experience significant price spikes. As a result, U.S. retail electricity prices would increase by an average of 12% by 2016, with regional increases reaching 24%. America could lose 1.4 million job-years by 2020.
Taken together with the costs of other EPA regulations, this regulatory onslaught threatens a veritable calamity for America’s working families, all of whom will see significant increases in costs of living just as the regulations limit the job opportunities they will need to feed their families.
-Mario Loyola