Op-ed: Carbon Creep
Jane Van Ryan
Posted December 14, 2009
There's more talk of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) endangerment finding and the agency's related efforts to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a Forbes article authored by Brian Wingfield.
The endangerment finding essentially means that either Congress must pass a climate bill, or the administration will control GHGs without input from those who've been elected to represent the American people.
In the Forbes article, Wingfield discusses EPA's proposal to rework the Clean Air Act to apply GHG emissions standards to roughly 14,000 power plants, cement factories and refineries, and the potential effects this type of regulation would have on industry:
"No one can put a price tag on this, though there would be huge expenses for retrofitting (maybe even shutting down) existing factories and plants, certainly millions of dollars in compliance costs and untold costs in extra work for state regulators--to say nothing of a boon in business for lawyers looking to challenge it all."
Wingfield goes on to mention the broader economic implications of this regulation and resulting effects on the American people:
"...Heritage Foundation analysis estimated the EPA's proposed CO2 regulation would "raise energy prices to the point of denting the national GDP by an average of $339 billion per year through 2029 and contributing to the loss of 800,000-plus jobs by 2016."
Take action and let Congress and the administration know that any climate-related bill or regulatory measure should not be implemented at the expense of the U.S. economy and the American people. And for more information, read the full Forbes article.