President Obama announced today that he has ordered the EPA to abandon new proposed smog regulations, basically saying that they would be burdensome to industry at a time when the US economy can’t afford to take the hit. Maybe the timing isn’t right. But this is exactly the kind of environmental regulation that we need, because the costs of the new regulation are easily outweighed by the benefits.
Breathing smog-filled air is dangerous. It can cause asthma attacks and exacerbate existing lung conditions (bronchitis, pneumonia, emphysema, lung cancer, etc.). In the long-run, smog can do similar damage to the lungs as smoking.
Moreover, that all costs money. Smog causes people to go to their doctors more often, it can cause otherwise mild lung conditions to require hospitalization, it can slow recoveries which in turn increases the prescription drug costs for people with lung conditions. Heck, in the long-run smog can cause people to exercise less by making it harder to breath on high-smog days, and thereby contribute to the obesity epidemic. Smog is expensive.
So yeah, as a result of this regulation, a few coal plants will remain open, some others will be able to avoid buying new equipment to clean their smoke-stacks, and thousands of jobs around the country will be saved, for the moment. And the cost will come from the thousands of kids who end up in the emergency room from preventable asthma attacks.
Good environmental regulation saves money and saves lives. Maybe Obama is right that this particular regulation can be delayed until the economy is better. But if the delay is too long, we’ll all pay for it with out lives, or health, and our wallets. And we can’t really afford that either.
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