OPINION:
The labor of countless hardworking Americans propelled the United States to its enviable position at the pinnacle of the world economy. Yet taking away that prosperity requires virtually no effort — all the government Leviathan need do is toss a bit of gravel into the machinery of industry.
President Biden is about to do just that. In a letter to White House chief of staff Jeffrey Zients last week, 72 major industry executives issued a stinging rebuke to a proposed Environmental Protection Agency air-quality rule they claim would undermine commerce crucial to both the economy and to the president’s reelection prospects.
The plan calls for reducing the current ambient air particulate matter standard, termed PM2.5, from 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air to “within the range of 9.0 to 10.0” micrograms per cubic meter. The EPA is mulling the possibility of even slashing that to 8 micrograms per cubic meter, the missive asserts.
Those small numbers have a huge impact. “A proposed discretionary revision to this standard, which is under review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, could put nearly 40% of the U.S. population in areas of nonattainment,” the industrialists write. “Doing so would risk jobs and livelihoods by making it even more difficult to obtain permits for new factories, facilities and infrastructure to power economic growth.”
Signatories include such industry leaders as National Association of Manufacturers boss Jay Timmons, U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief Suzanne Clark and the American Petroleum Institute’s Mike Sommers.
The most stringent standard would open a deep economic wound: nearly $200 billion in lost gross domestic product and 1 million jobs through 2031, they write, referencing a study commissioned by the manufacturers association. Large swaths of the nation would exceed the prospective air-quality limit, including Texas, California, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and Illinois.
This despite EPA records showing air pollution on the decline since 1990, placing nearly every form of pollutant below the EPA’s current limit. Only 16% of PM2.5 emissions originate from industrial sources. The majority comes from construction, road dust and Mother Nature’s handiwork, like the Canadian wildfires that choked hundreds of millions of Americans over the summer.
To be sure, clean air is essential for nurturing healthy living for Americans. A March Gallup Poll found that respondents ranked regard for the environment above concern for economic growth, 52% to 43%. The EPA asserts that the more stringent limits would net $43 billion in imaginary “health benefits,” such as preventing a theoretical 4,200 premature deaths and avoiding 270,000 potential worker sick days.
When economic issues advance from the philosophical realm to the personal, though, viewpoints tend to shift. The unmistakable point was captured in Harry S. Truman’s famous quip: “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.”
As a counter to the EPA’s tendency to overregulate and overspend, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Friday voted 211-203 to slash the agency’s fiscal 2024 budget by 39% — an aspirational move with little chance of squeezing past the spendthrift Senate, which is led by Democrats.
Government decrees that threaten the livelihood of Americans invite ballot-box payback. President Biden overreaches at his political peril.
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