Congressional action on EPA regulations encouraged

The Daily Caller (8/20, Fricke) reported online about the Heritage Foundation brief released yesterday arguing that Congress should “reassert its authority over the Environmental Protection Agency” through its appropriation powers, especially on “three issues on which the EPA” has supposedly exceeded its regulatory authority including Greenhouse Gas Regulations and new Ozone standards. In its report, the Heritage Foundation stated that “EPA is using the regulatory process to require greenhouse gas emission reductions even as Congress has been unwilling to take such drastic actions.” The article also cites the NAM study saying that the estimated cost of a new Ozone standard is $270 billion per year, making the potential new regulations “the costliest in history.” The article notes that this number is much higher than the EPA’s prediction that the new regulations would only cost $90 billion a year.

Breaking Energy (8/19) reports that information based on the NAM study of proposed stricter Ozone standards show that every parish in Louisiana “would be in nonattainment or non-compliance” with an Ozone standard of 60 ppb. The study also shows that the costs “would be significant” to the state and that some manufacturers would be barred from expanding and may have to shut down in order to comply.

Swearingen: EPA Rules Will Hammer Nevada. Anastasia Swearingen, a senior research analyst for the Environmental Policy Alliance, writes in an opinion piece for the Las Vegas Review-Journal (8/20) that the EPA rules would “hammer” the state of Nevada. The article cites the NAM study, which shows that the impacts would be “even more acute” than the study’s national predictions. Swearingen writes that “Nevadans shouldn’t sacrifice their economic growth at the altar of” the President’s legacy.

In the Heartland Institute (8/20) “Environmental/Energy” blog, Alan Caruba cites the NAM study while discussing the effect of the EPA regulations on America. Caruba attacks Greens for their efforts in pushing policies that are costly. He concludes by writing that he hopes the midterm elections put people in Congress who will reject the new EPA standards; otherwise, “the cost of living in America, the capacity to produce electricity, the construction and expansion of our manufacturing sector will all worsen, putting America on a path to decline.”