CLEAR THE ANALYSIS SMOG

The Environmental Protection Agency had to be badgered into analyzing the benefit and cost differences between the administration’s Clear Skies proposal and two competing air pollution measures. When it finally did the analysis, it was skewed in favor of Clear Skies, according to the Congressional Research Service. In addition to boosting faulty legislation, such a review is a disservice to the public, which expects the EPA to base its rules on sound science.

The Bush administration has a history of selectively using information, often ignoring contradictory data, as the basis of its policies. For example, there is currently much debate over whether the administration misled Congress and the public by citing only intelligence, some of it discredited, that showed Saddam Hussein had or was about to have weapons of mass destruction as a rationale for invading Iraq.

The consequences may not be as dire in the case of air quality regulations, but the public still deserves rules based on the best science. That isn’t happening with Clear Skies and related air pollution rules.

For years, senators, including Susan Collins, have pushed EPA to compare Clear Skies with bills from Sens. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and James Jeffords, I-Vt. Clear Skies is the least stringent and Sen. Jeffords’ the most, with Sen. Carper’s legislation in between. Sen. Carper threatened to hold up the nomination of Stephen Johnson to head the agency if the EPA did not do the analysis. The agency finally complied, releasing its findings in late October.

According to the Congressional Research Service, an independent, non-partisan group, the EPA overstated the costs of competing legislation while downplaying the economic benefits of reducing premature deaths and illness linked to air pollution. For example, the EPA analysis assumes a shortage of boilermaker labor until 2010 to install pollution-control equipment. This would affect only the senators’ bills because they seek emissions reductions before Clear Skies. The pollution-control industry association questions that such a labor shortage will exist.

The EPA report also relied on outdated cost-effectiveness data for mercury emissions because emissions controls have advanced significantly since the information was collected in 2003, according to CRS.

Because parts of Clear Skies have been approved by Congress, regulations aren’t as beneficial, in terms of economics and human health, as they should be. Congress, by demanding better analysis by the EPA, should ensure this doesn’t continue to happen.