In deciding whether to delay its air pollution rules, the EPA need look no further than the current state of the economy. Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor released its monthly jobs report which found that unemployment crept back up to 9.1 percent in May, and the economy added the fewest jobs since September 2010. It would be reckless for the Administration to propose or implement any energy standards that stand to further weaken the economy by sending more hard-working Americans to the unemployment line.

In January, President Obama issued an executive order asking federal agencies to identify burdensome rules that should be drastically changed or eliminated altogether. Unfortunately, the EPA seems to have ignored President Obama’s directive and has instead moved to over regulate the energy industry without allowing for sufficient public comment or research. Even more troubling is the fact the EPA recently admitted they do not take jobs into account when implementing new regulations. Perhaps that is why twelve members of the House of Representatives from across the nation, including Rep. Spencer Bachus from my home state of Alabama, have joined together to sponsor H.R. 1872, the Employment Protection Act of 2011, which would require the EPA to consider jobs and the economy when proposing costly new rules.

On May 26, I testified at an EPA public hearing in Atlanta to express my concerns with new national emissions standards, specifically Utility MACT regulations. In my testimony, I urged the EPA to recognize recent emissions improvements and carefully evaluate the implications when considering rules that could restrain domestic energy, endanger jobs, and saddle American families with higher electricity bills. For the millions of struggling low-income families, discussions about higher energy costs are not political rhetoric; they are tough reality.

But Clean Air Transport Rules should also be a major concern among energy consumers. This rule will require significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions that cross state lines. Seems pretty straightforward right? Wrong. The Clean Air Transport Rule is simply unnecessary to protect “downwind” air quality. In fact, emissions are continuing to decline in the East due to previously implemented EPA rules. Essentially, the EPA is doubling, even tripling, down on rules that are already on the books, making it more difficult for energy providers to comply with rules that will eventually lead to them having to close their plants altogether; eliminating thousands of jobs and further chipping away at America’s ability to produce affordable and reliable power.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity today released a study finding the EPA’s air pollution rules will cost utilities $17.8 billion annually and raise electricity rates 11.5 percent on average in 2016. But that’s not the most shocking news. The study also finds the rules would result in 1.44 million jobs lost by 2020! These are staggering statistics.

I urge the EPA to halt any upcoming regulations, or at the very least take the time to ascertain the real implications of these far reaching costly rules before it’s too late.

Maximizing net benefits for the American public is the most important factor that the Environmental Protection Agency should consider in deciding whether to delay clean air regulations.

The rules in question would all generate vast benefits to individuals and families. As I’ve mentioned on these pages before, rules like these generate large economic benefits because, as air becomes cleaner, incidences of asthma, heart attacks and other ailments are reduced. Fewer negative health effects mean fewer days taken off of work, fewer doctors’ visits, hospital stays and a smaller chance of untimely death. This all translates into economic value for the American public.

The longer the delay on implementing a clean air rule, the higher the bill from dirty air. To spare a few companies the comparatively meager price of compliance, Americans pay dearly with their health, their lives, and their pocketbooks.

Even in a time of economic downturn, it does not make sense to allow excessive pollution to continue. There are cheaper and smarter ways to stimulate the economy than by allowing a polluting and outdated industry to limp along. It is better to spur investment in new and upcoming technologies to than keep incumbent industry on life support by feeding them subsides in the form of inefficiently lax regulation.

There may be a compelling political case for EPA delay—a necessary nod toward businesses as the country edges closer to election season. But it is not a wise policy move. The average American might not realize how detrimental it is when rules like these are put on hold, but putting their lives at risk for the sake of a few political chits is a bad deal.

Instead, EPA should require these polluters to make a relatively small investment in clean air that will pay big dividends for the public. Anything short of that is the direct transfer of wealth from individuals to a few corporations and their shareholders.

But that is not to say EPA can’t make it cheaper and easier for these corporations to comply. The best way to do that would be to install market mechanisms instead of command and control regulation. Using flexible mechanisms, like setting industry-wide emissions budgets rather than plant specific technological requirements, can guarantee the public a reduction in harmful emissions without undue costs. Without a rigid regulatory rubric, companies would be free to find the cheapest way to comply, saving money while cleaning the air.

In 2000, the EPA issued a formal notice concluding that it was “appropriate and necessary” to regulate hazardous air pollutants from the electric power sector. The Electric Industry has been aware of this pending regulation for 11 years and were given more than sufficient time to prepare before the EPA finalizes the Utility Toxics Rule this November.

The industry has the tools to maintain electric system reliability even in the face of coal plant retirements. The electric industry and investor community expect modest incremental coal capacity retirements with the median projection of 32 GW of coal retirements. Many of these reports were completed prior to EPA releasing the proposed Utility Toxics Rule, and even a scenario that forces SCRs and scrubbers on all coal plants, which we do not expect to be the case, results in only about 10 GW of coal plant retirements above reference case levels.

Additionally, low natural gas prices and market dynamics are already challenging many inefficient power plants with relatively low utilization rates. Units with technologies installed 50 years ago are appropriately having a challenging time competing with more efficient power plants. Some experts have concluded, in fact, that approximately one half of the total retirements predicted by many analysts’ projections result from low natural gas prices, not EPA regulations.

In addition to “analyst projections”, the PJM, which operates the nation’s largest integrated power market held a capacity auction which demonstrated that the region will be able to provide reliable electricity in the face of EPA’s regulations in 2015. The generating units that failed to clear the auction—including fossil generating units that may be slated for retirement—were largely offset by new generating resources, energy efficiency, and demand response.

Many companies have installed the pollution control systems required to comply with the proposed MACT standards. While some have suggested that no existing plant meets all of the MACT limits, there are already at least 33 coal-fired units compliant with each of EPA’s proposed emission limits under the rule based on the data companies reported to EPA. Further– among coal-fired units that submitted emission data under EPA’s recent data collection, nearly 60 percent of units comply with EPA’s proposed limit for mercury; 73 percent comply with the proposed limit for HCl; and almost 70 percent comply with the proposed limit for PM.

Moreover, about 60 percent of the nation’s coal capacity has already been retrofit with scrubbers – the most capital intensive technology that companies may need to install to comply with the rule. Among large coal‐fired generating units –more than 70 percent have scrubbers installed. Many companies are well on their way toward compliance.

Also,dry sorbent injection (DSI) technology has emerged as a lower capital cost compliance alternative. DSI is a proven technology that reduces SO2 and other acid gases and relative to a scrubber, DSI requires much lower capital costs, and will be a compliance option for small- and medium-sized coal units burning low sulfur coal. Other factors that will drive the deployment of DSI include unit size, emission reductions required, plant economics, and site specific characteristics. Several companies have chosen to use DSI technology including NRG, Duke, GenOn, and Midwest Generation.

The Clean Air Act allows up to three years for existing units to comply with the MACT rules. However, if a company can justify it needs additional time, the Act authorizes EPA or the state to allow the unit up to one additional year to install the necessary controls with the added ability to extend this allowance on a case by case basis.

Time and time again, the industry proves that with regulatory certainty, it can find a way to comply cost effectively and on time. As many companies have already indicated to Wall Street, I fully expect the same to be true for the Utility Toxics Rule.

The health benefits from the Toxics Rule are clear, the economic benefits are clear and the industry’s ability to comply is clear. The time has come to implement the Toxics Rule – there is no reason to delay.

(These comments were submitted by Peter Iwanowicz, assistant vice president and director of the American Lung Association’s campaign to safeguard the Clean Air Act.)

The EPA should absolutely move ahead with implementing Clean Air Act protections as quickly as possible. Rather than succumbing to the pressure of powerful industrial lobbyists, the single most important factor the EPA must consider in deciding whether or not to move forward with these safeguards is the health of our children. Their voices aren’t as loud those of big business, but it is their lives that are on the line.

Frankly, it is astonishing that delaying these protections is even a consideration when the devastating health impacts of toxic air pollutants are well documented. Toxins—like mercury, lead and arsenic—belched into the air of our cities, towns, and farmlands are directly linked to serious health complications, from cancer and heart disease to neurological damage, birth defects, and increased incidences of severe asthma attacks. By the EPA’s estimation, the Clean Air Act prevented 160,000 premature deaths and 1.7 million asthma attacks in 2010 alone. These numbers are staggering.

Yet special interests in the power industry continue to argue that cleaning up our air and saving American lives is too costly. Some lawmakers, who have more to gain from corporate polluters than the children these polluters harm, are telling the EPA that we need to carry on business as usual and remove what they call roadblocks to prosperity. But prosperity for whom?

Clean Air Act provisions actually saved Americans $1.3 trillion in avoided medical bills and sick days over the last year alone, according to EPA estimates. Without guidelines in place to limit the emission of toxic air pollutants, their cost is borne entirely by American families and taxpayers, rather than the polluters themselves. Just ask the millions of parents shouldering the extra cost of caring for young children with asthma or the seniors coping with lung complications after a lifetime of breathing toxic pollutants how heavy this burden can be.

Our air has already gotten cleaner thanks in large part to the impact of Clean Air Act provisions, but we still have quite a long way to go until we’re all breathing safely. In the American Lung Association’s recently released State of the Air report, we found that more than half of Americans —154.5 million people— still live in areas with dangerous levels of ozone and particle pollution. We cannot keep delaying the provisions that will tackle this threat to our health.

It was a full 20 years ago that the EPA was directed to formulate the recently proposed protections against mercury and other toxins emitted by coal and oil-fired power plants. It has taken two decades to get to the point of even introducing these safeguards, and now there is a question of whether it’s time to move forward? We simply cannot afford to delay any longer. Putting off the implementation of these protections for political reasons, when scientists and doctors are emphatic in emphasizing their importance, sends a message to our children and to Congress that public health is not a priority.

Of the many threats to our health and safety, toxic air pollution is the one thing we can actually combat effectively by working with the worst polluters to put existing technology to work and get toxic emissions under control in a manner that works for everyone. Why doing so is even subject to debate is puzzling and deeply troubling.

Yes, the EPA should definitely delay its air pollution rules. Admittedly, the cost of doing so won't make it easy. By the agency's own estimate, we would lose an estimated $59 billion to $140 billion in healthcare cost savings during the next five years. Then again, healthcare is the responsibility of a different government department.

A little tougher will be knowing that not cleaning up mercury, acid gases, and other toxic pollution from power plants means that hundreds of thousands of people will get sick -- and as many as 17,000 of them will die prematurely during each year of delay. Everybody's got to go sometime, though.

Then there are the children. Exposure to mercury, as Administrator Jackson succinctly put it, "destroys our children's brains." That sounds harsh, but at least it makes the thousands of asthma attacks kids suffer as result of unchecked air pollution seem a little less scary by comparison. And although it might seem heartless to sicken countless kids by delaying action, we should remember that most of them will live through it (even if they are permanently handicapped).

Assuming we can handle the sick kids and the premature deaths, we shouldn't have trouble saying goodbye to the thousands of jobs that would be generated by installing clean-air controls in the roughly half of the country's power plants that don't already have them. True, job creation is a political hot potato, but compared to brain-damaged children, it hardly seems like a deal breaker.

Not convinced? Nobody said this would be easy. But if you still think that (after waiting for twenty-one years), we should rashly clean up one of the most harmful sources of pollution in our country, remember the one argument that supersedes all others. In fact, it's the only reason to do nothing: Because that's exactly what Big Oil and Big Coal want.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should not just delay but outright end its greenhouse gas rules and other regulations designed to achieve a backdoor implementation of cap-and-trade. The American people decisively rejected energy taxes and rationing in the 2010 election, yet the administration has remaining committed to disregarding Congress and the American people.

The day after the election President Obama said:

“Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end. And I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.”

Obama’s words were a green light for the EPA to pretend cap-and-trade emissions levels are law and regulate away. In fact, the abatement schedule from the failed Waxman-Markey bill was written into the president FY2012 budget request for the EPA.

Beyond the greenhouse gas regulations, the other elements of the regulatory train wreck only pretend to be about mercury and other traditional air pollutants. They are actually all about driving up the price of coal and oil and forcing Americans to use less energy. Consider the justification given by the Center for American Progress (CAP) for the mercury rule, listed under greenhouse gas reductions in its blueprint for the president to disregard Congress and move forward in defiance of the American people:

“Despite the rule being directed at toxics—and not greenhouse gas emissions—the new pollution-control requirements could lead to many old inefficient plants being shut down rather than attempt to achieve compliance.”

CAP is run by Obama transition team chairman John Podesta, and employed Carol Browner both before and after her stint as the White House climate czar, where she was the strategic lead on this issue.

As I show in my new book, under Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the power to make these decisions resides in Congress, not the EPA. If the EPA refuses to recognize that fact and back off, the political consequences could be severe for members of Congress who refuse to do their job and stand up to the EPA, as well as for Obama himself.

It is likely the perception of that political downside that is driving EPA backing off on Boiler MACT and now greenhouse gas NSPS. But if the White House really wants to avoid the political consequences for themselves and their allies, they need to call off the power grab completely and send a clear public signal that none of these regulations will ever move forward without the express authorization of Congress.

The simplest and most accurate answer to the headlined question is “No!”

But that isn’t terribly entertaining, so let’s examine some of the subquestions as well as the more important question that was not asked: Why is EPA looking to reduce air pollution?

Let’s start with the big question. The basic reason for EPA action is that dirty air can make us sick and even shorten our lives. Because of that, Congress – in a flash of wisdom never seen on Capitol Hill these days – ordered the EPA to protect the public health from the damages caused by dirty air.

The task remains a work in progress, thanks in part to decades of corporate lobbying, but generally we’ve made good progress. Most emissions are down and the air is generally cleaner – even though our nation has a lot more people driving a lot more miles and doing a lot more that requires electricity.

http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html

Public health and the economy have both benefitted. People are living longer and better. As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson noted in a letter to Congress earlier this year:

The EPA's priority is safeguarding the health of the American people. Implementing the Clean Air Act in service to that imperative strengthens the American economy. It does so by saving millions of American adults and children from the debilitating and expensive illnesses that occur when smokestacks and tailpipes release unrestricted amounts of harmful pollution into the air that all of us breathe. In 1990 alone, EPA's implementation of the Act prevented an estimated 18 million child respiratory illnesses, 850,000 asthma attacks, 674,000 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 205,000 premature deaths. The mere monetary value of saving Americans from those harms through implementing the Clean Air Act is projected to reach $2 trillion in 2020 alone. Over the period from 1990 through 2020, the monetary value to Americans of the Act's protection is projected to exceed the cost of that protection by a factor of more than 30 to 1.

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/documents/LisaJackson_Letter_020912.pdf

Indeed, the Clean Air Act prevented more than than 164,500 premature deaths from ozone and particulate matter exposure last year alone! http://www.epa.gov/air/sect812/feb11/fullreport.pdf

The cleanup has spurred jobs – indeed, it has created whole new industries. (You don’t think those catalytic converters, scrubbers or diesel filters appear by magic, do you? Someone has to make them, someone has to ship them, and someone has to install them – and these are all American jobs.) And additional cleanup will create even more jobs. http://www.ceres.org/resources/reports/new-jobs-cleaner-air

Despite the progress, however, we know for a fact that the air is still too dirty. In its most recent State of the Air report, the American Lung Association noted that

Roughly half the people (50.3%) in the United States live in counties that have unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution. Almost 154.5 million Americans live in the 366 counties where they are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution in the form of either ozone or short-term or year-round levels of particles.

http://www.stateoftheair.org/2011/key-findings/

There are other pollution problems that need to be addressed, including emissions of toxic mercury, which can cause heart attacks and poison the brains of babies whose mothers consume contaminated fish. The biggest sources of mercury pollution include coal-fired power plants, industrial boilers and cement plants.

Let’s take a moment to examine some of the things EPA is trying to do, and why.

Consider, for example, the poisonous emissions from power plants, by far the nation’s biggest source of mercury. Those of us who have worked in this field for awhile will recall that the most recent Bush administration botched the issue (unless you operated a coal-fired power plant, in which case the Bush team bought you years of cleanup delay.) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june05/epa_3-15.html

The Bush era plan set industry-friendly requirements that required little, if any, cleanup for years. That plan was so blatantly illegal that a federal appeals court made fun of the EPA, saying it “deploys the logic of the Queen of Hearts, substituting EPA’s desires for the plain text of [the Clean Air Act].” http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/68822E72677ACBCD8525744000470736/$file/05-1097a.pdf

So the current EPA was stuck with a Herculean task: trying to clean up the Augean stables – and the dangerous pollution – left by its predecessor.

It is trying to do the same thing with ozone, commonly known as smog. In 2008, the Bush EPA disregarded the unanimous advice of the agency’s independent science advisers and set weak, industry-friendly standards. Aware these would be struck down as illegal by a federal court, the Obama EPA proposed a better standard in line with the scientists’ recommendations. http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/d70b9c433c46faa3852576a40058b1d4!OpenDocument

Unfortunately, politics appear to have taken an ugly turn. EPA several times delayed a final decision under obvious political pressure. Now D.C. is full of rumors that unnamed “political operatives” at the Obama White House are trying to meddle in the decision, which EPA has promised by next month. The rumor is that those unnamed public servants in the White House are more interested in preserving Democratic Party seats in Congress. (Surely this can’t be the case! It would be nice, of course, if our President would say something about the need for EPA to do its job.)

Other pending standards – notably the greenhouse gas standards noted in the opening series of questions – are also attempts to clean up a mess left by both the Bush administration and Congress.

We believe the EPA should move full speed ahead. Its mission is to protect public health and the environment, not Democratic seats in Congress. Delays simply feed the blood lust of the congressional sharks.

A case in point: as noted above, EPA has put its industrial boilers standards on ice indefinitely – a move that will shorten the lives of thousands of people unnecessarily each year. http://www.alternet.org/health/151154/death_by_pollution%3A_how_the_obama_administration_just_put_thousands_of_lives_at_risk

This appeasement strategy has been a failure, as demonstrated by those in Congress pressing ahead with legislation block or delay EPA air standards.

Appeasement here translates into more death and disease.

Our nation is in a race against time to secure healthier, longer lives for millions of Americans afflicted by air pollution. EPA should move swiftly to put science-based human health protections in place for mercury, arsenic, acid gases and deadly particulates. But the bigger threat is that Congress might try to delay vital Clean Air Act protections for its own – decidedly non-scientific – reasons.

Americans are breathing air right now that is cleaner and healthier than in years past. That’s thanks to the Clean Air Act, and the federal and state policymakers, companies, and communities across our nation that have worked together to carry out the law.

We’ve made great progress since the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments were passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. The law has prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths, millions of asthma attacks, and countless sick days. For every dollar invested in clean air, our nation has realized thirty times that in human health protections.

Our investments in clean air have also yielded a vibrant U.S. environmental technologies industry with brisk economic growth and job creation. And our investments in clean air have produced made-in-America technological solutions that are being exported to other parts of the world.

But we can do better. EPA’s proposed Air Toxics Rule for power plants will prevent another 17,000 premature deaths, 11,000 heart attacks, and 120,000 asthma attacks each year when its protections are finalized and carried out. These clean air standards are required to be completed in November of this year and will dramatically reduce the mercury, arsenic, and acid gases discharged in our communities.

Another rule designed to address lethal particulate pollution resulting from power plants in the eastern United States will help prevent as many as 36,000 premature deaths, 23,000 heart attacks and 1.9 million lost work or school days per year once it is finalized this summer.

Taken together, these two clean air initiatives provide hundreds of billions of dollars of net economic benefits for America. They will create jobs for electricians, plumbers, laborers and engineers across America's heartland. Economists estimate these two rules will create 1.5 million new jobs over the next five years.

Yet Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) has announced that he will introduce legislation to delay EPA’s proposed Air Toxics Rule -- even before EPA finishes the public notice and comment effort that’s currently underway, and in spite of the fact that the power plant Air Toxics Rule has been 21 years in the making.

Congressman Whitfield introduces this legislation for the benefit of lagging electric utilities like AEP and the Southern Company. These companies raise fears of a national electric reliability crisis if additional time is not provided for these already long overdue rules. But other forward looking companies are more constructive.

Paul Allen, senior vice president and chief environmental officer of Constellation Energy offered this when the air toxics standards were proposed:

“We know from experience that constructing this technology can be done in a reasonable time frame, especially with good advance planning; and there is meaningful job creation associated with the projects.”

Anne Hoskins, Public Service Enterprise Group’s senior vice president for public affairs and sustainability said:

“While we are still evaluating the rule, we believe the Toxics Rule can be achieved in a cost effective manner while maintaining the reliability of the electric system. The industry has had more than enough time to study and prepare for these requirements. We support the EPA’s efforts to finalize the rule in order to reap the significant public health benefits as indicated by the Agency’s analysis. There ought to be no further delay.”

Congress should intervene if EPA is going too slowly and lives are being put at risk. But Congress should never delay vital health protections – not when we have time-tested bipartisan solutions that will save lives and strengthen our economy. Now is the time to work together as a nation providing healthier, longer and more productive lives for millions of Americans.

Speaking at a Chrysler factory in Ohio on Friday – the same day the Labor Department announced the unemployment rate in May rose to 9.1 percent – President Obama was right to call for the creation of more American manufacturing jobs. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to impose greenhouse gas emission regulations on manufacturers that will work directly against President Obama’s job creation objective.

A psychologist would call this cognitive dissonance – simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes.

Since actions speak louder than words, EPA’s actions will have a far bigger impact than President Obama’s contradictory speech. The impact will be a nightmare – raising manufacturing costs, destroying manufacturing jobs, putting millions more Americans on the unemployment rolls, increasing our nation’s reliance on imported products, and weakening our economic and national security.

Should EPA delay imposition of its destructive greenhouse gas regulations? Frankly, that’s not enough – it only postpones the inevitable damage that would be inflicted on the American people. Instead, EPA should scrap the regulations entirely.

It’s an indisputable fact that when the Clean Air Act was passed four decades ago, no one in Congress contemplated that it would be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is why the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association and other organizations are suing EPA, arguing that the agency has no authority to impose greenhouse gas regulations unless Congress enacts new legislation to regulate such emissions.

Even EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has admitted that the greenhouse gas regulations EPA is preparing to impose on power plants, refiners and other manufacturers will not reduce global emissions. That’s because greenhouse gases emitted anywhere on Earth – whether in Houston or Hong Kong – have the identical impact, winding up in the one and only atmosphere every nation on our planet shares.

The only argument in favor of EPA’s U.S.-only regulations is that they will “set an example” for other nations to follow. Unfortunately, many other nations don’t model their conduct on America’s – if they did, the world would be filled with democracies that respect free elections, human rights and the rule of law.

In reality, other nations would take advantage of EPA greenhouse gas regulations to lure more American manufacturing plants and more American jobs to their shores – just as millions of American manufacturing jobs in the steel, auto, textile, appliance and electronics industries migrated from our country in the past few decades.

Proponents of more and more regulation need to do a cost-benefit analysis before they move forward. How many hard-working Americans need to lose their jobs, default on their mortgages, and see their dreams destroyed because of EPA’s relentless crusade against greenhouse gases and fossil fuels? How big does our nation’s trade deficit have to get? How many billions of dollars in extra costs need to be added to products manufactured in America?

The dismal unemployment report that came out Friday should be a wakeup call to America’s elected officials, telling them to make job creation and economic growth their top domestic priority.

It makes no sense to destroy existing jobs held by Americans today in the hope that somewhere, somehow, some day so-called “green” jobs may be created. We need to keep the jobs we have today and create new ones tomorrow – red, white and blue jobs for the hard-working Americans who desperately want and need them.

If you’re unemployed, you don’t want a Democratic job or a Republican job – you just want a job. Officials and candidate of both parties should unite to grow our economy, strengthen American manufacturing and create jobs. Getting rid of EPA’s harmful greenhouse gas regulations would be a good place to start.

In September 2010, I had the sobering opportunity to hang with a group of Louisiana African American elders and leaders for the 5^th anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and subsequent fiasco. The BP oil gusher was obviously also on everyone’s minds. There are many intense memories and poignant observations of my time that week, including the reality that many of these elders and leaders are much more “conservative” (in the traditional dictionary sense of the word) than many realize. At one point, a large dignified seventy year old man – expressing his frustrations with the federal government of BOTH parties – got so close to my face I could smell his breath. He seethed, “You know what the problem with Democrats is? … They are a bunch of [wimps].” (I cannot write what he really said).

Not that these New Orleans community leaders have any faith in Republicans. They do not. They completely realize the massive corporate corruption that seemingly grips both parties. But you have to give current House Republicans credit. They have changed the nature of the debate in this country and most (though not all) Democrats are running scared, including the administration. How else can you explain the retreat that EPA (headed by an intelligent and dedicated woman, Lisa Jackson) has done on the Clean Air Act? Let us remember, this is a statute with a proven track record of pollution reduction AND benefits roughly 40 times more than the estimated costs. Reduced human sickness, lower health care costs, better school and work performance, and a higher quality of life are ALL directly attributable to the Clean Air Act and environmental statutes.

How do our congressional leaders respond to the most serious environmental threat our species has ever known? Half of them pretend it’s either not happening or is not a big deal. The other half oscillates between fear that changing our fossil fuel ways will be too expensive and soothing rhetoric about the opportunities of the new green renewable economy. But actions speak leader than words. The only way to phase out the old coal plant and industrial factory clunkers is to internalize the costs of their polluting ways. That’s where the Clean Air Act comes in (again).

So as we are still devastated by the worst spring storm in a very long time, still cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico and Prince William Sound, still increasing greenhouse gases into our saturated airs and oceans, and still struggling with world food security, how do our “leaders” respond? Business as usual! No problem. Can’t let Exxon-Mobil and Shell’s profits dip below several billion dollars, can’t tell Massey Inc. to stop its killing ways, can’t admit that our current economic woes were caused by a rapacious financial industry that was regulated too little (and largely got away with it).

EPA, do your job. Congress, look beyond your campaign contributions. Mr. President, make hope a reality.

Delay is for wimps.

The stock market had its worst week in years because of signs that the economic recovery might be faltering and concerns that the economy could experience a double dip recession. That possibility would become a certainty if EPA went ahead with clean air regulations under consideration.

The pace of major regulations by this EPA is unprecedented and is a reflection of its zealotry and lack of balance. Although EPA has indicated that it will delay the implementation of some rules and President Obama is requiring more rigorous reviews of proposed regulations, the prevailing regulatory environment is chilling. Business needs confidence to invest. The fact that it is sitting on over $1 trillion dollars is clear evidence that it lacks sufficient confidence to accelerate investment in plant, equipment, and other job creating activities.

The boiler MACT proposal was strongly criticized by the Commerce Department during inter-agency review. Commerce concluded that EPA had significantly understated both costs and job impacts. While EPA estimated around 8,000 job losses, Commerce put the number at 60,000 annually, even using EPA’s “low ball” cost estimates.

The refinery rule would delay needed expansion, especially in the Mid-West. The New Source Review rule has needed overhaul for over a decade. Instead, it has been modified in ways that make its burdens more onerous and costly. Streamlining, flexibility, and efficiency should guide its revision.

The proposed NAAQS rule would put most of the nation in non-attainment and bring new construction to a halt and impose unprecedented costs on states and industry.

All of this regulatory activity is in pursuit of hypothetical, model driven environmental impacts.

At a time when the economy needs job creating investments and greater business confidence, EPA is going in the opposite direction.

There is not an imminent air quality problem facing our nation. Each year our air gets cleaner and will continue to do so. Measures of public health show a healthier and longer living population. The biggest threat is unemployment and poverty. A wealthier society is truly a healthier one.

In light of these realities, the Obama Administration should impose a regulatory moratorium except where there is clear and compelling evidence of a public health threat. Such an action would demonstrate that the Administration is serious about removing roadblocks to new business investment -- which is sorely needed if progress is going to be made in more rapidly reducing the unemployment rate. Instead of issuing new regulations, EPA and OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) should begin unwinding existing regulations that add costs to business -- and ultimately consumers -- without producing “real” environmental benefits.

In addition, Congress, working with the Administration and cross section of governors, should completely revise the Clean Air Act to bring its requirements in line with today’s air quality realities. Levels of pollution are very low and the cost of further reductions disproportionately high. Pollution problems are primarily local and no longer national. Solutions should be based on local and regional circumstances; not one size fits all. Although the current Clean Air Act prohibits the use of cost in setting standards, costs do matter and should be addressed explicitly so that risk comparisons can be made in a transparent manner.

We all want clean air and a healthy environment. But, we have reached the point of needing to ask, how clean is clean enough. The agency is incapable of addressing that question because anything less than pristine is unacceptable to this EPA. Life is about trade-offs and so is regulation. Right now those trade-offs favor getting the economy on a robust and sustainable course.