On Wednesday, a bipartisan majority of Senators voted down Senator Inhofe’s attempt to make life easier for polluters. This is a major victory for health, clean air and common sense. It is also a triumph for America’s legal system: the standards limiting mercury, lead, arsenic, and other air toxics are backed by science and required by law.

Now power plant operators will have to clean up their plants and cut their pollution, which the EPA estimates will save as many as 11,000 lives and prevent as many as 130,000 asthma attacks every year. The value of the air quality improvements for people's health alone totals $37 billion to $90 billion each year. That means that for every dollar spent to reduce this pollution, Americans get $3 to $9 in health benefits.

And yet despite the enormous gains this and other standards will deliver, radical attacks on safeguards have become the norm: House GOP lawmakers voted nearly 250 times to undermine such safeguards in the past year. The ideological opposition to nearly all forms of regulations has blinded many to the steep costs pollution exacts in emergency rooms visits, missed work days, hospital stays, and the loss of loved ones.

Cleaning up air pollution not only reduces these challenges; it also puts Americans to work. The EPA has done actual analyses projecting that‐term construction jobs and 8,000 long‐term utility jobs." implementing the toxics standards “will provide employment for tens of thousands of Americans, by supporting 46,000 short

The majority of Senators understand the value of making the air safe to breathe and putting people to work. But too many lawmakers put dirty power companies’ interests above the health of their constituents, potentially condemning families and communities in their states to more toxic air pollution, more smog, and more soot.

Fortunately, this attempt by polluter allies to prevent the EPA from setting life-saving standards failed. We can all breathe easier as a result.

EPA’s clean-air rules will have a widespread detrimental impact on all sectors of the economy, especially energy costs, energy jobs, and the reliability of the power grid. Because these regulations are guaranteed to affect many aspects of the domestic energy industry, including power plants and other targeted sources of “hazardous air pollutants,” it is necessary and urgent that lawmakers work to delay or stop their implementation.

The not-so-comic irony of many of EPA’s clean-air rules is that not only are they damaging to American industry and consumers, but they also ignore empirical data that call the policies into question. The most egregious of these cases is the Utility MACT rule, which yesterday withstood a disapproval resolution in the U.S. Senate. Although EPA has advertised Utility MACT as a mercury rule, 99.98 percent of the benefits calculated by the agency are not a result of mercury reductions. In fact, almost all of the $90 billion in benefits estimated by EPA by 2016 are generated by reductions in particulate matter already governed by agency rules. So while proponents of the rule celebrate what they consider a victory against mercury, their victory dance is pyrrhic at best. At worst, it is a dance on the future graves of thousands of American workers.

For example, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) found that the agency’s regulations on coal plants will cut about 7 percent of our energy capacity, primarily from coal, which supplies nearly half of our country’s energy. Meanwhile, Forisk Consulting found that the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations will hit renewable energy equally hard, jeopardizing over 130 renewable energy projects and as many as 26,000 jobs.

Unfortunately, the effort by Senator Jim Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and other leaders in the Senate to send Utility MACT back to the EPA for a rewrite failed on Wednesday. The measure represented the most direct method for significantly altering what will be the most expensive regulation in EPA’s history, presumably in a way that is less destructive to the American economy and power consumers.

As an alternative, some in Congress have proposed simply extending the compliance timeline for Utility MACT. While that might be a slight improvement, an extension of the regulation is like giving an inmate two more years on Death Row, when what is needed is a retrial. This poorly-conceived regulation, as well as EPA’s other clean-air rules, will end up costing American businesses and families dearly by raising the price of energy, eliminating jobs, and weakening the reliability of the nation’s energy grid. It is time for wisdom to prevail in Congress and for lawmakers to protect American power consumers from a government bureaucracy that seems to disregard or overlook the harmful consequences of its overreach.

The Senate’s defeat of the proposed CRA resolution to stop the EPA’s mercury pollution reduction standards is indeed a victory for our children’s health, our environment and a better future. Sadly, the political rhetoric has become greatly overheated. Senator Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) comments were courageous and on target: “Despite the barrage of ads, the EPA alone is not going to make or break coal. There are many forces exerting pressure and that agency is just one of them.” As Senator Rockefeller explained, it’s time for “real world solutions” to deal with “real problems.” Let’s focus on the solutions in moving forward.

When President Barack Obama failed to give the go-ahead on the Keystone XL pipeline, Republicans across the country were in an uproar over the president’s decision to squash job creation and hinder our economy. Not to mention the $7.2 billion project is being funded by a private company. But not everyone was dismayed with the decision; several environmentalist groups and activists within the EPA itself were thrilled with the declaration.

Now, it looks as if those groups are one step closer to clinching another important victory as the EPA works to finalize a set of rules that control the amount of air pollution being emitted from industrial boilers. That same group is also in the process of implementing tougher standards for controlling the amount of mercury and other pollution that enters the air from several coal-fired power plants.

Protecting our environment is extremely important, but what has gotten lost in the debate is the need for balanced regulations that also take into account the need for our nation to also focus on economic development. Can one exist without harsh regulations from the other? Furthermore, is this yet another decision that should tie up lawmakers or should the EPA take a back seat and instead focus on realistic limitations that will not harm our ability to recover from one of the worst recessions in our country’s history?

Courtesy of Mr. Obama’s “All of the Above” energy plan, consumers are already going to see a spike in their energy bills as our nation’s leader continues to try to phase coal out of our lives. Now, on the surface, cleaner air is obviously the more appealing solution, but every sacrifice comes with a cost, and in this case, there’s a pretty hefty price tag attached.

What the EPA and environmentalist groups fail to mention is the cost of the proposed Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (more commonly known as “Utility MACT.”) If our nation wasn’t already up to our neck in debt, the $10 billion per year price tag might not sound so bad. Consumers might even consider paying more on their monthly electricity statement to help foot bill, but the way our economy looks right now, it’s going to be a tough sell.

What the EPA has also failed to do is recognize the changes coal-fired plants have implemented over the past decade. Air pollution and toxic emissions have been greatly reduced. In fact, according to a June 12 piece on Forbes’ website, when the EPA projected that power plant emissions would increase from 46 to 60 tons per year, emissions actually fell to below 50 percent of the EPA’s prediction between 1990 and 2010.

What the most expensive proposal in the EPA’s history may do is produce a minimal reduction in the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere. But is it enough for consumers to notice? Not really. What U.S. citizens will notice though is a shrinking wallet. For the skeptics out there, in the 22 years Congress has been asking the EPA to study the effects pregnant mothers eating fish contaminated with mercury, the agency has been unable to identify a single child with learning or other disabilities directly connected to prenatal mercury exposure.

What the government and Obama Administration can do is work with the coal-fired plants and other energy producers to develop new technologies that reduce carbon footprints. The government need not waste its time monitoring the over-exaggerated claims made by the EPA. Instead, environmentalist groups need to focus on what is good for the economy and the environment. This is not a time when organizations can afford to be mutually exclusive.

If the government wants to help and insists on getting involved, they can forestall implementing crippling regulations until science and data are able to realistically quantify that the benefits outweigh the costs of proposed new regulations. Both sides need to work together to ensure the economy remains a top priority.

Something much larger than the immediate impact of the clean air rules spotlighted here is brewing in the halls of Congress. The threat to the durability of the Clean Air Act has become increasingly threatened as those who have embraced Big Oil’s agenda continue their quixotic quest to weaken, block or rollback clean air protections.

The Environmental Protection Agency has served as the congressionally appointed steward of the Clean Air Act for over the past 40 years. During that time, the agency has been legally obligated to update air quality standards based on the most current public health science. By doing so, we as a nation have realized tremendous public health gains.

In 2010 alone, the Clean Air Act prevented 160,000 premature deaths. If the Clean Air Act is allowed to continue along its intended course of healthy air improvements, by 2020, it will be responsible for preventing more than 230,000 deaths annually and will yield a staggering almost $2 trillion in yearly economic benefits.

The Clean Air Act is a vital public health safeguard we cannot afford to surrender to the wishes of big polluters. While the nation has made great strides in reducing air pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes, the threat of dirty air still remains a deadly concern for just over 4 in 10 Americans. An astonishing 41 percent of our population still live in communities that register unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution. This is unacceptable.

Air pollution triggers asthma attacks; disrupts children’s lung development, which we now know can lead to a lifetime of lung health complications; burdens our healthcare system by increasing the demand for emergency room services; causes heart attacks and strokes; and even kills.

The evidence is clear; the Clean Air Act works and is by far one of our nation’s greatest public health achievements. It has been set on a path to provide even greater health benefits as we inch closer to America’s next decade. Those in Congress blocking clean air progress must desist and allow the EPA scientists to continue to the job of ensuring this vital public health law remains on its intended course. A quick look at our latest non-partisan opinion poll confirm 73 percent of voters nationwide support the view that it is possible to protect public health through stronger air quality standards while also achieving a healthy economy.

It seems then that the question today should really be: how have the likes of Sen. Inhofe and the House leadership become so at odds with the health and values of their constituents?

(These comments were submitted by Kevin Crapsey, Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Development at Eco Power Solutions.)

If we’re debating multiple clean air rules, shouldn’t we be looking at technology that addresses multiple emissions in a single solution? Multi-pollutant emissions control systems are available on the market today to address mercury, particulate matter, NOx, SOx, carbon and heavy metals with an all-in-one solution.

It’s a more cost-effective solution than a series of traditional technologies that would be needed to address all of those different emissions. And it costs less and doesn’t impact grid reliability the way that shutting down coal-fired plants would, while surpassing EPA emissions regulations.

There are no major differences or reasons to examine the rules differently when innovative technology that’s been in operation for the past two years can address them altogether at once.

The avalanche of over-reaching air regulations threatens job retention and growth, particularly in the current uncertain economic environment.

Like others, paper and wood products manufacturers have been concerned (to say the least) about the seeming unending output of new regulations. The rapid-fire succession of new regulations, many a result of court intervention, are forcing U.S. businesses to forgo energy-saving investments that could add to the bottom line and secure future jobs, because they must invest instead in some control technologies that add little or no benefit to the quality of the air.

As an industry, we are facing an unsustainable outlay of capital for regulatory compliance when businesses are struggling to keep people on the payroll. Our studies show that capital costs for pending air rules alone could be $17 billion over the next ten years, accounting for half of all the industry’s capital spending from the past ten years. From Boiler MACT and NAAQS to Residual Risk and NSPS, the costs and trade-offs continue to stack up, sometimes with conflicts between the rules.

These are but a few of the air regulations being piled upon the backs of the American manufacturing and the workers who depend on these facilities for high-paying, high-skill jobs. When we look at the complexity of Boiler MACT, for example, the way in which that rule is applied depends on the related Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials (NHSM) rule. NHSM classifies materials in two categories: fuels and waste. If EPA decides to place the materials that the forest products industry has safely burned for years into the “waste” category, facilities that burn those materials will no longer be regulated by Boiler MACT; instead, the Commercial/Industrial Solid Waste Incinerators (CISWI or Incinerator) rule would take effect, tripling compliance costs. Triple! Facing those costs, many mills will stop using these carbon neutral, renewable fuels and start filling up landfills with them. How is that good for the environment?

We are committed to investing in regulations that actually improve the quality of the air. What we oppose are standards that go too far and don’t take into account the costs and jobs at stake. When our industry makes investments, they need to last for 10 or 20 years, not the next five years with a constantly moving target from the avalanche of overlapping regulations. We need standards that can actually be achieved and that also take into account the wide range of affected boilers. We need to have listed the fuels we use to create energy for our facilities, most of which are biomass residuals that would otherwise be sent to decay in a landfill. Lastly, we need adequate compliance time. Many things must happen before a facility can make necessary changes – from state permitting, to engineering, to equipment orders – and in most cases, three years is simply not enough time to achieve all of this.

There is very real evidence that jobs are at stake with the avalanche of current rules coming down the pike. There also is very real evidence that job loss can have significant impacts to the health of not only the displaced worker, but also on the family and to entire communities when rural facilities close. Taking with one hand and giving with another is a zero sum game, and in many cases, that is exactly what is happening.

We have our priorities all wrong. At this point in our country’s history considering our environmental and economic concerns, investing in innovations to reduce energy usage and protect jobs should take precedence. Instead, we are talking about spending billions to comply with regulations that would require us to install controls to control the emissions of our controls. A new paradigm in environmental regulations is needed to reflect the progress that has been made over the years and to ensure that future progress continues in an economically and environmentally smart way.

With health and economic benefits to be gained and the public strongly on the side of cleaning up harmful air pollution, there is no excuse for Senate efforts to block, weaken or delay EPA clean air protections.

Dirty air poses a severe health hazard to current and future generations. According to the American Lung Association, 127 million Americans live in areas with unsafe levels of soot and smog. Fish consumption advisories have been issued across the U.S. due to dangerous levels of mercury, and as many as one in six women of childbearing age has mercury levels in her blood high enough to put her child at risk of learning disabilities, developmental disorders and lower IQs. The numbers speak for themselves – when it comes to protecting the health of our most vulnerable populations, air quality is a key place to start.

The EPA’s safeguards don’t just protect our health and environment; they also provide significant economic benefits. Far from being the stifling regulations that critics have made them out to be, clean air protections spur innovation and incentivize the development of cleaner, safer technologies. Since the Clean Air Act passed in 1970, key air pollutants have been reduced by 60 percent, while the economy has more than tripled. Studies have shown that the economic benefits of cleaning up air pollution, including saving lives, avoiding hospital visits, and increasing worker productivity, have exceeded costs by 30 times.

The EPA’s recently finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, for example, is expected to save up to 11,000 lives and prevent more than 100,000 asthma and heart attacks annually, at the same time it will create 40,000 short-term construction jobs and over 8,000 long-term utility jobs. These jobs will be filled by boilermakers, pipefitters, electricians and other workers in the manufacturing sector.

It is no wonder that a broad coalition, including public health experts, small businesses, faith, and environmental organizations oppose Senator Inhofe’s dangerous assault on clean air. In fact, just last week, more than 90 mayors, led by New York City Mayor Bloomberg, released a letter touting the benefits these long-overdue safeguards will have in their communities.

Clean air protections also represent the convergence of good policy and smart politics. Even after a relentless disinformation campaign from those wanting free reign to pollute our air, there is broad public support for the EPA holding polluters accountable. According to a March 2012 survey from the American Lung Association, 78 percent of likely voters are in favor of the EPA setting stricter limits on the amount of mercury that power plants and other facilities emit. This research is consistent with a survey conducted last fall by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, on behalf of LCV, which found that 71 percent of voters support requiring reductions in carbon pollution, including a solid majority of Republican voters.

The links between dirty air, public health and environmental degradation are well-established; the benefits of a clean energy economy are clear; and support for the EPA has never been stronger. The connections are obvious – and we urge the Senate to reject all attempts to curtail vital clean air safeguards.

The U.S. Senate will vote Wednesday on legislation (S.J.Res.37) to overturn the EPA’s Utility MACT Rule, a regulation establishing first-ever maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from power plants.

Like EPA’s New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for greenhouse gases, the U-MACT would effectively ban the construction of new coal-fired power plants. That is a policy Congress has not approved. Indeed, Congress declined to pass a milder variant of the same anti-coal agenda when Senate leaders pulled the plug on cap-and-trade legislation in 2010.

In September 2011, the House of Representatives passed the Transparency in Regulatory Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act (H.R. 2401) by 249-169. The TRAIN Act would nullify the U-MACT Rule and direct EPA to adopt less burdensome regulations to control power plant HAP emissions. Clearly, had the U-MACT been introduced as legislation, it would have been dead on arrival. Yet supporters of S.J.Res.37 are struggling to get the 50 votes needed for passage. Why is that?

Partisanship is an obvious factor. Some Democrats will vote against S.J.Res.37 simply because the U-MACT is the Obama administration’s handiwork. Another factor is the elitist notion that the ‘best and brightest’ are entitled to enact their policy preferences via backdoor regulation when they can’t persuade Congress to pass ‘progressive’ legislation.

Supporters of S.J.Res.37 must also overcome years of hype about power plant emissions of mercury, the principal HAP targeted by the U-MACT Rule. A typical example is a recent Sierra Club billboard that shows a pregnant woman cupping her belly in her hands. An arrow pointing to her womb contains the following text: “Just where does all that mercury from our nation’s coal-fired power plants end up?”

The ad implies that all, most, or at least much of the mercury emitted by power plants ends up poisoning unborn children. Fact check! The “majority” of U.S. industrial mercury emissions are deposited outside the U.S. (EPA, Report on the Environment, p. 2-46). A fraction of the emissions deposited domestically ends up in lakes and streams. A “small fraction” of the aqueous mercury is converted to the organic form, methylmercury, which can accumulate in aquatic food chains (EPA, Regulatory Impact Analysis, p. 4-16). A fraction of the methylmercury ends up in fish tissues. And a small fraction of fish in U.S. lakes and rivers is actually eaten by pregnant women.

EPA’s messaging is less fanciful but still alarmist. EPA contends that pregnant women in subsistence fishing households consume enough mercury in self-caught fish to impair their children’s cognitive and neurological development. Although that is theoretically possible, in the 22 years since Congress tasked the EPA to study the health risks of mercury, the agency has not identified a single child whose learning or other disabilities can be traced to prenatal mercury exposure.

The EPA’s December 2000 “appropriate and necessary” determination, the trigger for the Utility MACT Rule, depicted power plant mercury emissions as a significant and growing public health threat. That was sheer exaggeration.

The EPA projected that power plant mercury emissions would increase from 46 tons per year (TPY) in 1990 to 60 TPY in 2010. In fact, emissions declined to 29 TPY in 2011 – 50% below EPA’s projection.

Citing a 1999-2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey, EPA’s “appropriate and necessary” determination stated that 7% of childbearing age women in the U.S. (one in every 14) had blood mercury concentrations exceeding the agency’s “reference dose” (the ‘safe’ exposure level). But the relevant subpopulation is pregnant women, not women of childbearing age (defined as 15 to 44 years). Childbearing age women are older, on average, than the average pregnant woman, and blood mercury levels increase with age. In the CDC’s 2001-2004 surveys, only 0.4% of pregnant women (one in every 250) had blood mercury levels exceeding the reference dose (Schwartz and Hayward, Air Quality in America, p. 169).

More critically, the EPA’s reference dose is not a valid measure of actual health risk. The reference dose is 1/15th the lowest exposure level – a value known as the “benchmark dose” – associated with mild, subclinical effects in any epidemiological study. The highest exposure measured in any pregnant woman by the CDC during 1999-2004 was 3.7 times the reference dose – about 1/4th the benchmark dose. Serious harm such as neurological disorders requires exposures much higher than the benchmark dose.

In the U-MACT Rule, the EPA assumes that any increase in prenatal mercury exposure above the reference dose produces a corresponding decrease in the child’s IQ. Here the EPA relies on a single study funded by the agency and led by an EPA scientist. The study purports to be an “integrative assessment” of epidemiological studies conducted in the Faroe Islands, the Seychelles, and New Zealand. However, the Seychelles study – the most reliable of the three – found no association between prenatal mercury exposure and IQ even though exposures were as high as 22 times the reference dose.

The EPA estimates that implementing the U-MACT Rule will cost $9.6 billion in 2016, and that the required mercury reductions will provide $0.5 to $6 million in health benefits in the same year. The agency does not even try to estimate the benefits of the Rule’s MACT standards for other HAPs such as chromium, nickel, and acid gases. For the HAP reductions that are the U-MACT’s statutory purpose, estimated costs exceed estimated benefits by 1,600 to one or even 19,200 to one.

Even those numbers give the U-MACT too much credit. The EPA’s benefit estimate assumes that mercury emission reductions achieved in 2015 yield proportional reductions in fish tissue concentrations in 2016. Yet the agency admits that fish tissue concentrations may not decrease for “years to decades” (EPA, RIA, p. 4-18).

The benefit estimate further assumes that the hoped-for reduction in fish mercury concentrations will avert the loss of 0.00209 IQ points per child born in 2016 in a guesstimated population of 240,000 subsistence fishing households (EPA, RIA, p. 4-56), and that those ‘saved’ IQ points will boost aggregate lifetime income by $0.5 million to $6 million. This is not verifiable even in principle. IQ cannot accurately be measured out to five decimal places. Consequently, it is also impossible to determine whether any relationship exists between income and IQ for increments as tiny as 0.00209 IQ points. In short, the EPA’s benefit estimate for the U-MACT’s mercury reductions is a statistical figment.

The EPA nonetheless assures us the Rule will pay for itself many times over. This supposedly is due to the “co-benefits” of coincidental reductions in non-HAP emissions, particularly sulfur dioxide, which is a precursor of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The EPA estimates that in 2016, the Rule’s coincidental PM2.5 reductions will avert 4,200 to 11,000 premature deaths, generating co-benefits of $33 billion to $89 billion, or $3 to $9 in health benefits for every dollar of cost. None of this is credible.

As Anne Smith of NERA Economic Consulting points out, almost all of the projected 11,000 premature deaths averted are in areas already in attainment with the EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for PM2.5. By law, NAAQS are set at a level “requisite to protect public health” with an “adequate margin of safety.” Last week, the EPA proposed to revise the NAAQS for PM2.5, to make it more stringent. Still, more than 94% of the U-MACT’s estimated co-benefits are attributable to PM2.5 reductions below the revised NAAQS. Anne Smith notes that the EPA attributes up to 89% of the Rule’s co-benefits to PM2.5 reductions below the lowest exposure associated with mortality risk in any epidemiological study.

In short, the U-MACT Rule’s advertised health benefits exist only in EPA’s modeling, not in the real world.

In stark contrast, the Rule’s costs are real and substantial. U-MACT will raise electricity and natural gas prices, imposing a regressive de facto energy tax on low-income households. The utility sector will become more dependent on natural gas, a fuel with a history of price volatility and a future clouded by the environmental movement’s hostility to hydraulic fracturing. Premature retirements of up to 50,000 megawatts and more combined with hundreds of thousands of megawatts that must be taken offline to install new pollution control equipment create significant reliability challenges for grid operators, increasing the risk of power failures, rolling blackouts, and brownouts.

Most importantly, U-MACT will do more harm than good to public health. NERA Economic Consulting estimates that U-MACT and three other EPA regulations could reduce annual average disposable income by $34 billion from 2012 to 2020. That is money households won’t be able to spend on health care, nutritious food, and other priorities. NERA also estimates that the four EPA regulations could reduce net employment by an average of 183,000 jobs per year. Many people who lose their jobs also lose their health insurance. Numerous studies demonstrate that unemployment increases the risk of sickness and death.

To sum up, the U-MACT Rule would have zero chance of passing were its mandates introduced as legislation and put to a vote. The Rule effectively bans new coal generation – again, a policy Congress would reject if proposed in legislation. Along with other EPA regulations, U-MACT will make energy more costly, make electricity prices more volatile, jeopardize electric supply reliability, and reduce GDP growth and job creation. The alarms over mercury and PM2.5 that EPA and others use to promote the Rule are unscientific hype. Because households generally use income to enhance their well-being, regulations with large net costs are likely to have a negative impact on public health. For all these reasons, Congress should nix the U-MACT.

Would you recommend that a pregnant sister or daughter eat a seafood feast every day? Probably not, since doctors routinely warn of the risks of mercury exposure in unborn children.

Legislative efforts to halt the EPA’s first ever rule to prevent the emissions of mercury and other toxic are a mistake. Even delaying the rule would come at the grave expense of the public’s health. It’s a rule with $90 billion in annual benefits and that’s likely to be a serious underestimate.

Some have cast doubt on EPA’s calculations of benefits. There have been congressional hearings that question basic public health science research. There have also been cries of double counting benefits. Both are misguided: EPA has extensively documented the public health science and economics supporting the rule, and none of the objections that have been raised hold water.

Nor does the notion that removing mercury from our atmosphere isn’t worth much. No one making this claim cant be taken seriously because either they have not looked at the cost-benefit analysis of this rule or they are intentionally misleading the public.

It is true that only a small percentage of the EPA’s estimated benefits from the mercury standards come from mercury reduction ($6 million in benefits out of a total of $90 billion). But that’s because the benefits from having less mercury in our water streams, oceans and, subsequently, the seafood we eat are extremely difficult to quantify.

In EPA’s Regulatory Impact Analysis, where the costs and benefits of the rule are weighed, the agency frankly recognizes that it “is nearly impossible to determine the source” of mercury in “commercially produced ocean fish” which make up a major component of American fish consumption.

Many times in the RIA, EPA states plainly that their numbers cannot come close to capturing what the standards will deliver. The agency says these risks are real, the correlation is clear, but the monetization is beyond its current abilities.

This is not fine print; it’s central to the analysis. Choosing to ignore these benefits, merely because they are not quantified discounts the huge range of health problems faced by mercury-exposed children.

But even without the benefits that go uncounted, the rule is eminently cost-benefit justified. Industry is quick to call for an account of all costs to the rule even if they are secondary, but prefer to dismiss the indirect benefits accumulated from fine particle reduction as a result of the mercury rule. That’s not good economics. Best practices of cost-benefit analysis though call for a consideration of all attendant costs and benefits, whether direct or indirect.

Along with the EPA’s standards to curb these emissions from industrial boilers, the mercury rule has the potential to have a significant positive effect on respiratory and cardiovascular health as well as cognitive development in children. Despite the efforts of some on the Hill, no manipulation of the numbers can obscure the fact that the payoff to these rules is huge.

Speaking from an industry where particulate emission standards have already had a dramatic impact- diesel fuels and engines, EPA's proposal to strengthen the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for allowable particulate emissions raises many questions, not the least of which is "what more can we do?" .

More than a decade, EPA and the California Air Resources Board challenged the diesel industry to virtually eliminate particulate emissions from diesel engines. Engine manufacturers, key automotive suppliers and fuel refiners got to work investing billions of dollars together toward developing and delivering a new generation of clean diesel technology-- ultra-low sulfur diesel fuels, advanced diesel engines, and emissions control technology all working together as a system.

As a result today's generation of diesel technology in new heavy-duty highway vehicles and a growing number of new farm and construction machines are near zero emissions for particulates and nitrogen oxides as well. So in that regard, it is hard to imagine under any scenario what further actions could be taken to reduce particulate emissions from new technology.

The progress in clean diesel technology is best measured in terms of air qualtity and today, emissions of fine particulates from diesel engines are only about 6 percent of the national emissions inventory, according to EPA. It would take 60 of today's heavy-duty diesel trucks to equal the particulate emissions of one 2000 model year truck. In some parts of Southern California, the majority of particulate emissions from vehicles today come from brake and tire wear and not diesel engines. And just as new technology has gotten a lot cleaner, opportunities have emerged to modernize and upgrade some of the existing engines and equipment with emissions control technology and even repowering with newer clean diesel engines. Now attention is focused on meeting the new EPA requirements for CO2 emissions/fuel ecomomy mandates for heavy duty highway trucks and buses.

Diesel engines today remain the lifeblood and workhorse of the US and the global economy for a reason -- because they have unique combinations of energy efficiency, power density and durability, and now near zero emissions with a proven and available fuel network and ability to use renewable fuels. They're perfectly poised to compete now in any PM-standard environment be it here in the US or increasingly around the globe.

The diesel industry's record over the last decade shows that it can do the near impossible - virtually eliminate emissions from diesel engines; with the right time frames, systems-based approaches it can be done; it's not easy nor cheap.

We've made great progress in improving national air quaiity and the diesel industry has certainly done its fair share toward reducing and nearly eliminating particulate emissions. Enabling policies that encougage economic growth and investments in new technology - whether it be powerplants or pick-up trucks -- will likely do more to improve air quality than any numerical limitations on individual pollutants.

Assuring that is unfortunately far more complicated than picking the level of allowable particulates in the air, but it is the work that we should and must do.

A look at recent EPA decisions and pronouncements suggests an agency looking for guidance in the areas framed by this week’s National Journal question. The approach we need for the intersection of industrial activity, public health and environmental protection is, to borrow a phrase, all of the above. We need an approach based on sound science that also factors in the costs of compliance compared to the achieved benefits, effects on jobs and the overall economic impacts of Washington rule-making.

I write this representing an industry that has improved its own efficiency while helping the country use less energy. The U.S. uses about half as much energy for every dollar of GDP as it did in 1980. Meanwhile, our industry has spent more than $239 billion since 1990 to improve the performance of its products, facilities and operations. The result has been a steady reduction in pollution.

That said, the oil and natural gas industry supports common-sense environmental regulation. EPA’s current incremental approach, which often comes with a price tag that dwarfs estimated benefits, needs to be replaced with one that’s not unnecessarily burdensome or counter-productive. EPA seems to have understood this principle in some cases recently. In others, it hasn’t.

For example, EPA and the administration appropriately recognized concerns raised by industry and others and pulled back a proposed new standard for ozone. By some estimates the proposal would’ve put 85 percent of the country in non-compliance. Millions of jobs might have been in jeopardy, and the economy could have faced $1 trillion a year in costs.

EPA also recognized concerns about a proposed rule on emissions resulting from oil and natural gas development, agreeing to allow companies until 2015 to develop the equipment needed for compliance and to train workers to use it.

But in other areas legitimate concern about the cost effectiveness of proposals seemingly has been dismissed. Our industry urged EPA to consider keeping the current standard on fine-particle soot that had lowered concentrations 27 percent between 2000 and 2010 – evidence that this pollution problem is being addressed, that air quality is improving. But the agency released a more stringent standard last week based, we believe, on faulty data and without sufficient correlating benefit. As written it could discourage investment in areas that fail to meet the standard, costing jobs and economic opportunity.

The scenario is similar when it comes to EPA’s push for E15 gasoline, which could damage the engines of millions of vehicles now on our roads, and its aggressive mandate to refiners on cellulosic biofuels, basically requiring them to use a fuel that doesn’t exist. In this context it’s not hard to understand why some are concerned about EPA’s forthcoming Utility MACT Rule on emissions from coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers.

The larger point is the signal government is sending to industry and investors with the current approach: inconsistency and uncertainty. Both profoundly hinder economic activity and job creation. Coupled with a sense that legitimate cost-benefit analysis isn’t being uniformly conducted, the seeming disconnect between the regulators and the regulated isn’t surprising.

Our industry supports environmental protection and is constantly striving to improve the safety and efficiency of its operations. But without a common-sense regulatory approach that sees the entire picture, America will continue to create problems for itself in terms of fostering economic growth, creating jobs and, in the case of our industry, generating the energy we need for better lives now and in the future.

There is a wide gulf between what should be done with these regulations and what probably will done. The right thing to for the economy, job creation, and the environment is to cancel the rules and start over using an honest risk assessment and trade-off analysis. Although the vote on the mercury rule is expected to be close, Senator Reid would find a way to bottle it up if he didn’t have the votes to defeat Senator Inhofe’s measure. So, there is a good chance that political pandering to the environmental zealotry will trump what is good for the nation.

This EPA has proven to be the most extreme in the agency’s history. President Obama uses the right words when he talks about balanced regulations, ensuring that they are cost-effective, and removing regulatory burdens from the private sector but he obviously does so with a wink and a nod. EPA’s hostility towards fossil energy use is beyond question and the president’s willingness to let Lisa Jackson run amok means that she is pursuing his agenda.

Over the past 3 plus years, EPA has used exaggerated risks and misleading information to push regulations that impose enormous costs and which achieve at best trivial benefits. One of the alleged benefits from clean air regulations is always children’s health and asthma. It is a documented fact that the incidence of asthma has increased while air quality has gotten better,not worse. EPA has never explained how further reductions in air pollutants are supposed to lead to a reduction in the incidence of asthma. The reason is simple, it can’t because Asthma is far more complex than EPA suggests.

There have been numerous studies documenting that mercury levels in fish have remained constant for decades even though mercury emissions in the US have been declining. EPA claims about mercury levels in pregnant women have been shown to be gross exaggerations. The notion that mercury in fish is a major health risk to pregnant women is not supported by studies by Harvard, Lancet, or others. Real scientific studies conclude that the benefits from fish consumption far outweigh risks.

EPA relies on epidemiology studies to support its claims about premature deaths avoided and heart attacks. The numbers used by the Agency are about one-half of one percent. Epidemiology studies are very useful but no one claims that they have the level of precision that EPA implicitly assumes.

EPA’s proposed clean air regulations will be among the most expensive ever issued. Other analysis have concluded that “contrary to EPA’s claims, the real health impact of these rules will likely be negative. They will unnecessarily raise the price of electricity, impede economic recovery, and worsen public health and welfare”. And, economic analyses have demonstrated that EPA continues to underestimate the cost of its regulations. Where it claims capital costs of $9.5 billion, IHS Global Insight came up with $20 billion. The Commerce Department and Small Business Administration also concluded that the burdens on business and job losses had been low balled.

As the composition of our economy has changed, the importance of electric power and the electrical grid has increased. The information society, the service industry, a growing telecommuting workforce require growing electrical power capacity and greater reliability. These rules will result in the premature shuttering of coal fired plants before they can be replaced by new natural gas capacity. That will have a direct and negative impact on an economy that continues to struggle and teeter on the brink of recession.

The Obama Administration, as demonstrated by its EPA, is anti-business unless of course its the so called green businesses that it favors and subsidizes. Actions have consequences and the consequences of an anti-business orthodoxy is to chill the type of investment that would lead to a strong recovery.

25 million under or unemployed workers are the casualties of a war against our capitalist, market based economy. As the EU sinks, we have an Administration that for some reason believes that it can follow its philosophy but have a different result.

With the nation’s growing deficit, high unemployment rate and struggling economy, Congress has a lot on its plate. The last thing Congress needs is to have to manage an agency that is overreaching – but that is exactly what is happening with the EPA.

Congress must now rein in the EPA, but in truth the EPA should stop its war on coal and seek a balance between responsible environmental rules and those that hurt America’s ability to grow our economy.

The expected vote this week on Senator Inhofe’s joint resolution of disapproval in regard to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Utility MACT Rule is the last, best chance that Congress has to restore some sense to EPA’s overreach. However, this Senate action would not be needed if the EPA had demonstrated common sense and flexibility in its rulemaking. Despite warnings from economists and bipartisan concern in Congress about Utility MACT’s harmful effects, the EPA pushed ahead with this heavy handed regulation – making it the most expensive regulation ever imposed by the agency on coal-fueled power plants, dramatically increasing electricity rates for American families and businesses. Increases that can only lead to substantial job losses and harm to our already struggling economy.

States that rely on coal pay almost 70 percent less for electricity. Regulations increasing the cost of electricity will likely be a tax on the families and businesses in these states and force everyone to pay more for goods and services. So Members of Congress from Ohio to Kentucky to West Virginia are going to have to explain to their constituents that their electricity bills are skyrocketing, not because of laws enacted by their elected officials, but because of an overreaching EPA.

EPA regulations are already responsible for the announced closure of generating units in 21 states. Yet, shortly after Utility MACT, EPA announced New Source Performance Standards for greenhouse gases - another new regulation - written to prevent the U.S. from taking advantage of our vast coal resources -- that are responsible for providing affordable electricity for America’s families and businesses. This rule makes it virtually impossible for utilities to make plans to build any new coal-fueled power plants, and could cause the premature closure of many more coal-fueled power plants operating today. It would also put more workers out of jobs. This outcome will limit our choices for electricity, rather than providing a diversified mix.

In addition to Utility MACT and GHG, the EPA just proposed new air quality standards for particulate matter. A number of states have not even finished implementing the current standard for fine particles. Yet, instead of helping these states fully implement the current standard, the EPA is decided to push ahead with new particulate matters standards, without even pausing to study and understand how the new standards will affect states and the industry.

As the National Review’s Robert Bryce pointed out earlier this week, “There’s no small amount of irony in the fact that the EPA … is now trying to shut down some of the very same coal-fired power plants that were built in the 1970s and 1980s as a direct result of the congressional ban on natural-gas-fired electricity production.”

Instead of repeating mistakes from the 1970s, the EPA should have found balance in these rules. By forcing business decisions on the coal industry, the EPA is favoring niche fads and fuels and leaving the development of next generation coal plants to nations like China.

If the EPA continues to ignore their rules’ effects on our country, by continuing their war on coal, Congress will need to act to protect the American people from the EPA, when they should be spending time solving the big problems our nation faces.

Last December, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled new standards that sharply limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from the nation’s coal- and oil-burning power plants. Shortly, EPA will be issuing similar rules for industrial boilers. If the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology Rule (U-MACT) is implemented as proposed, more than 60 coal-fired power plants, currently generating enough electricity to supply 22 million households, will likely be shut down because retrofitting would be uneconomical.

EPA itself has estimated that U-MACT would impose costs of about $11 billion annually on the U.S. economy. National Economic Research Associates (NERA) puts the costs at closer to $18 billion per year for the next 20 years.

The utility industry is already laboring to comply with a myriad of other EPA mandates including greenhouse gas emission reductions, revised air quality standards for sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide, and new standards for ash and other residuals from coal combustion. Taken together, these regulations will affect about 400,000 megawatts of oil- and coal-fired power generation—almost 40 percent of currently available U.S. capacity. Should all of the proposed implementation deadlines remain unchanged, the reliability of the entire U.S. power grid could be compromised.

With the growing prospect of a double-dip recession, it makes little sense to impose additional costs on the utility sector at this time since these will simply be passed on to businesses and households. Energy-intensive manufacturing industries, one of the few sectors of the economy currently creating jobs, would be especially hard it.

A better approach would be to allow industries and utilities more time to make a smooth transition to the next generation of emissions control technology. A more deliberate schedule for promulgating standards, coupled with a more realistic compliance schedule, would ease the strain on the utility sector and reduce risks to consumers. In addition, a longer compliance timeline might allow for the development of lower-cost control technologies.

It is also imperative that EPA reconcile the various overlapping regulatory requirements affecting the utility sector. A serious cost impact assessment would not merely examine each proposed rule in isolation but instead consider the cumulative cost impacts of all proposals. Anything less could put at risk the economic growth and job creation that depends on reliable and affordable electricity.