In perhaps the most troubling sign of his determination to pander to business at the expense of public health, President Obama announced this morning that he had blocked EPA’s science-based efforts to lower the levels of smog that drive children and the elderly inside on Code Red days. Automobile manufacturers, power plant operators, the oil industry, and the Chamber of Commerce are breaking out the champagne, while the public health community despairs of the President who promised so much and has delivered so little.
The hard truth is that in this case the President has decided to flout the Clean Air Act to precisely the same extent as his predecessor.
The Act established a panel of doctors and scientists, known as the Clean Air Act Science Advisory Committee (CASAC), a blue ribbon panel with impeccable credentials. The panel has pleaded with EPA to lower ozone to at least 70—and preferably 60—parts per billion in the air. President Bush shoved aside these recommendations, setting a 75 ppb standard. President Obama has just ensured that this harmful level will persist for another several years.
The White House is spinning this as an effort to ease the burden on states and industry for the sake of the economy. In fact, it’s a cave-in to political pressure. No one should be fooled. As it turns out, "yes we can" has once again become "no, we daren’t."
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Rena Steinzor | September 2, 2011
In perhaps the most troubling sign of his determination to pander to business at the expense of public health, President Obama announced this morning that he had blocked EPA’s science-based efforts to lower the levels of smog that drive children and the elderly inside on Code Red days. Automobile manufacturers, power plant operators, the oil industry, […]
Victor Flatt | September 2, 2011
Today’s decision of the Obama administration to withdraw new ozone rules is not only bad policy, it is also illegal. The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to revisit its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) every five years to ensure that they are adequate to protect the public health and safety. In 2006, the Bush Administration […]
Daniel Farber | September 1, 2011
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. I should probably start by putting my cards on the table. I’m not really an advocate of cap and trade as compared with other forms of regulation. What I care about is getting effective carbon restrictions in place, whether they take the form of cap and trade, a carbon tax, industry-wide […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | August 31, 2011
House Republicans have promised this week that upon their return to Washington after the recess they will attempt to stop 10 important proposed regulations because they are “job-destroying.” Adhering to the belief that “if you say it often enough, people will believe its true,” the party continues to insist that regulations cost jobs. But, as I […]
Matt Shudtz | August 25, 2011
Shortly after my August 5th post criticizing their Data Quality Act complaint to EPA, the International Platinum Group Metals Association sent me a kindly-written response letter (Inside EPA recently reported on the letter). Accusing me of both missing the point of their complaint and brushing aside important scientific concerns to make a headline-grabbing call for “over-regulation,” […]
Rena Steinzor | August 23, 2011
The final agency regulatory “look-back” plans, released by the White House this morning, don’t appear to satisfy anyone. They fall far short of their obvious goal: to placate greedy and intemperate industry demands that major rules be cancelled. And they distress public interest advocates, who fear they will preoccupy agencies with make-work at the expense of crucial […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | August 22, 2011
The current anti-regulatory mantra of Republican legislators (e.g., Cantor, Boehner, Issa) and conservative think tanks (e.g., CEI and Heritage) is that regulation is a “job-killer.” And a top plank of Republicans’ job agenda when they return from the summer recess is to limit regulations. There is just one problem with this rhetoric. It is not backed up by […]
James Goodwin | August 16, 2011
What would you do if a report you funded was debunked by a scathing critique from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service? What if you found that the researchers you funded had based 70 percent of their analysis of the costs of regulation on a regression based on opinion polling data? What if the researchers who […]
Ben Somberg | August 12, 2011
Former Senator Blanche Lincoln, now heading the National Federation of Independent Business’s new anti-regulatory campaign, faced criticism in recent days for citing the debunked SBA study claiming regulations cost $1.75 trillion in a year. The NFIB used that stat last week in launching its campaign (see ThinkProgress), and Lincoln cited the number in a National […]