PACE in Wall Street Journal: Cost Versus Benefits and the EPA

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a Letter to the Editor from PACE Executive Director Lance Brown, written in response to the newspaper’s recent analysis of EPA regulation and current pushback from FERC and state attorneys general. The text of the letter appears below.

Your editorial “Government vs. EPA” (Oct. 12) sheds light on a fundamental EPA flaw: its inability to recognize when even the most well-intentioned regulations become destructive, threatening our economic stability. While numerous federal and state officials voice their concerns, the EPA and its shoddy bureaucratic processes stay on course,even when the result is a train wreck of regulations that will cost hard-working Americans their jobs.

In these times of economic hardship and uncertainty, states cannot afford the added stress of forced energy plant closures and the resulting job loss that comes with the EPA’s misguided and burdensome Utility MACT rule, one of the costliest regulations in EPA history. Not only did the EPA fail to consider job loss when drafting Utility MACT, it failed to consider the impact plant closures would have on our nation’s electricity reliability and consumers’ energy bills.

I applaud the state and federal officials who are working to ensure EPA regulations are based on sound data that allow energy providers reasonable time for compliance, but the November deadline is fast approaching. It’s time for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to put pressure on the White House to intervene against the EPA’s heavy-handed rules. Unless of course the administration prefers a legacy of an economic tailspin sure to be caused by supporting federal regulations based on flawed data.