When human health and safety are at risk, Americans expect their government to protect them. We assume we are guarded against risks like lead in children's toys or poisons in our drinking water. And for the most part, these protections deliver benefits well beyond what they cost.
A proposal on Capitol Hill would require Congress to vote on every large regulation put forward. The measure (PDF), given the acronym "REINS," and introduced by Jim DeMint in the Senate and Geoff Davis in the House, has as its goal slowing down what they call "costly anti-free market regulations that are destroying jobs." But its real effect will be to grind action by administrative agencies nearly to a halt.
By focusing exclusively on the downsides of regulation, and not the benefits, the implication of this proposed legislation is that protecting the health and safety of Americans is not worth the costs that regulated entities must pay. But in fact, the opposite is often true: These rules can produce billions of dollars in net benefits.
Such protections generate economic value through lives saved, lower hospital bills or energy costs, and increased worker productivity from fewer health problems. Many times, these benefits significantly exceed the costs of the additional technology and changes in production processes needed to meet the regulatory requirements.
For example, a recent proposal by the Obama administration (which may end up being tabled for a year) to regulate hazardous air pollutants from industrial boilers would generate billions in net social benefits, largely due to a reduction in premature deaths.
Starving government authority and refusing to impose any costs on businesses means devaluing human health and safety to $0. Economically speaking, that simply doesn't make sense. If Republican committee members focus exclusively on how much regulations cost, they risk both bad economics and implying that the many obvious benefits of environmental protection -- like saving lives -- aren't important.
Of course there are costs for protecting health and safety -- agencies calculate in fine detail the economic downsides of creating a new rule. But often these numbers are overly cautious -- relying on industry-provided estimates that fail to account for speedy adaptation and innovation in the marketplace.
This is a scene we have seen played out again and again: EPA moves to regulate hazards like workplace benzene exposure or acid rain. Howls of fear emerge from industry, understandably averse to an unpredictable risk that comes with little reward for regulated businesses. They warn us of unlikely worst-case scenarios of lost jobs, shuttered plants, and higher prices. When the rules go into effect, instead of calamity, a smooth transition is made: businesses find clever, cost-cutting ways to comply, sending the price tag of the regulation plummeting.
It is worth noting that there is already a process in place to check to make sure regulations generate net economic benefits. For each regulation deemed to have an effect on the economy of $100 million or more (the same trigger used in this bill,) the federal government runs the numbers through the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that Americans will receive a high return on their investment.
It's true that not every regulation makes perfect sense: there are plenty that could be tweaked and improved, some that should no longer be on the books, others that are inadequate to the task.
But ironically, given the severe limits on the number of contested issues that can be resolved each year in Congress, the DeMint-Davis Bill will make it extremely difficult to improve regulation. Between a finite legislative calendar and the reality of hyper-partisan politics, there is little hope that Congress will be able to efficiently and effectively address regulatory matters. As a consequence, the bill would effectively doom us to the regulatory status quo, with serious risks that still need to be addressed and rules that need to be updated.
Slowing down the regulatory process often means imposing needless harms on the American public, from lives lost to unnecessary illness. In an attempt to reduce compliance costs for industry, this bill shifts greater costs onto everyone else.
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The DeMint/Davis bill is a knee jerk reaction to peoples complaint about the loss of jobs in the last 10 years. The problem is the two edge sword that government is swinging, regulations and free trade. In the 90's and before free trade one edge was dulled with tariffs.
You talk about cost benefits like lower hospital cost and better productivity which was all true in the 90's! Then you mentioned how business found clever new ways to deal with the new regulations, in the 90's that would include innovated thinking today it means shutting down plants here and outsourcing to other nations to get around the new EPA regulations.
You talk about all those benefits let's look at what it is doing to the poor and minorities. Compare the percentages of entry level factory jobs here today verses the 90's. Compare the numbers of minorities in prison today as those entry level factory jobs have disappeared! Are you so blind you don't see the connection?
See everyday a report from Asia about how people there are being poisoned or injured to produce a little cheaper product there instead of here!
I've come to the conclusion the reason we have sacrificed the livelihood of minorities here and have looked away from the poisoning and injury of people of color in Asia South/Central America is RACISM! Would we tolerate Europeans white kids being poisoned by lead from a battery factory. I don't think SO!
There are a great many regualtions being rolled out over the coming years that were created by the PPACA. Many of them should have a positive net effect. A few of them most certainly will not though.
darn it, ran out of space,,,
As for bio fuels you can't seriously believe we can grow our way out of this energy crises without starving people?
As for farms using bio fuels, I use to make bio-diesel until the market fell out, made some interesting products from the waste which is always a problem. We ran pilot plant trials with Anearobis decomposition and digestion, also pyrolysis. Found them to be surprisingly labor intensive and you had to have a fair size farm to make it worth the while. I actually liked pyrolysis the best. Put that being said the most I see under the best circumstances is 15-25% of our energy needs.
Yep that pretty much sums up the entire next Congressional session.