The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges its new mercury regulation for coal-fired power plants will be the most expensive in history, costing more than $10 billion annually. Yet incredibly, agency officials are still touting the rule as economic stimulus. “Every model that we run shows that it would actually create jobs,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said last year.
The problem is “every model” Jackson ran cooked the books in favor of EPA’s optimistic conclusion. EPA’s methodology simply assumes that no matter how high the costs go, the regulation — known as the Utility MACT (for Maximum Achievable Control Technology) — will always create jobs.
Recommended Stories
Print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account
Digital subscriber? Click here to login/register your account.