Last week, JLF released Roy’s report that takes a look at the impact of the Clean Smokestacks Act (CSA).  The bill was primarily passed to reduce ozone (i.e. smog) levels.

As Roy points out, there is no evidence of any benefits from this law, and the costs are far greater than originally anticipated. 

An article in the Charlotte Observer discussing the report highlights a very important point about confusing the means to achieving a goal as the goal itself.

As you can see in the article, instead of DENR defending the CSA by showing how the law has reduced ozone levels, DENR points out that there have been emission reductions in nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide.  This is exactly the point Roy is making–they don’t know whether the law has provided the stated benefit of reducing ozone levels.

The goal isn’t a reduction of emissions–if you mandate scrubbers on a coal-fired power plant, there will be reduced emissions.  These reductions are the means to the goal of reducing ozone levels.  DENR has no evidence and has not conducted any studies trying to show that the CSA has any effect on ozone levels.

In Roy’s study, he shows that neighboring states without their own CSA are doing as just as well as NC when it comes to ozone levels.

Billions of dollars are being spent for compliance with the CSA, and those costs are being passed on to NC electricity customers.  Paying a lot more for electricity to receive nothing in return doesn’t sound like much of a success story to me.