The Obama EPA, clearly the most extremist Environmental Protection Agency since its founding in the early 1970s, is proposing to tighten ozone standards to levels considered extreme and too costly even by North Carolina’s environmentalist-controlled Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
You will remember that the EPA under George Bush tightened the ozone standard from 85 parts per billion (ppb) in ambient air to 75 ppb, a standard that went into effect just two years ago. That standard was considered by many to be overkill, though not, of course, by NC DENR.
The effect of that new standard (the current standard) was to take the state from almost complete compliance to noncompliance in two of the state’s three metropolitan areas, Charlotte and the Triad. If the standard were ratcheted down again, the entire state would likely be out of compliance. That would mean a massive new cost burden on the state — a cost burden so great that even DENR head Sheila Holman, someone who had probably never seen an air quality standard she thought was too tough, thinks might be overwhelming.
As quoted in The News & Observer, Holman first notes that “we’re going to need additional pollution controls to achieve those lower standards.” Then, sounding like she could be some right winger from the John Locke Foundation who (how does it go?) “cares more about costs than saving the planet,” states that, “What is better for North Carolina’s citizens at this point? Do you want to keep them working with health care, or potentially face more layoffs?”
Stop the presses. Can that be? An NC DENR official actually recognizing that environmental regulations cost jobs? Excuse me, but I think they’ve started skiing in hell. Apparently these new regulations could take NC’s compliance costs from $70 million to $4.1 billion annually. At least that’s what The News and Observer is saying. But wait — don’t DENR and Ms Hollman remember that if there is even one child whose asthma symptoms are reduced, it’s all worth it — even if that child’s father is thrown out of work?
