Please Turn Out the Lights

Jane Van Ryan
Posted October 5, 2010

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving forward with proposals that could sound the death knell for millions of jobs across the country. We've already told you about the potentially disastrous effects of the EPA's proposed ozone standard and its plan to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but there's more--much more.

As reported by Ed Morrissey and Michelle Malkin at Hot Air and Hans Bader at Open Market, the EPA has additional proposals on the books that would destroy millions of U.S. jobs, according to a new U.S. Senate report. The minority staff Environment and Public Works Committee report, titled "EPA's Anti-Industrial Policy: Threatening Jobs and America's Manufacturing Base," examined the potential impacts of several EPA initiatives:

• New standards for commercial and industrial boilers: up to 798,250 jobs at risk;
• New standards for Portland Cement plants: up to 18 cement plants at risk of shutting down, threatening nearly 1,800 direct jobs and 9,000 indirect jobs;
• The Endangerment Finding/Tailoring Rules for Greenhouse Gas Emissions: higher energy costs; jobs moving overseas; severe economic impacts on the poor, the elderly, minorities, and those on fixed incomes; 6.1 million sources subject to EPA control and regulation; and
• The revised National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone: severe restrictions on job creation and business expansion in hundreds of counties nationwide.

The ozone standard alone could destroy an estimated 7.3 million U.S. jobs, according to a report by Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. Plus, thousands of jobs could be sent overseas. As Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said in a news release, "The irony of EPA's agenda is that, along with higher costs, it will fail to provide the American people with meaningful environmental benefits. In some cases, it will actually impose environmental harm, as EPA's ever-increasing mandates shift production to China, where technology and standards don't measure up to our own."

"This shouldn't be a surprise," Hans writes in his blog post. "The EPA's own internal documents show that the administration's global warming regulations will result in a massive 'loss of steel, paper, aluminum, chemical, and cement manufacturing jobs.'"

Add to that the administration's moratorium on offshore drilling below 500 feet and EPA's proposed farm dust regulations, and the policy trend is quite troubling.

Will the last U.S. worker please turn out the lights?