Study: Obama EPA Regs will 'Severely Harm Economic Growth'

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has released a study that predicts a whole lot of pain will result from looming Environmental Protection Agency regulations. In a press release, NAM says that the regulations will “cost manufacturers hundreds of billions of dollars and cause the loss of several million jobs.”

The study look at the cumulative effects of the EPA’s final Utility MACT and Boiler MACT rules, the pending Coal Combustion Residuals and Cooling Water Intake Structures regulations, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone. Those effects, according to the study, are massive and negative.

·         The annual compliance costs for all six regulations range from $36 billion to $111.2 billion (by EPA estimates) and from $63.2 billion to $138.2 billion (by industry estimates).

·         The total capital expenditures for all six regulations range from $174.6 billion to $539.3 billion (by EPA estimates) and from $404.5 billion to $884.5 billion (by industry estimates).

The full study is here, and state-by-state effects are listed here.

None of these regulations have even come up in Washington’s increasingly surreal fiscal cliff talks. President Obama’s attitude to it all seems to be “America, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me.”