Fox News:
The top Republican on a Senate environmental panel released a scathing report Tuesday that he contends shows that the Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed rule on cleaning up boilers nationwide could devastate America’s manufacturing base and imperil hundreds of thousands of jobs without providing any real public health or environmental benefits.
In June, the EPA issued a proposal that would force industrial, commercial and institutional boilers and heaters to use “maximum achievable control technology” to reduce harmful emissions that erode air quality and pose a public health risk.
The proposed rule covers industrial boilers used in manufacturing, processing, mining, refining and commercial boilers used in malls, laundries, apartments, restaurants and hotels, the report from Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma reads.
The agency, which is required to finalize the proposal by Dec. 16, has argued that implementing the rule would prevent 1,900 to 4,800 premature deaths in 2013 by reducing pollutants like dioxin, mercury and carbon monoxide, which are known or suspected to cause cancer and other serious health and environmental effects.
The EPA also lists a series of other benefits, including a reduction in asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks, hospital visits and lost work days. The agency says the value of the benefits ranges from $17 billion to $41 billion in 2013 alone — outweighing the costs of implementing the new rule by at least $14 billion.
But the Inhofe report — written by the Senate Environment and Public Works minority staff titled and titled “EPA’s Anti-Industrial Policy: Threatening Jobs and America’s Manufacturing Base,” — found that the proposed rule, known as “Boiler MACT,” could put nearly 800,000 jobs at risk over requirements on commercial and industrial boilers, cement plans and ozone standards.
“Reducing emissions of mercury, hydrogen chloride and other hazardous air pollutants from commercial and industrial boilers is good policy,” the report reads. “But the manner in which EPA set standards to reduce those emissions is impracticable and costly.”
The rest here.