California’s Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer (not pictured) today held a press conference in which she touted a twenty-page page foot-noted study showing that complying with the nation’s public health and environmental protection laws has bolstered a $300 billion a year clean technology sector that employs an estimated 1.7 million people.
At the hotly attended press conference, she went on: “Our environmental laws provide major health and economic benefits. For example, the Clean Air Act’s annual benefits by 2020 are expected to prevent 230,000 premature deaths, 200,000 cases of heart attacks, 2.4 million cases of asthma attacks, 120,000 emergency room visits, and 5.4 million lost school days.”
The media, as you can imagine, simply ate it up. This is quite a different story than has been duly repeated for months, since the House devoted itself to rolling back the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund, and other environmental legislation handled by our useless, job-killing EPA.
Hands shot up around the packed room. “So, does this mean that the EPA is NOT in fact a job-killer?” asked the WSJ, incredulously. “Can you give us a figure on these so-called “economic benefits” of a healthy popluation?” demanded the NYT, belligerently, chewing thoughtfully on a pencil.
“The economic benefits of the Clean Air Act will equal about $2 trillion per year by the year 2020,” replied the feisty Senator,” if we continue enforcing the Act”.
Actually, just kidding. Judging by the coverage, today no media attended her press conference, hotly or not.
But as Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer has put it before, “If you can’t breathe, you can’t work. If you need to take your child to the hospital or if the breadwinner of the family dies prematurely, a major financial burden is placed on the family and often on society.” The same logic applies to preventing deaths and illnesses from polluted water and toxins.
The hotly attended pressers are actually that of her committee counterparts in the Republican-held House, like high-school dropout Representative Daryl Issa: Ranking Member of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform who said… no I’m not going to tell you that. You can read every one of his hotly attended utterances everywhere else. He doesn’t need no twenty-page footnoted studies that merely tout facts.
So, unimpeded by any public outcry, the EPA-dismantling TRAIN Act, H.R. 2401 – “Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts of the Nation Act of 2011”, H.R. 2250 – “EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011” and H.R. 2681 – “Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011” just roll through congress.
Susan Kraemer@Twitter
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