{"id":425,"date":"2011-03-02T20:15:51","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T01:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/?p=425"},"modified":"2011-03-02T20:16:23","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T01:16:23","slug":"the-clean-air-act-amendments-good-for-our-health-and-our-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/2011\/03\/02\/the-clean-air-act-amendments-good-for-our-health-and-our-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clean Air Act Amendments: Good for Our Health AND Our Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Clean Air Act\u00a0and its\u00a0amendments prevent millions of premature deaths, significantly reduce illnesses, and save trillions of dollars for American families.\u00a0But\u00a0those in Congress who are working to stall EPA\u00a0actions\u00a0still claim that Clean Air Act regulations\u00a0are too costly. Fortunately there&#8217;s some new and conclusive evidence to show that they&#8217;re wrong.<\/p>\n<p>The EPA&#8217;s just-released <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/oar\/sect812\/prospective2.html\" target=\"_blank\">cost-benefit analysis of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments<\/a> leaves no room for argument:\u00a0 we simply cannot afford a world <em>without<\/em> regulations on the harmful pollution that the Clean Air Act is designed to fight.<\/p>\n<p>This comes as no surprise. The Clean Air Act has been saving lives, improving the health of American children, and saving us trillions of dollars for years now.\u00a0But this report is a new and definitive confirmation of just how critical this\u00a0law is to the health of the American people \u2014 and to our economy.<\/p>\n<p>EPA sets\u00a0the gold standard in economic modeling with this report. It provides an excellent, no-nonsense analysis of both the costs of complying with the Clean\u00a0Air Act\u00a0Amendments and the benefits. Benefits are the clear winner. From 1990 to 2020,\u00a0they manifest in the form of avoided premature deaths, reduction in illnesses and associated health care costs, and improved ecological and welfare impacts (like increased agricultural yields and better visibility conditions)<strong>. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The report finds that, at the central estimate, and after taking costs into account,<strong> the net benefits\u00a0of the Clean Air Act\u00a0Amendments are $12 trillion<\/strong> in present value. Yes, that&#8217;s TRILLION.<\/p>\n<p>The report also finds that <strong>the benefits of the Clean Air Act outweigh the costs by a factor of more than 30 to one<\/strong>.\u00a0Let me say that again:\u00a030 to one.\u00a0And that&#8217;s a more\u00a0modest estimate; the report&#8217;s high benefits estimate exceeds costs by 90 times.<\/p>\n<p>These estimates\u00a0don\u2019t even account for some benefits that are more difficult to monetize, such as health effects from air toxics, and chronic respiratory diseases other than chronic bronchitis. They also don&#8217;t include the pain and suffering associated with illnesses, so the benefits estimate should be seen as conservative.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s\u00a0look at one of\u00a0the most important results:\u00a0health impacts.\u00a0Last year alone, the\u00a0Clean Air Act\u00a0Amendments saved\u00a0more than\u00a0<strong>160,000 lives<\/strong>,\u00a0prevented more than <strong>85,000 emergency room visits<\/strong>, prevented <strong>millions of cases of respiratory problems<\/strong> (including bronchitis and asthma), enhanced productivity by preventing<strong> 13 million lost workdays<\/strong>, and\u00a0prevented <strong>3.2 million lost school days<\/strong> (just to name a few of the benefits).<\/p>\n<p>In the year 2020, the Clean Air Act Amendments are projected to <strong>prevent\u00a0more than\u00a0230,000 early deaths<\/strong> and provide benefits reaching approximately <strong>$2 trillion.<\/strong> All of which makes it mind-boggling that opponents in Congress continue to push back against this successful law.<\/p>\n<p>The enormous benefits of the Clean Air Act are nothing new. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/oar\/sect812\/retro.html\" target=\"_blank\">EPA\u2019s earlier cost-benefit analysis<\/a> of the law, from the years 1970 to 1990, showed that the net benefits in present value over the period were nearly <strong>$22 trillion<\/strong>, and that the <strong>benefits outweighed the costs by 40 to one<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s more good news:\u00a0 protecting children from neurotoxins\u00a0now will give us\u00a0workers with higher IQs later \u2014 and that&#8217;s something that also turns out to come with real economic benefits. The latest study by Harvard&#8217;s Dale Jorgenson\u00a0and his co-authors\u00a0shows that the Clean Air Act has <a title=\"http:\/\/yosemite.epa.gov\/ee\/epa\/eerm.nsf\/0\/5565fcfd16301a7485257830007fb612?OpenDocument&amp;ExpandSection=1\" href=\"http:\/\/yosemite.epa.gov\/ee\/epa\/eerm.nsf\/0\/5565fcfd16301a7485257830007fb612?OpenDocument&amp;ExpandSection=1\" target=\"_blank\">boosted productivity and growth<\/a>: Gross Domestic Product\u00a0in 2010 is up to 1.5% higher than it would have been without the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is that the Clean Air Act and\u00a0its Amendments have left Americans enormously better off \u2013 in terms of health, productivity, and economic growth. Why stop now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EPA&#8217;s just-released analysis of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments confirms that the benefits significantly outweigh the costs &#8212; making it good for our health and our economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4696,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4017,330],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clean-air-act","category-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Clean Air Act Amendments: Good for Our Health AND Our Economy - Market Forces<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/markets\/2011\/03\/02\/the-clean-air-act-amendments-good-for-our-health-and-our-economy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Clean Air Act Amendments: Good for Our Health AND Our Economy - 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