"EPA scraps mercury rule math in effort critics say will hamper regulation of pollution"

Joseph Aldy and Jeff Holmstead were quoted in a Washington Examiner article on EPA mercury regulations. Listed below is a partial quote:

“‘It’s about what they think the proper role of EPA is,’ said Jeff Holmstead, an attorney with Bracewell LLP who led the EPA’s air office during the George W. Bush administration. ‘They didn’t want to defend something that the Obama administration had done that the thought really was a huge overreach.’

The EPA’s action is also another domino to fall in a larger Trump administration battle to change how the EPA quantifies the costs and benefits of pollution regulations. Trump EPA officials have raised questions about the agency’s process, particularly how much weight to give to co-benefits and especially those associated with particulate matter reductions.

Environmental economists say that’s because the economic benefits of cutting particulate matter are often large and tend to tip the scales in favor of tighter air pollution standards.

‘The benefits of reducing air pollution are disproportionately associated with reducing fine particulate matter because it kills people, a lot more than any other kind of air pollutant,’ said Joe Aldy, a public policy professor at Harvard University and a fellow at Resources for the Future and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Trump EPA ‘is trying to say, Wait, if we can just ignore the biggest public health benefits, then it makes it easier for us to try to roll back these clean air regulations,’ added Aldy, who served as a special assistant on energy and environment in the Obama White House.”

Read the full article here.