In particular, to some extent, progressive scholars and policymakers have thought it relatively low-cost to allow conservatives to attack injunctive litigation. After all, if something is already dead, why expend any political capital defending it? This is a point that has a good deal of relevance right now, as Congress considers the "Federal Consent Decree Fairness Act" proposed to implement restrictions similar to the PLRA's in other topical areas of governmental injunctive litigation. If this article is correct about prison and jail orders, the stakes of the proposed "reform" are probably extremely high; progressives should think long and hard before they allow this statute or others like it to pass without a strenuous fight.

CRS reexamines EPA's data, producing cost and benefit estimates for each bill incremental to the costs and benefits of current law and promulgated regulations. The reanalysis finds that Clear Skies would have negligible incremental costs and added benefits of $6 billion in 2010 and $3 billion in 2020. For the same years, S. 843 would have annual net benefits 8 and 5 times as great as Clear Skies at annual costs of $4.2 billion and $3 billion, and S. 150 would have annual net benefits 10 and 16 times those of Clear Skies at annual costs of $23.6 billion and $18.1 billion.

EPA conducted limited sensitivity analyses to examine the effect on cost of select combinations of assumptions, including (1) the responsiveness of electricity demand to changes in price; (2) the availability of skilled labor to install control equipment; and (3) the growth of electricity demand and natural gas prices. However, some potentially useful combinations of assumptions were not examined. For example, if EPA had combined a relaxed skilled labor constraint with some responsiveness of electricity demand to changes in price, the cost of S. 150 and S. 843 would be substantially reduced. CRS also concluded that the Hg control costs used in the analysis may be substantially overstated because of dated assumptions.

Numerous benefits were not estimated by EPA, partly because of methodological difficulties. Benefits not estimated include the environmental (as opposed to health) benefits of controlling the pollutants; the health effects of mercury control; and any benefits from controlling CO₂ emissions. Thus, even though benefits exceeded costs for each of the options in both EPA's and our analysis, one should perhaps view the benefit estimates as a floor rather than a best estimate, particularly for S. 150 and S. 843, which include significant Hg and CO₂ reductions.

Even by EPA's numbers, Clear Skies is no better at controlling pollution than existing regulations.

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 12:22:15 PM



How Sunsets Fail the Sunshine State
For those who are following efforts to mandate a sunset policy at the federal level -- to force every government program to stop every ten years and plead for its life -- be sure to check out this column in the Tallahassee Democrat about a similar bill being considered in the state of Florida.

The column stresses that the underlying assumption of the bill is a myth, the "myth of fat government":

But Florida's is not a big, bloated, unresponsive government. The Annual Workforce Report used to run two little lists of the bottom 10 states, in terms of state personnel costs per citizen and ratio of state employees to total population. Florida ranked 48th in one and 50th in the other -- I forget which, because [Gov. Jeb] Bush quit compiling those statistics, which didn't support the Republican credo that government is always bloated.

Of course, even a statistical showing of large government does not necessarily mean the government is too large. As we explained in recent testimony, numbers alone mean nothing without context. The key question isn't whether government is big or even if it is getting bigger; instead, the real question is whether we have the public institutions necessary to meet the public's needs.

Meanwhile, although sunset proponents argue that the looming specter of the sunset process will induce government agencies to produce ever better results, the column stresses the opportunity costs of the sunset process and the potential for political distortion of agency priorities:

But it would also be a bonanza for lobbyists, who could slip little provisos into reauthorization bills. If, say, the homebuilders or insurance agents or beer distributors didn't like some enforcement action taken by agencies, their lobbyists could get legislators to redraw the timetable and re-review those agencies every year.

After two or three near-miss swipes of the abolition ax, the enforcers would get the message and back off.

That poses the danger that, in the sixth or seventh year of its cycle, an agency would focus full time on its own survival. Every fourth year, that might mean doing whatever the leading candidates for governor and Cabinet spots want -- or, conversely, settling back into complacency for six or seven years, once the spotlight passes.