"[Rep. John Sullivan's {R-OK}] 10-page bill (H.R. 1705) creates an interagency federal committee tasked with conducting cost-benefit analyses of 10 specific EPA regulations aimed at curbing pollutants such as heat-trapping gases, fine particulates, ozone, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. These studies are supposed to reveal the effects of clean air rules on consumers, small businesses, state and local governments, labor markets and agriculture." (solveclimatenews.com)The reason I find this preposterous is that there is no way -- none -- that this will go the way Mr. Sullivan plans. Last summer, we wrote a paper that examines the utility of using various metrics when forming environmental policy. We calculated -- to the best of our ability -- the per-tonne damage costs that result from the emission of reactive N to various environmental media. When you compare these with the abatement costs, it's not even close; the benefit cost ratio of reducing the marginal tonne of reactive nitrogen (which causes lots of problems, including mortality/morbidity effects through the formation of ozone and particulate matter) is 83,000:1. That doesn't even include any estimate of the damages that result from global warming.
Key thing to remember in policy: don't try to pass measures that will only reinforce the other guys' point.
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