WASHINGTON, DC - Encouraging the Obama Administration to follow its own directives regarding transparency in regulations, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today wrote to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to request that EPA release an estimate of the total cost of EPA’s recently finalized Utility MACT rule.
EPA’s Utility MACT rule is expected to be the most expensive rule the agency has ever imposed on our nation’s power sector. EPA’s estimates, however, do not provide the total “sticker price" of the rule, but only a share of those costs assigned to three select years: $9.4 billion in 2015, $8.6 billion in 2020, and $7.4 billion in 2030. EPA documentation states that annualized estimates assume utilities would take 30 to 40 years to pay off compliance costs.
“President Obama’s Executive Order 13563 requires that EPA make available to the public the assessment of the costs anticipated from the regulatory action, such as the direct cost to businesses and others in complying with the regulation, as well as the underlying analysis. The RIA produced by EPA does not provide a total cost of the regulation, but only a share of those costs assigned to three select years from costs that are amortized over 30 to 40 years," wrote the members.
