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In Anti-Government Politics, “Time-Out” on Regulation versus Shortened Lives
Seizing upon a reliable “job creation” talking point, conservatives have stoked their war against “big government” by trying to freeze federal actions to protect the public.
The proposed “Regulatory Time-Out Act,” which would impose a one-year moratorium on “significant” new regulations, takes aim at regulations that keep industry from dumping poison in rivers or accidentally blowing up factory workers—in other words, policies that capitalists call “job killers.”
According to the champion of the bill, Sen. Susan Collins, “significant” rules are those “costing more than $100 million per year,” and those projected to “have an adverse impact on jobs, the economy, or our international competitiveness.” The guiding principle of this proposed regulatory kill-switch is a cold cost-benefit analysis that weighs profitability against people's health and safety.
This particular bill may not make it through Congress, but it reflects the anti-regulatory mentality on the Hill by offering a convenient tool for undermining the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—that clean-air promoting, worker-protecting, “job killing organization of America,” which presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann has promised shutter once and for all if elected.
Zeroing in on a textbook example of regulatory evil-doing, the measure seems to aim directly at a planned EPA regulation that would reduce emissions from boilers. According to a federal analysis, the pending boiler MACT rule would target tens of thousands of boilers at in various facilities including refineries, chemical plants, universities and commercial buildings, along with dozens of solid waste incinerators. The rule would reduce public exposure to mercury, soot and other toxics linked to cancer, child developmental problems, and premature death.
But the time-out crowd is less concerned with all that death and destruction than with the supposedly crippling impact on the economy. The Hill reported this week:
Collins said this rule could force pulp and paper mills and other operations to close.
“And that is just for starters," she said. "Once these mills close, the businesses that supply them would also be forced to lay off workers. Estimates are that nearly 90,000 Americans would lose their jobs, wages would drop by $4 billion, and government at all levels would see revenues decline by a staggering $1.3 billion.”
Surely this regulatory assault would devastate jobless Americans. Or at least be an unaffordable loss for lawmakers bankrolled by polluting industries.
Collins stressed there would be exemptions for certain protections that “address imminent threats to human health or safety,” or “foster private sector job creation and the enhancement of the competitiveness of the American worker.” But the reassurances invoke corporate terminology typically used to justify industry's drive to wring as much labor as possible from workers' bodies.
But who really loses from these burdensome rules? Rena Steinzor at the Center for Progressive Reform wrote in May that, although the agency had stalled on finalizing the boiler regulation:
By any reasonable estimation, it should have been a jewel in the EPA’s regulatory crown. Released in February, the EPA’s final Boiler MACT rule (actually, it’s two rules—one addressing large boilers and the other addressing smaller ones) would annually prevent up to nearly 6,600 premature deaths, more than 4,000 non-fatal heart attacks, more than 1,600 cases of acute bronchitis, and more than 313,000 missed work and school days. The final rule produced these enormous health benefits despite the fact it had been dramatically softened to placate industry critics. Because of these benefits, a recent CPR white paper had identified the Boiler MACT rule as one of the 12 “most critical environmental, health, and safety regulations still in the pipeline.” The EPA had projected that the rule would generate up to $54 billion in benefits at a cost of less than $2 billion; agency projections usually overestimate costs and underestimate benefits, and some benefits defy monetization.
So on balance, this regulatory investment is a bargain for the public: workers would gain back hundreds of thousands of otherwise lost workdays and maybe even avoid agonizing, unnecessary death. But these aren't the numbers anti-government ideologues like to cite in cost projections. Nor do they consider the potential jobs generated by regulations, and especially not the priceless benefit of a child spending more days learning in class. Nor the value of her parent living long enough to see her graduate from college. In anti-government politics, there's no room on the bottom line for real people—just as long as they vote the right way.
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30 Comments so far
Show AllThe first sentence sets the framework for this article which is critical of the "conservative" agenda.
The problem is that the word "conservative" is now used to mislead.
The word needs to be seen as a cover.
Substitute the word Corporate.
The reason I say this is that these policies and this agenda are , in reality,
the shared mindset and actions of almost all of Washington.
Ms. Chen wants us to believe these actions are not representative of the vast majority of corporate Washington and this is false.
Very astute observeration.
I agree, Birdbrain.
I'm not so sure that "Ms. Chen wants us to believe...", at least in the sense that she consciously and deliberately chose the term "conservative" to obscure the fact that the anti-regulatory mindset is more corporate and capitalist than strictly "conservative".
But I agree that it's less than precise. My thought was that "conservative" might have been used in lieu of "Republican", as many of CD's regularly-published pundits would have written. If so, it's a least a nod in the right direction.
Incidentally, as you point out, it's obvious that buying into this bogus and suspect trade-off between economic recovery and public safety and welfare is a bi-partisan, or trans-partisan, or a-partisan, or however one wants to put it, trend.
In fact, it's an issue that clearly and distinctly showcases the Good Cop/Bad Cop nature of the fraudulent Amerikan political process.
The Republicans take the lead in most nakedly and forcefully arguing for gutting and de-clawing regulations and regulatory agencies to free up the market in order to stimulate the economy, consistent with their specious "minimalist-government" philosophy.
The Democrats nominally, fitfully, and feebly defend regulation on principle, consistent with their specious "good-government" philosophy. But even they "reluctantly", and "with reservations" accede to the practical necessity of a "responsible" diminution or moratorium of regulation in response to the ongoing economic crisis or emergency.
So the Dems will hem and haw, and perhaps even bluster or grumble in the face of the anti-regulatory forces. But in the end they'll bow to ostensible necessity and fall into the Big Mo' parade led by the GOP drum majors.
Because indeed, the Elected Misrepresentatives in DC are technocratic executives and managers in a para-corporate service delivery system in the guise of respectable political institutions, i.e. the government.
It's pure Good Cop/Bad Cop, playing ordinary unprivileged citizens for fools and suckers.
That is an artificial distinction there BA. Conservative politics is in the service of the wealthy few, as are corporations.
These actions reflect the shared mindset of the wealthy, the capitalists - be they D or R, liberal or conservative, corporate or not, in DC or anywhere else.
Ah those pesky regulations that corporations don't pay much attention to anyway and there isn't the money available to have them effecdtively enforced. (if anyone REALLY wnated to). But there are some regs that for some reason SHOULD be enforced which impact personal (as opposed to corporate) behavior which of course have no adverse imapct on jobs! Reproductive rights infringements, and collective bargaining spring to mind. Odd that those regs that seem to be most 'damaging to the economy' are always the ones that have the most impact on the enviornment and safety. Corps would have us go back to the Golden Age when work places were hazardous to health...but hey who cares if you get deathly sick at work you should be thankful you have a job!
The Republican party and the Koch Brother's Tea party have merged to become the party of death.
To not include the democrats in your assessment is to miss half the story.
Agreed! BOTH Corporate Parties are servants of the Corporatist-Militarist-Wall Street Ruling Class, the power-mad sociopaths to whom "making a killing" is often literally true in their unquenchable thirst for "More! More! More!"
The only difference between a two-party system and a one-party system is one party. The whole system stinks, needs to be canned and replaced with something that represents mainstream America and not the fringes. The first time I voted in a presidential election, I was shocked at the variety of candidates. Who were these people and why didn't I know their names would be on the ballot, I wondered. Since then I have made an effort to know who all the candidates will be, and I always find one that represents me. I have no moral or ethical dilemma voting for a good candidate, and will never choose the lesser of two evils again.
"Agreed! BOTH Corporate Parties are servants of the Corporatist-Militarist-Wall Street Ruling Class, the power-mad sociopaths to whom "making a killing" is often literally true in their unquenchable thirst for "More! More! More!"-Posted by ED
aha! i've always wondered why that old bald eagle continuously flies in circles, never moving forward. two right wings!
I don't understand why people like Ms Chen do not point out that regulations that require upgrading polluting facilities involve installing new equipment, which has to be manufactured somewhere. Unless the stuff all comes from China, the need for new equipment creates jobs here.
If someone can put a dollar value on the lives saved by the new regulations, it should be possible to calculate how many jobs are created by the regulations.
Industry will still complain, because the cost of the equipment affects their cash flow, and does not always increase their productivity (but sometimes it does). But the money is not poured down a rat hole: it pays workers somewhere.
Not funding or enforcing regulations about worker safety as well as pollution are more than costly in monetary terms. Lives are at stake, though I realize that lives mean little to nothing in a sociopathic culture such as ours.
According to the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics, "A preliminary total of 4,547 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2010..." (Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Summary, 2010 http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm)
Nonfatal injuries and illnesses, private industry: Total recordable cases:3,277,700 in 2009
Imagine what the above totals would be with no regulations, as the Tea Party Corporatists and the Libertarians want.
A new report from the non-profit Clean Air Task Force estimates that “pollution from coal-fired power plants will result in the premature death of more than 13,000 people [in the United States] this year. (http://burycoal.com/blog/2010/09/17/coal-and-us-air-pollution-deaths/)
I don't think you got my point. The information you compiled is readily available. But I do not recall anyone compiling information about the number of jobs involved in making pollution-control equipment.
FYI, there is a link toward the bottom of the article that explains how jobs are created by stronger regulations.
http://www.polluterwatch.com/blog/death-talking-point-regulations-actually-create-jobs
As for the other comments, it appears to be in some cases the reader's choice to interpret the term "conservative" to refer only to Republicans. In an article that refers specifically to neither party and indeed impugns the entire anti-regulatory hostility of Washington, I'm not sure how you'd divine from one word, which refers specifically to the bill in question, a conspiracy to defend a certain party from criticism. Oh well. But please, carry on the conversation...
Ms Chen: The link you refer us to is not satisfactory. It is not enough to say in a report that so many thousand jobs were created by regulations. The only thing that will penetrate the fog laid down by anti-regulation people (most of them Republicans, regardless of your qualification) is to say something like: "this many jobs were created by regulating this industry. And that many jobs were created when that industry was regulated." Etc., etc. Factoids (what a horrible word!) are what are needed, not generalizations.
"M Chen"
My criticism does not come out of divination. I did not elaborate and for that I apologize.
My distrust comes from your focussing on a republican sponsored bill and your need to bring into the discussion the possibility of what Michelle Bachman might do as president at a time when the clearest example of an attack on the role of the EPA is the very recent, very real, and very prominent shutdown of EPA guidelines by Barack Obama.
I cannot help but wonder why you did not castigate Obama in this article for already doing what Collins and Bachman have so far only claimed they would do. Sure, Collins and Bachman are corporate-owned mouthpieces, but so is the current administration.
I do not think you are stupid. So why try to frighten people with possible attacks when there is already an attack underway?
No one deserves more criticism on this topic than does this current corporate administration.
Sorry, the focus on this particular bill was simply a focus on this particular bill, intended to shed some light as an example of the anti-regulatory mentality across the Beltway, though not a comprehensive overview, of course. For more analysis of the administration's rollback on regulations, see this piece that prefigures the current debate: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6880/will_obamas_campaign_against_red_tape_unravel_the_safety_net/
Have we really already forgotten the Gulf oil spill, or all the countless drugs that had to kill before they were taken off the market? How about this:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/17-2#comment-1930365
We can force our prepubescent daughters to take a veneral disease vaccine, our kids have to wear helmets when they climb on bicycles, we all buckle up when we get into a motor vehicle, Governor Swartzenhager banned lard, and we'll soon be forced to purchase "health" insurance, but we can't regulate "business" and make them operate in a way that is in the interests of society? Why is that? Not only are they "too big to fail", now they are "too big to be held accountable"?
Interesting points. If, as the Supreme Court believes, corporations are "persons," it should be possible to force them to do certain things, in the manner that the rest of us are forced to do certain things - for our own good, of course.
If this doesn't point out the need for publicly financed campaigns, nothing does. Susan Collins: Bought and sold. American people: Go F yourselves.
Welcome back to the dark ages, everybody!! Want a little cyanide to go with your deregulated world?
Cyanide is much to quick. We prefer something a little slower, like Cesium-137, or synthetic hormones. Mercury! Did you know that most fresh water fish in Florida have mercury limits advisories for consumption? Where does the mercury come from? Natural sources: 0.1% Corporations: 99.9%
This isn't about regulation vs. deregulation. The Democrats or "liberals" will pass regulation that benefits crony capitalists and the Republicans or "conservatives" will tweak those regulations to get rid of any that didn't benefit crony capitalists as much as they wanted. Basically this is about one party the liberal/conservative Democrat/Republicans who will work to benefit the corporations and regulation is a great tool to protect the interest of corporations.
The people I know that really want change and are trying to do something in their own lives or their community find that government regulation is the main thing holding them back. There's so many examples but consider the arrests this summer of the Food not Bombs members for trying to feed people who are going hungry! I'm sure the rules were passed for our own safety but look at how they are used. On the other hand, we have corporations using other rules passed for our own protection to put small farms out of business. The big corporations are a threat to individuals and communities but there's got to be a better way to deal with that threat than the big government and regulation that just ends up being exploited in regulatory capture to be used against the people instead of for the people.
A big topic now is how we need financial regulation. Do a google search for where the American Bankers Association is located in DC:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=american+bankers&hl=en&ll=38.898682,-77.042871&spn=0.012074,0.019505&sll=38.894724,-77.046368&sspn=0.006037,0.009753&vpsrc=6&gl=us&t=m&z=16
It's about 10 blocks from the Federal Reserve Board. The ABA is the trade organization for banks. This is what they do:
"The association lobbies to influence federal legislative and regulatory activities"
-from Wikipedia
If you walked from one office to the other you would pass the World Bank and the IMF. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which was formed this summer to "protect" us is an even shorter walk. Their offices are located inside the offices of the Federal Reserve Bureau. These institutions are all part of the same corrupt centralized power and they all work together to become more powerful and more centralized even on a global level. The Federal Reserve itself was founded in secret by a bunch of rich bankers working with the most "progressive" president in history, Woodrow Wilson. In fact, this secret deal with rich bankers was considered at the time to be regulatory progressive reform to save us from the same bankers. There was the 100 year anniversary of the secret meeting last year and a bunch of politicians and bankers went to a secret party to celebrate it. You won't read about it in the news though. Liberals like Krugman definitely won't write about it. His job is basically to write propaganda for the Federal Reserve not expose the way it really works. The only place you'll find mention of it is on "nutty" conspiracy theory websites:
http://www.infowars.com/the-fed-at-jekyll-island-100-years-later-theyre-baaack/
I guess nowadays you're a nut if you're paying attention and don't believe the propaganda. You're not supposed to think about how the world really works. You're supposed to believe the good-hearted progressives and Dems will save us with their nice kindly big powerful centralized authoritarianism and their wonderful thoughtful regulation created in DC in the middle of all those other big powerful centralized authoritarian groups. What we really need is to reject the whole system and decentralize and find our own answers. Like Ron Paul says, a good start wouldn't be more oversight or regulation but abolishing the Federal Reserve completely.
I wonder how hungry members of congress allow themselves to become before they go down to get their tax-paid-for meal? Socialism is great for them.
I wonder while they are eating their free food if they think about people on welfare who are hoping against hope that congress will be unsuccessful in trying to take the food out of their mouths. Probably, sometimes; but why would the poor work if they know the government is going to feed them?
"I wonder... if they think about people on welfare...."
Thinking about their constituents make them sad. I am sure their minds are busy planning their next big fund-raiser when they get to suck.... sorry, my bad... when they get to hobnob with the rich and famous, drink fine wine, and sell their souls to the highest bidder.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Chen is just following the party line of the offensive Dim shill rag that employs her.
health and safety regulations are indeed "job killers".
for every worker killed or maimed a new job is created.
Conservatives do not care how many workers get killed by unsafe work places.
Sorry, you're wrong. There is a cost-effectiveness to protecting skilled workers. You should have said: Conservatives do not care how many unskilled laborers die or what killed them, they are easily replaced.
caveat emptor, the great rule of the marketplace, along with the iconic principle of free enterprise form the cornerstone of fundamentalist free market capitalism.
slavery and genocide were considered acceptable strategies for generations of rugged individualists infected with the entrepeneurial spirit.
it is doubtful that anything like the current levels of affluence amassed in the u.s. could have been generated by this mindset without massive complicity.
it may be labelled conservative to want a return to the "good old days" - for many, it represents a reaffirmation to doing "what comes natural", health and safety be damned.