Throughout the corporate world, the Environmental Protection Agency is known for its continual, expensive, and extremely confusing regulations. Through these policies the EPA has been driving down revenue for a number of factories, thus in turn, directly lowering job growth as well. The Clean Air Act has proved to be one the most costly, by regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Luckily, the GOP and major business owners have aimed to put an end to some of these costly regulations with the goal of helping businesses maintain good revenue and increasing jobs.
Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has been a leader on the front of the criticism to some of the EPA’s regulations and their impacts. He put it best when he said that “These regulations are the EPA, having to do with industrial boilers, having to do with ozone requirements, the endangerment finding. They would lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the cost is just tremendous. “Certainly Inhofe has his point with the amount of regulations and problems the EPA have posed to business leaders. He went on to finish up by pointing out that “We cannot be globally competitive as long as we have over-regulation in America.”
Even with all these regulations that the EPA is responsible for, what exactly are they doing in the end? It’s very hard to see how these large policies are directly impacting individual’s health and welfare. You wonder why the EPA doesn’t focus more on smaller projects with direct results such as removing asbestos from schools and older buildings all over the country, which are causing diseases like mesothelioma and asbestosis. Right now greenhouse gas emissions should be the least of their worries as some people out there are still being exposed to asbestos in their buildings. With mesothelioma life expectancy being extremely severe, it’s unclear why the EPA doesn’t make a more concerted effort to use their resources to remove all instances of asbestos possible throughout the country.
Cutting down on the EPA’s budget is an absolute requirement if improving businesses, the deficit, and creating more jobs are wanted throughout the country. Although Obama proposed a cut to the EPA budget, it’s only aimed at cutting down on the clean water projects. The real problem relates back to the clean air act and the greenhouse gas emission regulations that are stifling industry throughout the nation. Even with this budget proposal from the president, the excessive regulations and hurdles that these major factories will face are ever present. Reduced revenue and less job creation will bear the brunt of the EPA’s regulations.
Certainly we are all for having an environment that is as clean and safe as possible, but unfortunately regulations that have little impact on the environment are costing the country a lot of job growth and revenue in industry. Hopefully the campaign by Senator Inhofe and other s can successfully remove some of these costly regulations and help industry, as well as job growth.