Scott Pruitt increasingly looks the worst of the worst out of the appalling cabinet of President Trump, quite aside from his race to become the single most corrupt cabinet member in the entire history ofthe US. The latter is trivial compared to his policy change after policy change that will increase pollution in the environment and end up killing people, to be blunt about it. But now the Environmental Economics blog reports that since June 7 Pruitt's EPA has been planning to distort benefit-cost in a way to make it less likely to support environmental policy enforcement (sorry not able to make link to site work).
In particular they are planning to eliminate counting "co-benefits" of policies. Only what a policy is specifically directed at can be counted. So, if one looks at coal burning and wishes to limit particulate emissions, then one cannot count co-benefits such as reducing SO2 and mercury emission. This is simply outrageous and makes no sense whatsoever. But indeed, Scott Pruitt may be the worst cabinet member in US history, and Trump seems to be in no hurry to remove him, indeed, defends him.
Barkley Rosser
9 comments:
"makes no sense whatsoever"
You mean is makes no policy sense. It makes perfect sense if what you want to do is kill regulation.
The ideological tweaking of Benefit-Cost Analysis to discount benefits or costs has a long history that should dispel any misconceptions about the value-free objectivity of technocrats. See Public Works, Economic Stabilization and Cost-Benefit Sophistry
Please, I have read this post and the post "Public Works, Economic Stabilization and Cost-Benefit Sophistry" along with the column in the Los Angeles Times. I am however not clear about the difference between benefit-cost analysis and cost-benefit analysis. Could the difference be explained?
Sandwichman, I found your post inspiring.
And encourage the burning of coal & profits for Energy & Petrochemical firms & their CEOs.
Scott Pruitt is now waging a war on economics:
http://www.env-econ.net/2018/07/scott-pruitt-is-now-waging-a-war-on-economics.html
I think this is the post you mentioned.
Anonymous, there is no difference between BCA and CBA, one and the same thing.
It looks like the successor to the egregious Scott Pruitt will be as bad as him on policy. Andrew Wheeler has been a lobbyist for Maurray Energy, US's largest coal company and a VP of the Coal Club. Of course he is a climate change denier. The attack on economics will continue.
"Anonymous, there is no difference between BCA and CBA, one and the same thing."
Thanks.
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