The NYT's is reporting how the scientists at the EPA (voting 20-2) and the unanimous votes at the AMA are asking for tighter restrictions on soot emissions. Yet the politically appointed head at the EPA says there is “insufficient evidence” and kills the increased air quality standards. The following is the breakdown of the cost/benefit analysis:
The environmental and medical communities suspect that the administration’s main motive was to save the power companies and other industrial sources of pollution about $1.9 billion in new investment that the more protective annual standard would have required. But here, too, the administration appears to have ignored expert advice. Last Friday, the agency released an economic analysis showing that in exchange for $1.9 billion in new costs, the stronger annual standards could save as many as 24,000 thousand lives and as much as $50 billion annually in health care and other costs to society. Studies like these always offer a range of possible outcomes, but even at the lower end — 2,200 lives and $4.3 billion in money saved — the cost-benefit ratios are very favorable.
source: NYT's, Science Ignored, Again
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