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Editorial
Investor's Business Daily
August 3, 2011
Regulation: Unsupported by science, a beleaguered American economy may soon be subject to ozone standards so stringent that Yellowstone National Park could not meet them. Look forward to double-digit unemployment.
While the nation focused on the debt ceiling and its credit rating, the Environmental Protection Agency, which has become an unelected government unto itself, pondered a new way to impose rules that help explain why this economy cannot grow or create jobs and revenues.
High ozone levels can cause severe regulatory distress, but like other stuff in the atmosphere, there is a relatively safe level that can be obtained.
Then you run into the law of diminishing returns and reach a level beyond which health benefits are nonexistent or illusory, and costs exorbitant and job-killing.
On July 29, the EPA was set to pull the trigger on new regulations mandating a reduction in atmospheric ozone levels from the 75 parts per billion (ppb) established under the Bush administration to as low as 60 ppb. The EPA missed the deadline, but this particular sword still hangs over the neck of the U.S. economy.
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