EPA Pushing the Envelope to Prove How Many Jobs New Regulations Could Create
**Written by Doug Powers
Last month Democrat Rep. Ed Markey from Massachusetts touted a wonderful side-effect of government regulations: more jobs. The EPA agrees and is trying to run with it more aggressively than ever.
From the Daily Caller:
The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.
[...]
The EPA is asking taxpayers to fund up to 230,000 new government workers to process all the extra paperwork, at an estimated cost of $21 billion. That cost does not include the economic impact of the regulations themselves.“Hiring the 230,000 full-time employees necessary to produce the 1.4 billion work hours required to address the actual increase in permitting functions would result in an increase in Title V administration costs of $21 billion per year,” the EPA wrote in the court brief.
That 230,000 number will probably become 345,000 as soon as somebody realizes that an additional regulator position will need to be added in order to regulate every two new regulators hired. After all, what’s the point of an unregulated regulator?
The EPA regards itself as a job creator, but not without the responsible creation of offsets. Even though these proposed new regulatory jobs may seem to take away from the other two areas the administration claims creates jobs — food stamps and unemployment checks — they wouldn’t. Any current White House economist worth his or her salt would tell you that in the Keynesian circle of economic life, these regs would create good paying government jobs, but the regulations themselves would wreak havoc on the private sector. If the number of people forced to go on economy-boosting food stamps and unemployment checks because of the regs is the same as those who got jobs enforcing the regs, symmetry in the delicate balance required for a healthy economy (according to numerous DC Democrats) would be preserved. And if it wasn’t, our hypothetical White House economist would just go back to work at the university.
Update: Herman Cain flashback from the GOP debate in Orlando: “Scrap the EPA and start over.”
Agreed.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Categories: Enviro-nitwits,global warming,Obama Jobs Death Toll,Politics
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Doug Powers said:
Right, and ones that are -certain- to vote Democratic! Pump up ‘dat headcount yo! We got a White House to win!
How about a new government agency that enforces a law that says the government can not create any new government agencies. Yeah, I know… jumbo shrimp
If, God willing, WE win the wh and senate, keep the house in 2012, the two agencies that NEED to go are the education and epa! These two do more harm than almost all the others combined!
L
I’m reminded of the original Willy Wonka movie (the good one):
Grandpa Joe: It’s an educated egg-ducator.
Mr. Salt: It’s a lot of nonsense.
Wonka (singing): A little nonsense now and then…
Is relished by the wisest men.
Regulations do not create jobs.
The key is to find out what regulations are absolutely necessary and based on hard science and which ones are liberal fluff.
We already have the Clean Water and Clean Air Act, as well as Superfund.
Those can be tweaked from time to time, but we don’t need a whole new set of regs going after CO2 and your jacuzzi.
Oh, good grief! They must think we are ALL morons! More than half the people of this country still have a brain and can smell a scam from across the street. Does anyone believe these cretins any more? ANYONE? Bueller???
Communists, all of them. I call it as I see it, and I am seeing it more and more with each passing day.
In the Information technology world this would be called “vaporware.”
But the EPA is not lying. They are creating jobs. CFL bulbs are coming exclusively from China and Mexico. Jobs are being added; outside the U.S.
The Americans who made incandescent bulbs are being laid off.
Wait a minute. College was a while back but I seem to remember in Econ 101 that all wealth comes from either collecting natural resources, processing them, or intellectual activities.
And all government actions were by their nature parasitical.
So government jobs, while possibly necessary, are a drag on the economy by definition. Period.
letget,
Amen, by far. Last week I was down on Base and a buddy stopped by w/ old computers and printers to turn in for disposal.
It took him the better part of an entire MORNING to get all the damned paperwork straightened out! Remove all the toner cartridges blah blah. The Manual for DRMO is 4″ thick. Total waste of time.
Just thank the Jackass-In-Chief for all of the Chicago-style patronage!!! The head Jackass must think that the EPA is the only place he can hide that much patronage, besides the IRS!! I hope the next president has the guts to FIRE the EPA, period!! And, oh yeah, slash, slash, slash the IRS!!!
Just the increase (230k) would put them at number 14 in the list of the country’s largest private sector employers.
We can’t afford four more years.
Capt. Blasto, you are hereby penalized 15 yards and a loss of down. This message brought to you by AttackWatch.whatever…
You have that somewhat right. The EPA does create jobs paid for by taxes and fines, and which only serve to produce nothing but regulation and enforcement which stifles private sector job creation here and ins only a boon to the economics of other nations.
Which is the whole point. Its payback from the Leftist controlled federal agencies. Punish our own nation and its industries for historically plundering and exploiting Gaia and the poor around the world.
“Job creator” in this sense is akin to referring to government spending as “investment”. For a more detailed explanation, please refer to “Turning the World Upside Down For Idiots”.
At this rate, we can’t afford ten more minutes!
By way of comparison, as of November 2008, the EPA employed 18,000 people.
Remember the compassionate Global Warming conservatives like Bush and Upton gave us the light bulb mess.
That is why candidates like Romney and Christie are NO GO for ma as potential nominees. I cannot see myself voting for them under any circumstance.
John Deaux,
Wow, that’s what you call perspective. A total eclipse blocking out the sun. We’re the EPA and we’re bigger than Boeing! Join us!
Even at that number they are overstaffed by 17,500.
This isn’t the 70′s. We get it. No one is dumping anti-freeze down the sewer any more and we know how the eye-flush station works.
We got it from here! Thanks…
But wait, adding regulations DOES increase private sector employment. In my company we now have a diversity department, a sustainability (green) department, environmental health and safety department, plus the legal department and the tax compliance people in the accounting office. There are literally dozens of people whose whole job is just to keep track of our compliance to the ever increasing pile of regulations (and to keep us out of jail). We refer to these tasks as “non-value added”. But of course these people have to get paid, so we can either pass along the cost to our customers, or we can reduce the number (or pay) of the people actually doing “value-added” work. Imagine a world without having to hire these parasites, or having our taxes used to pay another set of parasites that come up with more and more impediments to productive enterprise.
I think we’ve become to polarized.
Half of my office is eager to trade freedoms for security and wealth for fairness.
And half of us would not do so under any circumstances.
This is beyond a ballot box issue. The majority of the lefties here will not compromise either. They keep blathering on about Al Gore being robbed (and snickering about JFK’s election).
This is going to come to violence That’s how it always ends when someone is determined to steal from or imprison another. Always.
And they think they’re the ones in the right. Our poor country.
EPA (Ebriection Poinyoin Association): We do too contribute!
CO_Engineer,
True. One of my best friends on the guard base is the Enviro Eng. at a major mfr. Even hint there’s room for cutting back and he’ll cite 39 case studies where..!
Many, many of the Haz. items we used to take as commonplace, household items in any shop, are now looong gooone. I know many of the fleeters here will recall a time when Trichlor was used as a “degreaser”! Seriously dude, just give me the whole case?
Now you need a note from God to get a Maybe.
If the EPA would make it illegal to operate a motor vehicle, thousands of jobs would be created overnight.
Buggy Whip manufacturers
Saddle Makers
Wagon Manufacturers
Canvas Manufacturers
Blacksmiths
Oat Farmers
Horse Shoers
Livery Stable Operators
Stagecoach Companies
Better to just throw it in the dumpster. If it’s worth stealing for scrap metal, someone will take it.
We have a small circular file for used batteries, and a jar that we have to keep scrap solder in, even though the solder I use does not have any lead content.
230,000 new regulators. What happens when we reach the point where half the people in this country are being paid to watch the other half?
Captain Blasto,
I don’t think that polarizing is necessarily a bad thing. O’Drama was able to be elected by “moderates and independents” that enjoyed -total- anonymity.
This go round we’ve thrown down the gauntlet and either you’re w/ us or against us. Us being sanity. Anyone can make a mistake (once) With any luck and LOT of hard work we can re-build this nation.
Anyone voting for O’Drama at this point has to be cognizant they’re voting for total destruction. Has to.
you forgot the guy walking behind the horse, perfoming waste removal.
Hangfire,
( I hear you ) Poor guy had to write down the serial numbers off everything and at the end of the day, it all gets wrapped up in the same bin and shipped to the -same- place.
Do we really believe anyone will be actually checking those serial #’s at the other end?
ILMC got a job?
Doing the job Americans won’t do??
Adding more government jobs and regulations will cure our anemic economy in the same way adding tape worms and leaches will cure an anemic patient. The politically correct term for Democrat is “logically challenged.”
So let’s all go on unemployment and food stamps and really get the economy going. Then we can afford to pay for all of these new regulations. /sarc
This government regardless of party in charge, is out of control. Time to take it back.
The Stars and Stripes becomes a Hammer and Sickle
On September 26th, 2011 at 4:17 pm, peteee said:
On September 26th, 2011 at 4:07 pm, Hangfire said:
you forgot the guy walking behind the horse, perfoming waste removal.
Now THAT’S a shovel-ready job!
Egg-zakedly. But who, me wonders, will regulate the regulators of the regulators? Why, regulator regulator regulators of course. So who, you may ask regulates the regulator of the regulators of the regulators? Why it would have to be…
Mr Gumby: Are you the brain specialist?
Brain surgeon: No, I am not. Yes! Yes, I am the brain specialist!
Mr Gumby: My brain hurts!
Actually overstaffed by 18,000.
Dang! You beat me to it! But I was going to call it “shi# slinger”
Exactly. One way of looking at the entire cost of government, in private sector terms, is that it is the “overhead” associated with our economy and the necessary cost of our society. Yes, it is neccessary, but the private sector doesn’t try and increase overhead, it tries to decrease it. You won’t find a business say “Let’s hire more people in order to increase our overheard”. Likewise, I don’t think increasing our governmental costs usually results in a better economy.
This also points out the administration’s basic misunderstanding of the reason that businesses exist. We know that a business exists to create and market a product or service at a competitive price so the the owner can make a return on his investment. If he needs to hire workers, that cost will need to be evaluated against the output that they provide. Sorry to say it, but the calculation is the same for buying a piece of equipment, expanding your facility, or hiring workers. The current occupant in the White House believes that the primary purpose of business is to create jobs. If the business produces something, that is a bonus, but not really a requirement. And the owner should be prevented from making a profit if at all possible. Since that is the goal, who cares if the job is actually connected with the business, or a make-work job poring through regulations. Come to think of it that is why he is so supportive of unions and government jobs as well.
Actually, that would be an improvement. The regulators need regulating. They’re about the only thing left in our society that’s unregulated.
(OK, except for Fannie, Freddie, and the Federal Reserve)
It sounds like you are planning some cruel and unusual labor for one of Gaia’s sacred critters and methane emitters. Clearly you are in need of Species Sensitivity Training. Please report to your nearest gulag as soon as you can walk there.
I’d comment but the EPA took away my inhaler and I’m running out breath ….
(cough)
(cough cough)
(slump)
The time for being “nice” is over. The time for being “above the fray” is over. The time for “taking the high road” is over. If Obammy can drop his g’s in his speech, then I know the game he and his ilk are playing. The EPA is his Praetorian Guard. The CBC his “Immortals”.
hawkeye54
Pretty much. Although, you ought to see how liberals exploit the poor and the environment.
It can be quite nasty.
I have a question for the Extra Personnel Agency.
Suppose I run Tre’s Computer Company. I have 10 openings. I could hire 10 more production people, so I can build more computers to sell. I could hire 10 more R&D people to help me build the latest and greatest computer. I could hire 10 more sales people to sell more computers. Most likely I would hire a few of each, to help make Tre’s Computer Company make more money.
But, people just tell me I can’t do something because it’ll harm the South American Three-eyed Bedbug just creates more overhead that those production has to support.
Exactly. If the regulators of the regulators would do what regulators usually do, damage the thing they are regulating, then regulating the regulators would be a wonderful boon to those regulated by the regulators being regulated.
Democrats claims millions of jobs created by stimulus so EPA regs will probably create so many we’ll have to put out an emergency call to Mexico and rest of world to come and get the excess jobs because all our citizens will be doing two jobs already.
It’s very simple; eliminate the Federal EPA and let the states do the job. As it is, there is already duplication of effort. And that’s only one Federal agency duplicating what is being done by each of the 57 states. Puncture a hole in the inflated Federal buraucracy and watch it swirl around in the air, making a phhfffft noise.
Last time I checked, every regulation was a tax. Essentially, when you regulate something, somebody has to pay to be in compliance with the regulation.