Read on Twitter
THREAD: In honor of Trump @EPA's anti-environment new cost-benefit rule, let's look at all the ways @EPA has been neither consistent nor transparent on cost-benefit analysis when rolling back environmental and climate protections. First up: the Clean Car Roll Back.
Possibly the most damaging of all @EPA rollbacks, EPA could not make the rollback pass a cost benefit test, no matter how hard it tried to cook the books, including by inventing an "implicit opportunity cost" out of thin air. https://bit.ly/3qIvtbp https://bit.ly/2VYRc0E
The cost-benefit numbers were so bad that OIRA tried to hold up the clean car rollback review until they were fixed. But OIRA caved and let EPA move forward even though the rollback doesn't pass a cost-benefit test and despite strong objections from staff. https://nyti.ms/39VOiCg
Next: The @EPA's rollback of Mercury standards protecting the public, especially kids, from the dangerous toxin. @EPA said it had to roll it back because the Obama @EPA counted the $billions of "co-benefits" or indirect benefits when polluters are blocked from emitting mercury.
Trump's @EPA said the Obama Mercury rule didn't pass a cost-benefit test when you exclude "co-benefits." EXCEPT Trump's @EPA twice refused to do a new cost-benefit analysis of the rule when OIRA asked. Why?
@EPA does not want to admit that the Mercury rule has led to bigger benefits, at lower costs, than Obama's @EPA originally thought. Trump @EPA just wants to only look at the old analysis because a new one would not show what Trump's @EPA wants it to show. https://bit.ly/3gx5Qpj
Next: Trump @EPA's repeal of Clean Power Plan. @EPA completely changed its cost-benefit math on its rollback of the CPP from proposed to final rule. Why? To hide that the rollback will cause thousands of premature deaths a year https://bit.ly/3n8x0pm
But when @EPA did that, it created another problem: No @EPA had to count "co-benefits" to make its new cost-benefit math work. Yea those same "co-benefits" EPA doesn't want to count in rolling back the mercury rule. https://bit.ly/2JOJWCd
Counting "co-benefits" when you want to and not when you don't want to seems...not very consistent, fair, or transparent.
Next: Social Cost of Carbon/Methane. In order to make the EPA climate rollback math work, it gutted the cost of carbon/methane emissions by 80-90% from the Obama era numbers. This happened in the blink of an eye at the beginning of the Trump Admin https://nyti.ms/2LdW28a
Why at the very beginning? So the gutted social cost numbers could drive the @EPA climate rollbacks by making the cost-benefit math work for the rollbacks, not against it. But @USGAO slammed @EPA for having no process to vet the gutted social cost numbers. https://bit.ly/3gxeh4b
Why did @EPA rush the gutting of social cost numbers? Because it knew the numbers would not stand up to scrutiny. That's why OIRA has basically blocked the process of determining appropriate social costs numbers from moving forward.
Contrast the rush to lock in gutted social cost numbers with @EPA waiting until the very end to put out this cost-benefit rule so that it doesn't apply to any of the rollbacks but does apply to Biden's @EPA undoing the rollbacks.
FINALLY: the "glider truck" carve-out. Glider trucks are old truck engines in new truck bodies. Meaning they look new but spew out pollution like the dirtiest old trucks. Scott Pruitt tried to give a handout to the glider truck industry by carving those truck out from EPA regs.
@EPA rushed so much to get this handout to the glider truck industry that it didn't even do a basic cost-benefit analysis, not just because it takes time, but because it would show the benefits of preventing pollution from glider truck far outweigh costs.
So what happened? @EPA IG discovered that Scott Pruitt reached out to OMB head at the time Mick Mulvaney to tell him to force OIRA to allow the carve-out to be issued without any cost-benefit analysis. https://bit.ly/2JQp79l
And OIRA conspired with EPA to hide the evidence by changing a few key terms before allowing @EPA to issue the carve-out. Who needs cost-benefit analysis when you have polluter to please? https://sensiblesafeguards.org/letting-dirty-trucks-glide-past-pollution-protections/
The divide between @EPAAWheeler's rhetoric about his belief in the importance of cost-benefit analysis and the Trump @EPA's actual record on manipulating, distorting, and ignoring cost-benefit analysis could not be wider. Fin
