Blowing smoke on warming, clean air

[Forkboy]

CORPORATE HOT air may be killing us in the fight for clean air. For evidence, let us go back 20 years, when the Edison Electric Institute, the lobbyist for America’s electric companies, opposed clean air amendments, saying the retooling of plants would be “unnecessarily expensive.’’ Dave Swanson, an institute senior vice president, claimed the provisions to fight acid rain would cost so much that “the total cost to consumers from enactment to 2010 could reach nearly $120 billion.’’

There has been $120 billion in costs, but not the kind Swanson was talking about. This week, the National Research Council of the National Academies Academy of Sciences released a stunning report requested by Congress, saying fossil fuel burning costs Americans at least $120 billion a year in health costs. The study’s authors said the costs include the premature deaths of nearly 20,000 people.

The report’s authors called these “hidden’’ costs that government officials and other decision makers, including electric companies, may not recognize. They said there was little doubt that the $120 billion “substantially underestimates’’ the damages from US energy production and use because it did not include the harm to ecosystems and the effects of climate change and other pollutants, such as mercury. “Our analysis does indicate that regulatory actions can significantly affect energy related damages,’’ the report said.

The report was historically kind. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, there were attempts to show how the health benefits of air pollution regulations far outweighed the costs. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner estimated in 1996 that revamping air quality standards would prevent 20,000 premature deaths and save the nation - you guessed it - $120 billion in health costs. “The scientific evidence tells us that the current standards fail to provide adequate health protection,’’ Browner said.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/10/24/blowing_smoke_on_warming_clean_air/