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GOP senators: EPA 'deliberately' inflating rule's benefits | TheHill

At the time, it said that “its valuation of the benefits is not yet complete,” since it had not accounted for other benefits to the rule such as “the value one places on knowing that an aquatic ecosystem is healthy” or “secondary and tertiary ecosystem impacts.” Those are known as “non-use” benefits.  More than a year after that initial proposal, the agency published the results of a survey to determine the cost the public was willing to pay, including non-use benefits.  That survey greatly increased the estimated benefits of the rule, from $16.3 million per year before it was conducted to $2.275 billion after, according to the preferred option in an analysis prepared for energy company associations.

The EPA's Illegal Propaganda | The Weekly Standard

The EPA is not a private company entitled to sell its wares aggressively to consumers. It is a government agency established to execute the laws written by representatives elected by we the people.

EPA, Obama administration going full speed ahead on environmental regulations - Watchdog.org

“It certainly seems as though they’ve saved some of their biggest regulations for the end of this administration,” said Greg Bertelsen, director of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.

Moghissi pointed to specifically bipartisan empire-building: “During the presidency of Jimmy Carter, I became involved in 'The Harvard Six Cities Study' of the association between air pollution and mortality,” he said. The study concluded that “air pollution was positively associated with death from lung cancer and cardiopulmonary disease,” fodder for blanket regulations. Moghissi pointed out that the study’s theoretical model assumed that “the inhalation of any amount of particles causes adverse effects.” Even though the study allowed for different effects from different kinds of pollution and only claimed “association” but not causation, Moghissi found the model’s assumption appalling, because it ignores a basic premise of epidemiology, “the dose makes the poison,” called “the dose-response curve.”

When Richard Greene became the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator in Dallas in 2003, he realized he had much to figure out.Among the puzzles was why the EPA so often didn’t take a legally required action or meet a particular deadline until a judge ordered it to do so.In six years as former President George W. Bush’s EPA regional appointee, Greene never quite found the answer. However, the former five-term Arlington mayor learned a related truth: Suing the EPA is woven into the federal fabric, with lawsuits even driving some of the nation’s most sweeping policies.“Lawsuits against the EPA are an integral part of its history,” said Greene, now an adjunct professor teaching environmental policy at the University of Texas at Arlington.