Vitter: SCOTUS Confirms EPA's Cost-Benefit Analysis Failures During Rulemaking Process

Press Release

Senator David Vitter (R-La.) made the following statement regarding today's Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to calculate and use a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of its 2012 mercury rule for existing coal-fired power plants.

"EPA has a poor track record of blatantly producing bogus cost-benefit analyses to justify their rules. I've been pushing EPA to use the best available science and data in current and future-rulemaking," said Vitter. "While today's Supreme Court ruling is a step in the right direction, there's still much more that needs to be done to ensure EPA's mistakes during the rulemaking process do not decrease electricity reliability and greatly increase the cost of energy for low-income families and senior citizens -- which is exactly what this mercury rule will do."

As the former top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Vitter was able to get EPA to commit to convene an independent panel of economic experts to comprehensively examine the cost-benefit analysis of EPA's rules and regulations. Today's SCOTUS ruling confirms that EPA failed to accurately calculate economic impacts, which is required due to Vitter's work during the nomination process for EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy

Source