Posted on 06/17/2011 10:07:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
There must be something in the water coolers on the other side of the aisle. Earlier this year, at an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing concerning reducing regulations, a Democrat colleague expressed his “concern” over reducing the regulation on business and stated boldly that increased regulation on businesses creates jobs in America. According to his logic, more regulation creates more requirements for businesses to hire compliance officers to oversee the regulations imposed upon them by government; therefore the government creates more jobs. At first, I thought he was joking, but he was serious. I later asked the witnesses at the hearing if they would rather hire more employees that produce goods and services or hire more compliance officers. You can well imagine their response.
In my home state of Oklahoma, we are dealing with the Environmental Protection Agency changing their rules and again demanding millions of dollars for new modifications for power generating facilities. I am certain that these compliance jobs will be called “green jobs” by Washington when they are hired and when more Oklahoma capital is wasted. Even worse, our state put forth a sound plan to address all the new EPA guidelines, but that plan was rejected by the EPA in favor of a plan that only makes sense to Washington. Arecently released study shows that the EPA’s new “clean-air rules” placed on utilities will increase costs by $17.8 billion annually and raise electricity rates for consumers by 11.8%. Those same rules forced the closing or partial closing of eleven power plants of an Ohio-based power company. Thanks to additional regulations, rates will go up again.
Realizing all these burdens will hurt the economy and drive up costs for consumers, the EPA is attempting to sell its work as a jobs agenda by echoing that same “regulations creates jobs” theme. Monday’s Wall Street Journal editorial had this quote from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson that highlights the agency’s thoughts. She said a new rule was “‘expected to create jobs,’ because it will ‘increase demand for pollution control technology.’” Apparently, government regulators and compliance officers are “green jobs.”
Ever expanding regulatory burdens on traditional energy producers only hurt the economy by increasing prices for the consumers, pushing companies out of business and bogging down the industry. The EPA counters that these jobs are being replaced by those same “green energy” jobs, but as Politico reported, this new green economy is not coming along as fast as the President had hoped. It is not difficult to figure out why. These new forms of energy are not yet viable, and they will not be for years to come. In the end, the EPA is only reshuffling jobs, not creating new jobs, and their irrational pace of regulation is driving up the cost of energy.
When will we understand that stable regulations allow traditional energy to thrive? Consistent rules allow energy companies to put more money into research and development, which, in turn, create more jobs, including future alternative energy jobs. If we give the private sector more freedom to develop the most efficient sources of energy, everyone wins; consumers will pay less, companies will grow (which means they will hire more people) and our economy will be stronger. Maybe it’s time for the EPA to start testing the water in their own coolers.
Rep. James Lankford represents Oklahoma's 5th congressional district and serves on the House Budget Committee.
- Pythagorean theorem: 24 words
- The Lord's Prayer: 66 words.
- Archemedess' Principle: 67 words.
- The 10 Commandments: 179 words.
- Lincoln's Gettysburg address: 286 words.
- The U.S. Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words.
- The U.S. Government regulations on the SALE OF FREAKIN' CABBAGE: 26,911 words. :(
These people are NUTS!
“These new forms of energy are not yet viable, and they will not be for years to come.”
Correction: These new (green) forms of energy may never be economically viable. For example, we can calculate the energy output of a solar cell at maximum efficiency, and there’s only so much energy to be had from sunlight. No matter how much one wishes to go beyond that, short of making the sun brighter, there’s a limit.
They are indeed
There will be more goobermint jobs. Those are the ones that matter most.Just ask Barry and Biden.
The problem is that govthink makes the assumption that people will still need to buy the products that are produced and will be willing to pay higher prices for them to counter the increased costs of production.
Let's take the airline industry for example. Right now, Southwest Airlines flights that I have been on have been full or nearly full. I'm sure that's not the case for all flights, but it serves to illustrate the example. If the price of oil goes from $100 per bbl to $200, the load factors will decrease, because businesses will not pay the additional costs for airline tickets as they do today; they will redefine what is meant by essential business travel. If planes continued to fly full or nearly full, only the increased cost of the fuel would need to be borne by those travelers. However, because of the cost of the tickets, the number of passengers will get reduced, and then those remaining who do fly will pay not only the increased fuel costs but also the per passenger cost increases resulting from the load factor reductions, a double-whammy. The number of individuals traveling for personal reasons will drop even more dramatically than it already has. These people will stay at home and avoid vacation and recreational travel. And the costs to the airline industry will go up even further. It becomes a death spiral.
The problem is that our productivity and standard of living are dependent on mobility and the ability to get around. Witness the reduction in home sales. A good part of that reduction comes from businesses not relocating their employees, because of reductions in market volume and its associated reduction in revenue.
And if I hear someone else talking about corporate greed, I'm liable to do something bad. Corporations are being forced to horde their cash resources because they can't sell their products at the volume they were selling before the obama disasters; it's not greed, it's a matter of survival.
Perhaps someone should tell them the fallacy (or parable) of the broken window. If this confused reasoning was valid, prosperity would be no more difficult than destroying property. Unnecessary regulation is the same as destroying property. Unnecessary regulation is worse than property destruction because regulation constantly needs repair.
Real Cynic: “The problem is that our productivity and standard of living are dependent on mobility and the ability to get around.”
True, and that’s dependent on cheap energy. A lot of people have no clue where the environmentalists want to take us. My father was an environmentalist. He wanted to clean trash and pollution out of our lakes and streams so they would be safe for fish and fowl. The greenies nowadays would say he was a piker. Most wouldn’t shed a tear if the human race was decimated.
These folks think Americans use too much energy, more than our “fair” share. They think we’re raping the environment, even though pollution is far, far less of a problem than what it was when I was a child. They despise the private automobile and think we should be forced to use public transportation for nature’s good. A lot of them are actually thrilled that oil is more expensive, as it forces people to consume less. They actually want increased taxes on energy for the same reason—to reduce consumption.
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