In the contest for most abusive bureaucratic power, the EPA takes the top prize time and time again.  Last Spring, the department announced its plans to unveil absurd restrictions on emissions for over 200,000 industrial facilities at a projected cost of $20 billion and a net loss of 300,000 jobs.  Yesterday, they ceded to public outcry and scaled back their program “significantly.”

At least, they would like you to think that.  Relatively speaking, the pricetag for businesses has dropped from $20 billion to $1.2 billion. While that might be a welcome change, it’s still amazing that we’re supposed to happy with businesses losing billions of dollars over emission control.  That number is about $1.2 billion too much.

The EPA gave some vague reasons as to why the new regulations benefited the economy, and you can decide for yourself if these are legitimate:

Gina McCarthy, director of the E.P.A.’s air and radiation office, said that the pollution reductions would save from 2,600 to 6,600 lives per year by 2014 and avert 4,100 heart attacks and 42,000 asthma attacks annually.

“These health protections will save between $23 billion and $56 billion in health-related costs,” Ms. McCarthy said in a conference call for reporters. “They are realistic, they are achievable, and they are reasonable, and they come at roughly half the cost to comply compared to that in the proposed rule in May 2010.”

I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure carbon emissions don’t directly kill people.

The EPA also indicated that these new regulations would create up to 2,000 new jobs.  Where that number comes from is unclear.  There is no elaboration on that point.  There is no explanation of what sort of jobs they refer to. There is just a short line that says “it would generate up to 2,000 new jobs.”  Well, if the EPA says so….