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A new study released by the Manhattan Institute last week criticized the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) for their flawed analysis of the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Last August, the EPA released the final version of the CPP, which is projected to kill thousands of jobs, reduce GDP, and increase energy prices. As one would expect, the unelected bureaucrats at the EPA failed to present an accurate cost-benefit analysis of the President’s signature energy legislation.

Within the study, The Manhattan Institute made three key findings:

  • The EPA’S cost-benefit analysis of the CPP is fallacious;
  • The EPA drastically underestimated the costs of the CPP; and
  •  The CPP will have NO measurable impact on world climate. 
     

CPP lacked basic logic in that it compares estimates of world economic benefits to U.S. only costs. The EPA ignored the broader impacts on the U.S. economy including potential reductions in future U.S. GDP growth from higher energy costs. Also being ignored by the EPA was the impact of changes in future U.S. economic growth on the world economy.

Within the Study, Jonathan Lesser of the Manhattan Institute concluded:

“There are few benefits, which have been massively overestimated, and huge costs, which have been massively underestimated…from a cost benefit perspective, there’s simply no justification for the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.”

The study further showed that the EPA drastically underestimated the costs of CPP. For instance in the final version of the CPP, the agency claimed that it would only cost around $9 billion a year. However a recent study by NERA Economic Consulting project those costs will likely be over $40 billion annually, a difference of over $30 billion.

Lastly, Manhattan Institute study points out the CPP will have no measurable impact on world climate. The study cites an EPA-sponsored climate model showing that the CPP will have an estimated impact of less than 0.01 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 – literally all cost and no benefit for U.S. consumers and businesses.

It is clear that the Obama Administration has little to no concern for the drastic impact the CPP will have on the economy and American families, and is content ignoring those costs as long as the President’s ideological agenda is achieved. This most recent study pointing out flaws in the EPA’s analysis of the CPP and the related costs and benefits is only further proof of this Administration’s lack of concern for the well-being of the nation. 

 

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