In his op-ed on Sept. 3., William Shughart demonizes the 1970 Clean Air Act and the EPA for setting limitations on the amount of ozone in our air and thereby, in his words, severely impacting our economy in various ways. And he further states, “When it comes to air-quality regulations, one size does not fit all.”
Does that mean that some people can tolerate more ozone than others?
The theme of Shughart’s op-ed centers on the cost of compliance that would be imposed on the various industries to meet the recent 70 parts per billion limitation on ozone. And he cites a report issued by NERA (National Economic Research Associates) on the impact compliance would have on our GDP. There is no mention in the report, however, of the health costs and loss of lives if we continue in noncompliance.
In the interest of full disclosure, Shughart should have revealed that the NERA report was funded by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and a Bloomberg report described the NERA report “as part of a campaign to delay compliance deadlines in the pending rules.”
Perhaps the NERA report is some of that “fake news” we’ve been reading about so much lately.
Kermit Heid
Salt Lake City