"Are Pollution Controls Worth Their Costs?"

Ted Geyer and Kip Viscusi write--no surprise--that for many recent regulations the answer is "No". 

Perhaps the main failure of rationality is that of the regulators rather than the consumers and firms. Agency officials who have been given a specific substantive mission have a tendency to focus on these concerns to the exclusion of all others. Thus, fuel efficiency and energy efficiency matter, but nothing else does. In effect, government officials are acting as if they are guided by a single mission myopia that leads to the exclusion of all concerns other than their agencies' mandates.

Comments

[kyle8]

All regulations meet their logical conclusion of 100% lunacy because of the law of diminishing returns.

[Michael Mace]

This is exactly what is going on in California with the implementation of the AB32 legislation (Global Warming regulation).

[Bernie]

I was going to write, more or less, what kyle8 wrote. Nobody wants dirty air or dirty water, we all have to live here. But the operative question is, how clean and at what cost? Liberals, and especially "greens", never think things through.