“If we want to make Americans healthy, we need to get Americans back to work. We need to get the EPA out of the business of making folks unemployed across this country.”
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate about his Subcommittee report entitled “Red Tape Making Americans Sick” which details the health impacts of high unemployment. The report specifically cites several studies that show that extreme regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cost Americans their jobs and their health.
Excerpts of his remarks are below:
“This Administration, after nearly four years, has failed to get this country and our economy moving again. Even worse as I look at it, this Administration seems to be taking steps that appear to be and methodically and deliberately sabotaging certain parts of our nation’s economy.
“They are doing this in sectors of the economy that apparently to me, they just don’t like—and they’re doing it by issuing thousands and thousands of pages of red tape on the very people in this country that have in the past, successfully created jobs for Americans.
“This Administration has finalized 1,330 rules that have been deemed what’s called ‘economically significant.’ They’ve proposed over 1,300 additional economically significant rules.
“So what does this mean, this term ‘economically significant?’ Well, those are rules that will have an annual impact on the economy of $100 million or more.
“57 coal fired power plants have already announced their closure because of the ‘cumulative effect’ of these rules on just this one industry.
“The EPA is proposing regulations on whole sectors of the economy, whether it is issuing new storm water regulations for existing buildings to requiring costly Clean Water Act permits They’re doing this for ditches on family farms.
“Thousands of American jobs have already been lost, and others are on the chopping block, just due to these rules. Each time that the EPA claims that the benefits of their rules vastly outweigh the costs. The costs are always in real dollars to the economy and the benefits are unknown.
“The Administration claims the benefits are in so called ‘saved future health care costs.’
“The EPA and this Administration has a history of understating the costs and overstating in my opinion the benefits. The EPA’s math on the benefits and costs of their rules is not even close to being accurate.
“Now this has been verified in testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which I serve as a member.
“The EPA rules that set new burdensome limits on emissions of pollutants such as carbon dioxide, mercury or sulfur dioxide, well those can have serious costs to plants and factories that then have to upgrade their facilities with costly equipment or simply close to be under the new standards.
“Those reductions yield few quantifiable benefits to the economy, and that’s not me saying it, that’s the EPA’s own models. They admit that the reductions yield very few quantifiable benefits to the economy.
“The costs are usually significant to the businesses in terms of the actual expenses, as well as to the public—the people looking for jobs, in terms of jobs that are lost.
“The EPA knows no one would buy into their rules with such high price tags.
“So in order to inflate the so called ‘benefits’ of their rules, the EPA says that as a result of having less emissions from plants and factories, there must also be reductions in particulate matter or dust at the same time.
“Well, they then make the inaccurate conclusion that reductions in the dust will somehow yield billions of dollars in health benefits because folks will have healthier lungs and visit the doctor fewer times.
“These reductions in dust are often in areas where the dust level today, already is well within public health safety standards that are set by the EPA. So, the folks aren’t actually getting sick in those areas anyway.
“So, if people aren’t already getting sick in the areas where the EPA is trying to regulate the air, then how can they claim that they’re going to save billions of dollars, fewer times and visits to the hospital, by reducing the dust levels even fewer than today’s safe levels.
“What we know now is that the EPA is cooking the books.
“At the same time, they’re missing the real public health threat that they themselves, the EPA, is making worse. That is, the public health threat from high unemployment.
“I recently released a report and its entitled ‘Red Tape Making Americans Sick – A New Report on the Health Impacts of High Unemployment.’
“This is a comprehensive report and it contains expert testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the best scientific medical research from institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Yale University and others.
“This key medical research and testimony on the impact of unemployment on public health is irrefutable.
“The report concludes that high unemployment increases the likelihood of hospital visits, of illnesses and of premature death in communities. High unemployment raises healthcare costs, raising further questions about the claimed health savings of the EPA’s regulations. And high unemployment hurts children’s health and family well-being.
“On June 15th, 2011, Dr. Harvey Brenner of Johns Hopkins University testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
“Here are the facts. He says ‘The unemployment rate is well established as a risk factor for elevated illness and mortality rates in epidemiological studies performed since the early 1980s. In addition to the influences on mental disorder, suicide and alcohol abuse and alcoholism, unemployment is also an important risk factor in cardiovascular disease and overall decreases in life expectancy.’
“Yale researcher Dr. William Gallo’s paper on the impact of late-career job loss reports ‘Results suggest that the true costs of late career unemployment exceed financial deprivation, and include substantial health consequences. Physicians who treat individuals who lose jobs as they near retirement should consider the loss of employment a potential risk factor for adverse vascular health changes.’
“So what’s that? Well, it’s stroke, high blood pressure, heart disease, major killers, major things that result in disability and long term problems—and an increase in the cost of care.
“So, let’s look also now at the impact of joblessness on children.
“The National Center for Health Statistics concluded ‘Children in poor families were four times as likely to be in fair or poor health as children in families that are not poor.’
“Well I’ve have seen firsthand how economic challenges affect Americans’ health and the quality of life. In my medical opinion, this country faces a worsening health threat from unemployment.
“Now, well over 30 months of unemployment rates well over eight percent, I have urged the EPA to seriously consider the impacts of these rules and the new rules they continue to come out with—these rules and how they have a bad impact families, on pregnant women, on children and the elderly.
“The EPA has not looked at these serious health impacts that their rules result in. They continue, the EPA continue to hide behind computer models that churn out inflated fictitious so called benefits of health. The time to get serious about public health is now.
“Now in fact, there was a USA Today article on Monday of last week. Monday, April 30, 2012 ‘Police Tie Domestic Violence to Economy. Survey: Incidents Rise After Financial Collapse.’
“The article states that ‘Police are encountering more domestic violence related to the sluggish economy, a national survey of law enforcement agencies find.’
“The article quotes Camden, New Jersey Police Chief Scott Thomson who stated it was ‘impossible to separate the economy from the domestic turmoil in the city where unemployment is 19%.’
“Camden Police Chief, Scott Thomson went on to say ‘When stresses in the home increase because of unemployment and other hardships, domestic violence increases. We see it on the street.’
“These types of reports of increased domestic violence due to unemployment are not just being reported in Camden, New Jersey.
“The article cites Chuck Wexler, executive director of a Washington-based law enforcement think-tank, who expressed serious concerns with the rising violence.
“He says ‘You are dealing with households in which people have lost jobs or are in fear of losing their jobs. This is an added stress that can push people to the breaking point.’
“And I agree. It is certainly what I saw as well in my days of medical training and medical practice.
“If we want to make Americans healthy, we need to get Americans back to work. We need to get the EPA out of the business of making folks unemployed across this country.
“Each new job is a job that will put food on the table for struggling families, and help keep medical costs under control. New jobs will keep thousands of children out of the doctor’s office, and onto the playground.
“Creating jobs will keep those nearing retirement from paying for more for prescription drugs,
so they can spend more time and money on their grandchildren. Creating jobs will ensure that the next generation will be healthier than the last.
“Let’s work together to improve public health by reducing this Administration’s red-tape that is putting so many Americans out of work. The health and happiness of the American people depends upon it.”
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