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12, 2004
White House Report Shows Benefits Outweigh Costs 5 to 1
It's one thing for a Sierra Club spokesperson to say that environmental protection is worth the cost, but another entirely when an agency under the direct oversight of the White House reaches the same conclusion. Yet this fall, the Office of Management and Budget--a body charged with evaluating the economic impact of legislation--released a report asserting that environmental standards return benefits five to seven times greater than their costs.
The study found that during the past decade the public saved at least $146 billion through fewer hospital visits, lower medical costs, and work days that might have been lost. Industry, meanwhile, paid between $36 and $42 billion to meet more stringent rules.
Will the Bush administration take the advice of its own experts and stop dismantling our environmental protections? Not likely, but now the Club has evidence from White House bookkeepers that environmental protection makes economic sense.
Read the report at:
www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/regpol-reports_congress.html
Note: This article originally appeared in The Planet, The Sierra Club Activist Resource newspaper. To subscribe to the newspaper that is free for Sierra leaders and activists, call 415-977-5653 or visit the web site www.sierraclub.orgplanet
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