Gina McCarthy, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is mightily trying to redefine the rules of engagement governing the federal government’s plans to tackle the effects of climate change.
To the chagrin of the electric utility and coal mining industries, after barely two moths on the job, McCarthy refuses to play by the rules that have been in use for the past two decades.
No more as far as McCarthy is concerned.
It’s about the larger, collective us—the effects of the outcomes of industry actions on the day-to-day lives of Americans.
The historical analogy is the government’s efforts to regulate smoking or to encourage auto safety with seat belts and air bags. In those cases, Congress and the American people were told the efforts would cripple the industries involved (they didn’t). But those efforts did, as history has shown, change behavior and the result has been fewer deaths attributable to smoking and auto accidents.
It’s going to be a challenge for McCarthy and EPA to turn around a public perception that regulation for the sake of environmental values, while nice, can be a squishy and undefined goal not worthy of being weighed against the very real costs to those that would be regulated. After all, if a person loses a job because it’s related to mining or burning coal, it’s hard to appreciate your contribution to a greater good.
Industry has never wanted to engage regulators over the issue of public health. It’s always been a loser in terms of common sense, and worse, it can marginalize industry’s legitimate concerns about the effects of government regulations.
Whether McCarthy’s gambit to turn the debate on limiting CO2 emissions into a long-term, even generational one will succeed is unknown. But this canny bureaucrat is ready to re-frame the discussion, saying, “it’s a necessary step to address a public health challenge that we cannot avoid any longer.”
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