The Environmental Protection Agency says the new greenhouse gas regulations it plans to roll-out over the next four years will be “impossible to administer” without adding up to 230,000 new bureaucrats to implement the rules.
The new workers will cost the taxpayer $21 million annually.
The EPA aims to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act, even though the law doesn’t give the EPA explicit power to do so. The agency’s authority to move forward is being challenged in court by petitioners who argue that such a decision should be left for Congress to make.
The proposed regulations would establish hard-to-meet greenhouse gas emission thresholds for businesses large and small. To comply, these companies will be required to file reams of paperwork which will demand thousands of green bureaucrats to inspect their forms.
If the EPA wins its court battle and fully rolls out the greenhouse gas regulations, the number of businesses forced into this regulatory regime would grow tremendously — from approximately 14,000 now to as many as 6.1 million.
The EPA is asking taxpayers to fund up to 230,000 new government workers to process all the extra paperwork, at an estimated cost of $21 billion. That cost does not include the economic impact of the regulations themselves.
“Hiring the 230,000 full-time employees necessary to produce the 1.4 billion work hours required to address the actual increase in permitting functions would result in an increase in Title V administration costs of $21 billion per year,” the EPA wrote in the court brief.
Hate the EPA? Blame President Richard Nixon. He created it by Executive Order.
$21 Billion for 230,000 workers = $91,304 per employee!