Green Job Growth

Despite perennial efforts to pit jobs against environmental regulations recent analyses would suggest the U.S. EPA's regulations are actually creating jobs rather than eliminating them.

The University of Massachusetts evaluated the job market impact projection from two rules which will force the power sector to make substantial capital purchases for infrastructure upgrades and pollution control equipment. Their findings indicate these two rules will  require about 1.46 million years of new labor to make those changes happen over the next five years -- the equivalent of 290,000 full-time jobs.

I would never dispute the real and sizable costs of compliance which would run in the ballpark of $200 billion. However, at this point, it isn't just the greenies saying these jobs would make a much-needed dent in unemployment. The clean energy and energy efficiency sectors are among the fastest growing segments of the nation’s economy. These job markets are putting people back to work and attracting new opportunities and investments to countless communities across the nation.

On top the jobs benefit, environmental regulation serves as a catalyst for industries to upgrade, innovate and evolve. To do so the nation builds a diversified and skilled workforce. The EPA also tasks industry with solving problems that markets ignore like environmental and public health.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, the EPA generates up to $551 billion in economic benefits every year. A 2010 analysis of rules passed in the prior decade,  calculates the benefits-to-cost ratios across various government agencies. The EPA came out on top with the highest ratios by far, with benefits from its regulations exceeding costs by an average of more than 10 to 1.

The net benefit of compliance boosts GDP in the long run by creating livable wage jobs and making communities both healthier and more productive.