If the Benefits of the Clean Air Act Exceed Costs by a Factor of 30, then what?

A good point -- "It turns out that protecting children from foul air leads to more productive adult workers." (Gernot Wagner)

But clean air's not just good for human health. Michael Morris, recently retired CEO of American Electric Power, a company which owns the nation's largest electricity transmission system and nearly 38,000 megawatts of electricity generation capacity, said during an October investor call the EPA’s proposed tighter mercury and toxics standards would be anything but a job killer: “Once you put capital money to work, jobs are created.”

Josh Bivens, of Economic Policy Institute, in a recent congressional hearing on the same proposed EPA rule: “Calls to delay implementation of the rule based on appeals to economic weakness have the case entirely backward — there is no better time than now, from a job-creation perspective, to move forward with these rules.”

Could these guys be right?

This podcast claims that Maryland's Brandon Shores Power Plant, south of Baltimore, increased its workforce in order to run its air cleaning equipment.

 Chemical technician Melissa Sampson stands in front of the new "scrubber"
at the Brandon Shores coal-fired power plant. 

Learn a little more about the benefits of the Clean Air Act here.