Finally, a good TRAIN coming from Washington

This train is not high speed, and you don’t have to subsidize it forever. It is a bill that has passed the House Energy Committee and is now pending before the full House.

TRAIN stands for Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation, and, its purpose is to stop Lisa Jackson’s EPA, from basically making up numbers when they announce the cost/benefit analysis of any regulation they pass.

The bipartisan Sullivan/Matheson legislation requires an interagency committee to analyze the cumulative and incremental impacts of certain significant rules issued by the EPA in an effort to better understand how these regulations are impacting America’s global economic competitiveness, electricity and fuel prices, employment, and reliability of electricity supply. The study will also analyze cumulative cost and benefit impacts and discuss the cumulative effects of EPA’s rules on consumers; small businesses; state, local and tribal governments; labor markets; and agriculture.

Why do we need that, you might ask?  Isn’t the EPA always honest with their cost/benefit statements?

Just as one small example, remember earlier this year when the EPA mandated that New York City spend $1.6 billion to put a cover over a reservoir in Yonkers, New York?  Offsetting that cost the EPA claimed that the cover would annually prevent 112,000 – 365,000 cases of diarrhea caused by cryptosporidium.  However,

[t]he pathogen hasn’t been found in the reservoir despite years of tests and is barely present in the city, with about 100 confirmed cases of of illness each year due to the little critter. [emphasis supplied]

Under this administration, the EPA can invent whatever numbers it wants, and the rest us us are stuck paying  for their imagination.

That’s why we need TRAIN.

 

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

14 Comments

  1. Eric on August 15, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    This would be a good start for an agency that’s been flying by the seat of it’s pants for too many years. ?How about an annual budget of 50% too, just to keep the ball rolling.



  2. Gary J on August 15, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    here we go inventing more s _? _ _ in Washington that has not one thing to do with what our founding fathers intended. Needed or not it’s just another, too much. we don’t need the EPA either..We are all going about this whole thing the wrong way. Do we need the dpt. of energy? how much does that cost? It’s all BS



  3. Gary J on August 15, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    In other words why pick on little things within a department like education? When the entire department shouldn’t even be there? Think outside their box people.



    • NH-Jim on August 16, 2011 at 1:10 pm

      Although this sounds like a good, stop-gap measure, I agree with Gary.? Just do away with the useless EPA…
      And, the Dept. of Energy
      and, the Dept. of Education
      and, probably a hundred of these as well <here>



  4. ricbee on August 15, 2011 at 11:58 pm

    Whoo Whoo,I hear the train a-comin…. Or was that a foghorn?



  5. Plainvillian on August 16, 2011 at 12:16 am

    Let’s have sunset dates not to exceed ten years on all laws and regulations.? Ten years is plenty of time to find out if a law or regulation is needed and any impact it might have including unintended consequences.



  6. Lynn on August 16, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    I’d like Congress to go through the laws and throw out everything that makes no sense, instead of making any new laws. Also, Czars and departments. Just strip it to the bone



  7. Lynn on August 16, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    Well I can dream can’t I ?



    • PatRiot on August 17, 2011 at 11:48 am

      Yes.? In my dream I see Congresscritters leaving Washington with a Representative under each arm.? No pensions in their pockets and their personal assets redistibuted to the taxpaying?Americans.



  8. rachel on August 17, 2011 at 8:18 am

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCFTHhcvRT0
    Keeping with the Paul Simon theme of last week…”Everybody Loves the Sound of a Train in the Distance”
    everybody but the EPA?



  9. Law-AbidingCitizen on August 17, 2011 at 8:52 am

    We needed this legislation to be on the books back in the days of the Kennedy administration, before many of the nations jobs were lured overseas and the capital equipment, what those workers worked on, was lost forever.



  10. PatRiot on August 17, 2011 at 11:43 am

    So, let’s get this straight – instead of firing liars, cheats and thieves, we will just hire more people to “trust and verify”.?
    In other words, treating the symptoms instead of curing the disease.
    This is more proof that the?DC folks want the power but the?responsibility.
    Transparent, my _ _ _?!??The same BS will happen and we will be told that this watchdog group O.K.’d it.??????And who is watching the watchers?
    This is all hollywood facade.
    Bipartisan means that this group?can be swayed either way depending on who is in the big chair.?
    Just another layer of protection for the insulated elite.?



  11. sammy22 on August 17, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    I keep wondering WHO is electing the congressmen. Is it all of us collectively or are they being beamed down from space?



    • PatRiot on August 19, 2011 at 7:30 pm

      Maybe elections are all for show too.
      Beaming from space?requires MORE inteligence than the average American -?that leaves congressmen WAY out of the picture.?



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