With A Little Plagiarism Comes Some Dishonesty

Look at this paragraph from today's Tribune-Review:

By the EPA's own estimates, the benefit of mandated mercury reductions from power plants is $6.1 million, total. But the rule creates annual compliance costs of $11 billion. Quite the cost-benefit analysis, eh? Other than that, and creating a climate for serious disruptions to the nation's power grid, hey, it's a great idea, right?

Now look at this paragraph this WSJ Editorial from December 6:

Keep in mind that the EPA estimates that the benefits to society from the mercury reductions in the utility rule max out at $6.1 million, total, while imposing $11 billion in compliance costs annually. That is a crazy tradeoff even if it didn't endanger the electric grid.

Any closer and they'd need quotation marks but close enough that Scaife's braintrust should have done the right thing and simply added "According to our friends at the Wall Street Journal..." instead of trying to pass it off as an original thought.

Lazy, lazy, lazy.  Embarrassing, even for the Trib.

It's also incorrect - this is what the EPA said (it's from the "Executive Summary" from the March 2001 report):

This proposed rule will reduce emissions of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP) including mercury from the electric power industry. As a co-benefit, the emissions of certain PM2.5 precursors such as SO2 will also decline. EPA estimates that this proposed rule will yield annual monetized benefits (in 2007$) of between $59 to $140 billion using a 3% discount rate and $53 and $130 billion using a 7% discount rate. The great majority of the estimates are attributable to co-benefits from reductions in PM2.5-related mortality. The annual social costs are $10.9 billion (2007$) and the annual quantified net benefits are $48 to $130 billion using 3% discount rate or $42 to $120 billion using a 7% discount rate. The benefits outweigh costs by between 5 to 1 or 13 to 1 depending on the benefit estimate and discount rate used.

And so where, might you ask, did the $6.1 million number come from?

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council. Segal calls the ERCC:

[A] group of power-generating companies that provide reliable and affordable power to millions of American households, small businesses, industrial facilities, schools and hospitals.

It's an industry trade group.  He's the director of an industry trade group and this is what he said:

It stands to reason that the vast majority of benefits claimed by EPA to justify the proposed rule must be the result of reductions in mercury emissions. But the Agency’s cost-benefit analysis tells a very different story. According to EPA, the benefits to society of the mercury-reduction requirements are in the range of $500,000 to a maximum of $6.1 million in total (i.e. not even annual) benefits. In other words, in a rule estimated by EPA to cost $11 billion annually, the maximum total benefit of reducing emissions of mercury—the emissions of which serve as the primary basis for the rule—is $6.1 million.

That's where the number comes from.

And what does the EPA have to say about all this?  From way back in July, 2011:

In response, EPA officials reiterated their estimate that the total annual cost of the rule would be $10.9 billion in 2015 and would yield up to $140 billion in health benefits annually.

The agency also rebuffed Segal's argument that EPA figures showed the maximum benefit to society of mercury-reduction requirements is valued at only $6.1 million. That figure applies only to recreational fishers, and represents on a small portion of overall health benefits, the unnamed officials said. [emphasis added]

So when the WSJ editorialists (and their too close for comfort copyists on Scaife's payroll) say that the EPA says it's a total of $6.1 million in benefits that would be completely and utterly wrong.

And since passing off a falsehood as the truth is, by definition, lying...

Well you get the picture.

More On Bush Tax Cuts

An very smart friend of mine clued me in on this. (Trust me, this guy is so wicked smaht, he actually knows the difference between emfindsamkeit and Sturm und Drang. - look 'em up, there'll be a test later.)

Anyway, in a Wall Street Journal article otherwise devoted to how the Democrats might use the repeal (or non-repeal) of the Bush tax cuts as an issue in the upcoming election, we find this graphic:

You might want to sit with it a moment. Picture paints a thousand words and all that. Everyone except that teeny tiny sliver of the American population making over $300,000 will see their taxes reduced by President Obama's proposed tax policies. For the very wealthy, the tax rate goes back to Clinton-era tax levels.

So therefore the GOP is against Obama's tax policies. Fighting tooth and nail to make sure their base (the "have-mores") get even more.

I realize that the Wall Street Journal is such a blatant mouthpiece for the Democrat Party that it will shamelessly and routinely lie to you about tax policy. All good competent economists know these things:

• Ronald Reagan was always right about everything
• Failing to repeal the Bush tax cuts will result in a the worst financial devastation ever.
• Taxes are always fairer under Republicans
• The economy is always worse under Democrats

As undeniable as Climategate.

"At Least Bush Kept Us Safe"*

True!

*As long as you didn't die on 9/11, or from letters containing weaponized anthrax, or in the aftermath of Katrina, or as a soldier in Iraq, or . . .
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Speaking of interesting national press on Pittsburgh...

The Wall Street Journal recently had an article on Pittsburgh talking about how Clinton's women supporters fear her bid has unleashed a sexist backlash.

And unlike on this blog, even an Obama supporter in the story sees misogyny in some of the attacks on Hillary:

But even some women who don't support Sen. Clinton express unease about the tone of some attacks on her. "Why is it OK to say such horrible things about a woman?" asks Erika Wirkkala, who runs a Pittsburgh public-relations firm and supports Sen. Obama. "People feel they can be misogynists, and that's OK. No one says those kinds of things about Obama because they don't want to be seen as racist."

The article gives some depressing statistics on women ascending the corporate ladder.

It also quotes Heather Arnet as follows:

Heather Arnet, a Clinton supporter who runs a Pittsburgh organization that lobbies for more women on public commissions and corporate boards, recently surveyed the Internet and found more than 50 anti-Hillary Clinton sites on Facebook. One of them, entitled "Hillary Clinton Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich," had more than 38,000 members.

"What if one of these 38,000 guys is someone you, as a woman, have to go to and negotiate a raise?" she asks.

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