Hank Wilkinson: Regulations keep us safe

The Aug. 9 letter “EPA tweaks hurt small businesses” tried to paint careful and safe regulation as flawed. Instead, the writer’s reactionary ideas are dangerous to life, and his proposed solutions violate the law of the land.

The same EPA standards opposed by the writer are estimated to avoid 4,000 to 12,000 premature deaths of children, cut hospital and emergency room visits by 21,000, and reduce loss of school and workdays by 2.5 million. Regulating automobile emissions and gas mileage has reaped economic and health benefits.

Our most recent success, regulating the health care insurance industry, has cut the rate of increase in rising costs and insured millions of previously uninsured Americans.

A recent Duke University study demonstrated while the coal industry did lose jobs between 2008 and 2012, huge increases occurred elsewhere. Wind, solar and natural gas industries created four times the jobs lost by the coal industry during the same period.

Finally, the writer suggested that we worry about costs rather than human life and safety?

The conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s unanimous opinion of Feb. 27, 2001, found that the cost of implementation is not a factor the EPA may use to establish standards.

Our children are safer because the letter-writer’s ideas are not implemented.

This story was originally published September 7, 2015 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Hank Wilkinson: Regulations keep us safe."