01 Apr 2000 The Rising Cost of Regulations Since the First Earth Day

Earth Day 2000 Fact Sheet

The Rising Cost of Regulations Since the First Earth Day

• The cost of environmental and risk regulations on the economy has risen from $80 billion per year in 1977 to an estimated $267 billion in 2000. Source: T.D. Hopkins, "Regulatory Costs in Profile," Center for the Study of American Business.
  
  
• The annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), one of the major federal agencies implementing environmental policy, has risen from $1.289 billion in fiscal year 1971 to $7.8 billion in fiscal year 2000. During the period, the EPA’s staff grew from 5,500 to 18,735 full-time employees. Expenditures by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency charged with enforcing endangered species protection laws, was $1.25 billion in fiscal year 2000. Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  
• EPA estimated that the total cost of environmental protection between 1971 and 2000 would amount to $3.6 trillion (1997 dollars). The costs for pollution control as a percent of gross national product have more than doubled, from 0.9 percent in 1972 to 2.4 percent in 1997. Source: Alan Carlin, Environmental Investments: The Cost of a Clean Environment, A Summary, EPA.
  
  
• The Clean Air Act was 50 pages long when it was enacted in 1970 but the amendments added to the act in 1990 were 800 pages in length. The Superfund law was 19 pages long when enacted in 1980. After reauthorization in 1986, the Superfund law was 200 pages. Source: Murray Weidenbaum, The New Wave of Environmental Regulation: The Impacts on Business and Consumers, Center for the Study of American Business, 1991.
  
  
• A family of four pays $3,000 per year to support environmental programs. Source: Alan Carlin, Environmental Investments: The Cost of a Clean Environment, A Summary, EPA.