Modernizing the EPA

A Blueprint for Congress

What is CEI's Modernizing the EPA Project?

Read the Blueprint

Why is Modernizing the EPA so Critical?

The Recommendations: At a Glance

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in dire need of reform. The costs from the agency’s rules account for most regulatory costs across the entire federal government. Yet even this does not capture the scope and harm from the agency’s regulations. The EPA promulgates rules that go way beyond the will of Congress, making changes that would radically change the nation’s economy and limit individual freedom. This agency’s de facto EV mandate and its power plant rule to shift the country to unreliable sources of electricity (e.g. wind and solar) are just two examples. The EPA could justifiably be considered the “Economic Planning Agency.”

This needs to change, as does the agency’s disregard for scientific transparency, the rule of law, private property rights, and the important role of states in protecting the environment. Modernizing the EPA: A Blueprint for Congress is a major CEI project to reform the EPA and ensure that the agency regulates like it is 2025, not 1975. The first part of the Project is our blueprint that lays out specific and concrete recommendations for legislators on how to modernize the agency. The next step is turning these ideas into legislative change. We hope you will join us in this effort. 

Over a year ago, CEI decided to undertake a major project to reform the EPA. Other agencies could have been the focus of such an endeavor, but when it comes to its regulatory effect on Americans, there is no agency that arguably has a bigger effect than the EPA.

CEI’s project on reforming the EPA is intended to be a thoughtful and comprehensive process to modernize the agency. The use of the word “modernize” is important. The goal is for the EPA to protect the environment in a manner that makes sense in 2025, not to act as if it is the 1970s, and to ensure the problems that have plagued the agency in the past do not occur in the future. To help modernize the agency, CEI needed to develop specific and concrete recommendations for Congress. That is where the blueprint Modernizing the EPA: A Blueprint for Congress comes in.

The blueprint is just the first part of the project and it lays the foundation for what needs to be done next: turn the policy ideas into specific legislative reforms. We will be working with whoever wants to join us in our effort to modernize the EPA. We want to work with legislators, the public, think tanks, and quite simply anyone, to modernize this agency so that it respects the rule of law and individual freedom, considers costs and tradeoffs of its rules, respects the role of states in environmental protection, and values scientific integrity and transparency, among other things.

This is a unique time where real change is more likely than it has been in a long time. It is important to take advantage of this opportunity and CEI will be aggressively trying to make this happen.

We hope you will join us in this fight!

When discussing the importance of reforming the administrative state, the EPA should be first and foremost on the agenda. The agency regularly accounts for most of the regulatory costs across the entire federal government. However, the cost of the rules does not even come close to telling the full picture of the agency’s effect on the country.

 The EPA is supposed to protect the nation’s environment, but it has become an agency that uses this mission as a means to regulate major portions of the economy and affect how we live our lives. This can be seen by its recent rules to help kill off gas-powered cars and to shift electricity generation from reliable sources (coal and natural gas) to unreliable sources (wind and solar).

The scope of these rules is alarming. Too often, the agency pursues rules covering matters of vast political and economic significance even when Congress has not spoken clearly on the issue or even hinted at wanting the agency to take such actions. The agency also acts as if the only thing that matters is achieving whatever environmental objective it is pursuing, without properly considering the costs and tradeoffs of its actions and the harm it can cause Americans. This latter problem is sometimes attributable to statutory provisions that the agency administers, such as in the Clean Air Act.

When there is no considerations of costs and tradeoffs, the agency has little to constrain it from pushing extreme regulations that inappropriately expand the agency’s power and intrude into the lives of Americans. The EPA is supposed to be protecting the environment, not promulgating rules that in effect turn the agency into an economic planning agency.

Making matters worse, the EPA frequently ignores the role of states in environmental protection, tramples on private property rights, and does not value scientific integrity. It also regulates as if we live in 1975 not 2025, treating the environment today as if dramatic progress has not already been made.

Modernizing the EPA is so critical because these existing major problems need to be part of the agency’s past. They have no business in its future.

This section lists the key issues discussed in the blueprint that Congress should address. Below these issues are specific recommendations for how Congress can address them.

Please note that some recommendations may preclude other recommendations. In many instances, the goal was to provide preferred options and then alternatives.