UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The benefits of environmental protection, measured in terms of advancing public health and the economy, outweigh the costs associated with implementing and enforcing environmental regulations, according to researchers at Penn State who published a new perspective piece in the journal Nature Water .
The researchers used data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to see if the benefits of federal environmental regulations, such as the estimated number of asthma attacks prevented by air pollution regulations, outweigh the costs to comply with and enforce environmental protection rules. The team found that the benefits — calculated by looking at medical costs and financial losses from missed work, decreasing premature deaths and reducing the prevalence of diseases like lung and bladder cancer and cardiovascular issues — are up to five and six times higher than the costs associated with implementing the rules.
In the following Q&A, study co-author Onur Apul , associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Penn State, discussed the societal impacts of environmental protection
Q: What do you mean when you say "environmental protection"?
Apul: The U.S. EPA protects human health and the environment by developing and enforcing regulations based on environmental laws passed by Congress. In addition, EPA conducts scientific research, sets national standards for air, water and soil quality, and works with states to address local pollution issues and minimize environmental risks.
Q: How have environmental regulations impacted public health and the economy over the past 50 years?
Apul: The message of our article is very simple: Environmental protection is good for public health and the American economy. Protecting our environment is not an expense, it's cost-saving. It's like conserving energy in your house: It may look expensive at first — you have to install nice windows, maybe insulated heat exchangers — but in the long term you're going to be saving energy and saving money.
In our article, we went to the EPA's databases and extracted how much it costs, for example, to remediate arsenic from drinking water versus implementing and enforcing a federal-level rule regulating arsenic in drinking water. Then we looked at EPA benefit computations, like how much does it cost to lose a young person from the workforce because of a sickness? We did a summary of all major EPA environmental rules and concluded that environmental protection is a cost-savings. In some cases, it's five times; in some cases, 10 times more beneficial than the costs associated with implementing and enforcing the regulations.
For example, the Clean Air Act is predicted to prevent 100 million asthma attacks by 2050. What's the average cost or benefit of not having an asthma attack? This corresponds to about 200,000 fatalities prevented. Or look at the Lead and Copper Rule, which regulates lead and copper in drinking water and prevents almost 1 million infants per year from having low birth weight.
Q: You noted that for the past 20 years, about 24 new chemicals have been registered every minute. How many chemicals does the EPA regulate?
Apul: Think about how many chemicals you use daily. Think about the paints, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter painkillers people use each day. The American Chemical Society Chemical Abstract Service lists about 275 million chemicals. That means 24 new chemicals have been registered every minute over the past 20 years, but the EPA regulates fewer than 100 contaminants out of 275 million. Advancing science, advancing engineering, increases life expectancy and environmental protection is one of those advancements, improving our quality of life by preventing child deaths, unexpected disease-related deaths and pollution-related deaths.
Q: How much does it cost to run the EPA?
Apul: The EPA's operating budget is tiny compared to the total federal budget and the country's GDP. The EPA's budget for fiscal year 2024 was about $10 billion, or less than 0.15% of total government spending. That's 0.03% of U.S. GDP. And in 2024 the EPA employed only about 15,000 people who regulate all these compounds, contribute to research, contribute to policy making, engage with communities and direct messaging. This small number of people, working on a small budget compared to total government spending and the nation's GDP, help to protect the environment, preserve natural resources and save lives.
Other co-authors are Penn State graduate students Macy Hannan and Dilara Hatinoglu; Lee Blaney, University of Maryland Baltimore County; Peter Vikesland, Virginia Tech; Detlef Knappe, North Carolina State University; and Reed Miller, University of Maine.
