[greenyes] Europe Coalition to Counter Deregulation Advocates Scare Campaigns

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

PRESS RELEASE FROM UK ENVIRONMENTAL INDUSTRIES COMMISSION

New Campaign to Counter CBI-Led DeRegulation Lobby

Scare-mongering by polluting industries on the costs of cleaning up is
making the Government back-pedal on environmental protection - prompting a
major new campaign launched today by the Environmental Industries Commission
(EIC)1 to counter the "Environmental DeRegulationists".

EIC is urging Government to ensure evidence-based policymaking (in the UK
and Brussels) by *challenging the exaggerated cost claims of industry and
paying full attention to the range of economic benefits created by
progressive environmental policies.*

Policymakers regularly overlook the positive economic benefits of
environmental protection to the health service; to occupational health; to
innovation in mainstream industry; and to affected industries (such as
tourism, insurance and the UK's environmental technology industry).

D*EFRA has just published an independent study into the National Air Quality
Strategy2 which concludes that the original cost calculations were up to
seven times greater than the actual costs, while total benefits (over the
evaluation period of 1990-2001) were estimated as being as much as £18,370
million, with annual reduction of 4,225 deaths.*

Adrian Wilkes, Chairman of EIC, said "This is a vitally important campaign
because the scaremongering DeRegulation Lobby from polluting industries, led
by the CBI, has captured the policy debate in Downing Street - to the huge
detriment of British citizens and to the UK economy."
Cont.Page 2

"The DeRegulation Lobby has traditionally used the tactic of publicising
economic-impact studies to dramatise the impacts of environmental protection
as potentially devastating to industry and consumers. Yet, all economic
studies show that polluting industries consistently exaggerate the costs of
pollution control. And at last week's Select Committee hearing the CBI were
unable to give one single example of a British company that had left the UK
because of environmental regulation" Adrian Wilkes stated.

EIC's campaign will be launched today with a cross-party Motion in the House
of Commons, supported by John Gummer MP (former Environment Secretary),
Norman Baker MP (Liberal Democrat Environment Spokesman) and David Kidney MP
(Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Conservation Group).

EIC will also be giving evidence this week to the Environmental Audit
Committee's  Parliamentary inquiry into Government Regulatory Impact
Assessments3. Then the campaign  will be:

? publishing a major research report on the scaremongering by industry about
environmental protection;
? Asking David Milliband MP, the Cabinet Office Minister, to ensure
Government economists properly assess the positive economic impacts of high
environmental standards, and conduct ex poste/ex ante studies to see what
the real costs were;
? building a coalition of the 'beneficiaries';
? calling for the National Audit Office to investigate the failure of
Regulatory Impact Assessments to assess economic benefits of high
environmental standards;
? asking its Member companies to lobby local MPs and prospective candidates
on the issue.


_________________________
Peter Anderson, President
RECYCLEWORLDS CONSULTING
4513 Vernon Blvd. Suite 15
Madison, WI 53705-4964
Ph: (608) 231-1100
Fax: (608) 233-0011
Cell: (608) 698-1314
eMail: anderson@no.address
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