The Jobs Plan: 230,000 New Paper Pushers

EPA: New CO2 Regulations would require 230,000 new employees, Cost $21 billion

The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.

What's that, 40 Solyndra's, and not a single solar panel made?  In fact, nothing is made, no service provided, and all 230,000 of them would be federally funded to restrict someone else's ability to make something useful. (To be fair, this may include support staff, which may well out number the actual bureaucrats)

“Hiring the 230,000 full-time employees necessary to produce the 1.4 billion work hours required to address the actual increase in permitting functions would result in an increase in Title V administration costs of $21 billion per year,” the EPA wrote in the court brief.

1.4 billion hours of paperwork per year!  Assuming a life span of 80 years (which the US has attained as an approximate average without these regulations), that adds up to about 2000 lifetimes per year.  That doesn't even begin to address the amount of time wasted by people outside the agency trying to satisfy the 230,000 new regulators.  You'll have to decide for yourself whether those are valuable or wasted hours...

The agency currently has a staff of 18,000.  But this is not a power grab.