The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a new rule regulating mercury emissions from power plants. But is the rule sensible? The best way to answer this question is to tote up the benefits and costs of the rule and compare them. The EPA did not do such an exercise when it...

This article provided an overview of the costs and benefits of regulating mercury emissions from power plants using IQ gains as a measure of benefits. Our assessment suggests strongly that the benefits are not likely to be worth the costs. This is true both for the command-and-control regulatory...