Chicken Little famously claimed—more than 2,000 years ago now—that the sky was falling. In fact, the sky remained very much in place. The fearmonger had simply been hit on the head by an acorn. 

These days, the role of Chicken Little is filled by reporters and environmental extremists. Every time a conservative administration somewhere in the world proposes to roll back an expensive environmental regulation, rest assured, we’ll hear that the sky is falling in on us.

 Recently, the Trump administration finally repealed the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding,” which had been in place since 2009. Cue the outrage. The Union of Concerned Scientists called the decision“an obvious example of what happens when a corrupt administration and fossil fuel interests are allowed to run amok.” Former President Obama added, “Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy, and less able to fight climate change.”

Let’s take a breath and look at the facts.

The endangerment finding was certainly important, but not because it was effective; the finding was important because it was expansive. It gave the federal government the power to regulate carbon dioxide from cars, trucks, power plants, manufacturing facilities, and more. The finding was also extremely expensive. In just four years, the Biden administration imposed $1.8 trillion in regulatory costs. Those were costs imposed on hard-working Americans, all the while China was flooding our markets with much higher-carbon-content goods. 

In a way, the EPA’s move to repeal is simply restoring what lawmakers had in mind when they passed a key environmental law in the 1970s. “They’re returning to a historic understanding of the Clean Air Act and the types of pollutants that in their view that the Act was intended to regulate,” Matthew Leopold, who served as EPA general counsel during President Trump’s first term, said. “What’s being disputed is this novel use of the Clean Air Act to expand to greenhouse gases.”

The administration estimates that repealing the measure could save $1.3 trillion, as much as $3,823.50 per American. That may be an underestimate, because the “endangerment finding” is more expensive than its administrators like to let on. When we factor in economic inefficiencies, the true cost per metric ton of CO2 abated by the regulations is much higher than the government estimated it would be. Those are real costs paid by real people.

>>>READ: The Endangerment Finding Is a Cautionary Tale—For Both the Left and Right

When federal regulators impose rules, they tend to vastly underestimate the costs and overestimate the benefits. “In nearly all major transportation climate regulations we assessed (9 of 11), the abatement cost per ton was more than the social cost of carbon (SCC) that was used when the rules were promulgated,” Nick Loris and Philip Rossetti wrote. “The SCC is the government-calculated monetary harm imposed by emitting one ton of CO2 into the atmosphere.” They found that over 20 years, the regulations would cost four times as much as the EPA’s administrators claimed they would.

Federal regulations overall cost Americans more than $3 trillion. That red tape limits the free market and strangles innovation. 

Reducing government mandates also allows markets to work more effectively. Freer markets encourage competition, which attracts more resources and innovative technologies. The result is an energy supply that is more reliable, affordable and cleanest possible, but not clean at the cost of people.

That’s why economic freedom truly is the best path for a flourishing environment. As I’ve written many times, free economies are clean economies: because when people and businesses are free to innovate without government tipping the scales or picking winners and losers, markets flourish by following the demands of consumers. That is why so many products today, from airplane flights to running shoes, tell how much carbon was generated to make them. Consumers are, as usual, far ahead of federal regulators. 

>>>READ: Discounting and the Ethics of Climate Policy

It is easier to care about the environment and CO2 emissions if you live in a warm home and can drive a safe car to work. If you have no source of fuel, you will burn whatever is at hand to heat your food: wood, biomass, or animal dung. Anything. That causes more pollution and harms more people in the short-term than using fossil fuels does. For people in poverty, there is only a short-term: they cannot plan for a future because they must focus on surviving today. 

By ending its “endangerment finding,” the EPA is taking a sensible step. Someone tell Chicken Little to take a breath, and let’s get to innovating. In the end, it’s innovation, not regulation, that will be best for people and our planet.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.