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Pollution saved with conversion also saves lives, estimates a 2010 study by the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law titled “Residual Risks, The Unseen Costs of Using Dirty Oil in New York City Boilers.”

Estimated annual health benefits from conversion include a decrease in childhood acute bronchitis by about 115 cases, a significant reduction of nonfatal heart attacks, the prevention of thousands of lost work days, and an estimated 73 to 188 lives saved.

Michael Livermore at the Institute for Policy Integrity explains:

It is true that only a small percentage of the EPA’s estimated benefits from the mercury standards come from mercury reduction ($6 million in benefits out of a total of $90 billion). But that’s because the benefits from having less mercury in our water streams, oceans and, subsequently, the seafood we eat are extremely difficult to quantify.

Would you recommend that a pregnant sister or daughter eat a seafood feast every day? Probably not, since doctors routinely warn of the risks of mercury exposure in unborn children.

Legislative efforts to halt the EPA’s first ever rule to prevent the emissions of mercury and other toxic are a mistake. Even delaying the rule would come at the grave expense of the public’s health. It’s a rule with $90 billion in annual benefits and that’s likely to be a serious underestimate.

But Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, said EPA’s soon-to-be final rule for boilers is reasonable, if not a little too lax. “EPA has been working on this for a long time, and they’ve done a lot to address industry concerns,” he said.

He added that manufacturers would criticize the rule almost no matter what it looked like, because environmental regulations do not contribute to their bottom line.

“Industry is going to oppose the rule no matter how large the benefits are for the American public,” he said.

The EPA may be underestimating the benefits of the new rules. As Michael Livermore points out, mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin for small children, and the EPA’s analysis of that danger is limited to quantifying lost future earnings due to lower IQ. But even a grinch wouldn’t pretend that the cost of this kind of neurological damage is limited to lower wages.

Much of this is due to reductions in particulate matter, not mercury, which suggests that, if anything, the EPA may be underestimating the benefits of the new rules. As Michael Livermore points out, mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin for small children, and the EPA’s analysis of that danger is limited to quantifying lost future earnings due to lower IQ. But even a grinch wouldn’t pretend that the cost of this kind of neurological damage is limited to lower wages. “There are,” says Livermore, “also risks of cognitive and social defects, negative autoimmune effects, genetic effects, and heart attacks that are not quantified.”

Now, that doesn’t mean the EPA isn’t cleaning up mercury, or that the mercury benefits are worthless. What it means is that it’s easier to put a hard number on the benefits from cleaning up particulate pollution — by totaling up the dollar value of lives saved — than it is to calculate the full value of, say, avoiding cognitive damage in young children. Scientists are still struggling to quantify the damage wreaked by mercury. And, as Michael Livermore writes, the EPA didn’t put a dollar value on various benefits from the regulation, like reducing mercury in store-bought fish, because it was too murky. The benefits may be there, but they’re not factored in.

“Power plants that are old and dirty should’ve ended their useful life already and gone out of commission,” added Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity and adjunct professor at New York University. “We live in the 21st century. We shouldn’t be using plants from 1950s.”

“The benefits of this rule outweigh the costs by a huge factor,” he said. “In fact, given the huge ratio of benefits to costs, we could make the rule even more strict and still generate even greater net benefits.”

“This is going to be have very important public health benefits for years to come,” said Michael A. Livermore, the executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, a think tank affiliated with New York University School of Law. And from an economic perspective the rule was a “slam dunk,” he said. “The benefits swamped the costs.”

Environmentalists and public health advocates have a reason to stand up and cheer: Finalized rules to cut down on mercury air pollution are set to be announced today by the EPA.

But economists can also feel good about this holiday-season gift of clean air: Two decades of agency analysis have found the EPA’s new mercury standards for power plants to be overwhelmingly cost-benefit justified. With annual compliance costs around $11 billion, and health benefits estimated to be up to $140 billion per year, even the most hard-nosed bean counter should be feeling festive.