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The immediate consequences to putting O2 on the pollutants' list is to allow the EPA to regulate emissions of it.
Indirect consequences are that operating costs of energy plants will increase.
I was expressing confusion over the point of Bear Cub's post because our country is lagging behind the rest of the industrialized world in addressing harmful emissions from power plants. I don't dispute that stricter regulations will cost us millions or billions of dollars and those costs will likely be passed to consumers, the only thing I can say with certainty is that in the future, upgrading power plants will cost even more money than doing it now.
I've been fighting with my car and California's smog laws for the past couple months because something is not working in my emission's system. I remember when aerosol cans were a topic of debate due to ozone damaging chemicals. Did the EPA have anything to do with moving away from leaded gasoline, leaded paints, and other harmful chemicals used in production?
I place a high premium on my health. I pay a lot more than average for food and water I feel is healthy, I don't game the emissions standards in order to maintain the health of the air I breath. Maybe I'm just weird, but when we have the ability to clean our emissions I think it's best to utilize them.
Decades ago the water treatment plants were promised grants to upgrade their facilities to tertiary systems. One plant that my uncle was the manager of did not upgrade after successfully fighting the mandate. Now the grant money is gone, political winds have shifted, and they had to upgrade anyway at many times the cost they would have spent years ago...and it came straight out of the local community's pocket because the grant money was gone.
The domestic auto industry has fought regulations on higher MPGs and cleaner emissions for a very long time. Now that public opinion has swayed, our domestic auto makers are suffering major buyer backlash compared to foreign imports who wisely invested in the technology to make their vehicles more appealing to consumers. Between budget and environmental concerns, numbers are dwindling who want to buy from our Big Three.
This argument of cost effectiveness by ignoring emissions standards just doesn't seem to pan out when looking across industries.
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann
"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman
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