A pile of scrap steel lies on the ground from the dismantling of PacifiCorp's coal-fired Carbon Power Plant, in Helper, Utah, on Feb. 1, 2017. The 62-year-old plant was closed due to the high cost of coming into compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's mercury-emissions rules. George Frey/Stringer/Getty Images
E.J. Antoni, PhD, is a public finance economist and the Richard F. Aster research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.