Oh, you meant the environmental regulation money? I misread your question, I thought you were talking about the money saved by the oil and gas companies when they removed said regulation.

Anyway, that money is generally spent on equipment and processes to clean up after whatever the company is doing. Collection pods for contaminated water. Scrubbers on chimneys. Direct pay to inspectors to come out and make sure you aren't trying to cheat to save money. That sort of thing. It spreads out across the entire economy. Markets and industries are formed to support finding the cheapest way to keep the processes in question from damaging the environment and requiring much more expensive cleanup (think EPA superfund and class action lawsuits over medical conditions suffered by nearby communities) after the fact.

So it creates jobs? Someone has to build those collection ponds. Those chimney scrubbers don't just grow in the forest.

Why can't Democrats get that message across?

For some strange reason Fox News and AM Talk Radio never mention that part. So the message never reaches the base. The only people who would mention it are the untrustworthy lieberal media.

So it takes a whole bunch of resources that could be used to produce other things and uses them to produce chimney scrubbers, collection ponds, etc. Not only people's time, but also a bunch of raw materials, equipment, etc, all of which then cannot be used for things other than emissions compliance.

You either pay for the cost up front or down the road when that environmental contamination catches up to you.

The EPA is rightfully tired of cleaning up industry messes and would much prefer that the pollution not happen in the first place. It's much easier and cheaper to clean up that way.

So these regulations are all about preventing companies from passing on the costs of cleanup to the general public. One way or another you're paying for it, and it's much less expensive in almost every case if you pay for it up front. The only problem is that the free market doesn't price in externalities unless you force it to (via regulation) so the pollute now and let the public clean it up later approach is always going to win in an unregulated market.

The Right is dominated in media silos. AM radio is almost exclusively right wing talk these days. FoxNews is 100% propaganda and almost all fiction. Avg people who support the GOP are encrusted inside this silo. They do not listen, watch, read or see any objective news. Its 100% partisan political propaganda. So getting the message through isnt possible. Its about as biased as anything in history. But they'll tell you that they're oppressed by the Liberal Media... Facts be damned.