As one of the primary factors of production, labor is an essential element in every nation's economy. Investing in human capital is widely viewed as a key to sustaining increases in labor productivity and economic growth. While health is increasingly seen as an important part of human capital, environmental protection, which typically promotes health, has not been viewed through this lens. Indeed, such interventions are typically cast as a tax on producers and consumers, and thus a drag on the labor market and the economy in general. Given the large body of evidence that causally links pollution with poor health outcomes (e.g., Bell et al. 2004; Chay and Greenstone 2003; Currie and Neidell 2005; Dockery et al. 1993; Pope et al. 2002), it seems plausible that efforts to reduce pollution could in fact also be viewed as an investment in human capital, and thus a tool for promoting, rather than retarding, economic growth.