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Contents
Regulations that propose to make the environment cleaner by setting rigid pollution standards and sticking big business with the bill must sound like pretty good ideas to some people. For years, the American federal government has been enacting and trying to enforce strict, centralized national standards through Superfund, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other environmental quality regulations.
Superfund enforces questionable pollution standards, and makes the wrong people cover the costs. The EPA promises to step-in if the contaminants at a site increase the estimated risk of cancer by one in 10,000. That's a pretty strict standard, considering the overall rate of cancer in this country is currently around one in four. And even though no increased rate of cancer has ever been actually attributed to a Superfund site, an average of $32 million dollars is being spent to clean them up.
Superfund is touted as a "polluter pays" program. Indeed, the EPA does make them pay and pay and pay. In fact, it's not just the original polluter that pays, but also current and former owners of the site, and transporters of waste. This liability is retroactive and does not end once the site is removed from the Superfund list.
Air quality in the U.S. has been steadily improving over the last 30 years, but the government apparently feels it needs to step in with additional regulations, more paperwork and ever-tighter air quality standards. Most of the effort seems misdirected. Approximately ten percent of the cars on the road today produce 50 percent of automobile related emissions, yet the Clean Air Act focuses on standards for new cars. In areas that do not meet federal air quality standards, this issue is addressed, but through inconvenient, centralized vehicle inspection programs.
The Clean Air Act also requires about 30,000 companies to obtain new permits for their job sites. This creates high paperwork costs, yet the benefits to air quality seem non-existent.
Many of the Clean Air Act standards are simply too stringent -- non-attainment status for ozone is triggered by surpassing the federal standard for an hour more than three times over a three year period.
In 1969, the Cuyahoga river in Cleveland was set ablaze by the sparks of a passing train igniting debris and industrial chemicals floating on the river. That event was a major catalyst for the Clean Water Act. Today, industrial pollution has been nearly eliminated, but government standards have become more strict and costly.
The number one cause of water pollution is now agricultural runoff, with number two being municipal and urban runoff. The EPA's own estimate of the cost of full compliance with its regulation is $99 billion per year. Around $40 billion of that cost would be borne by business, and another $37 billion by municipalities.
Unintended consequences abound. The EPA requires that city sewage systems remove 30 percent of their organic waste. But the super-clean city of Anchorage didn't have much organic waste to remove. Instead of spending over $100 million on a new plant that would meet the standard, the city let two fish processing plants dump 5,000 pounds of fish guts in the sewer.
These are just a few examples of irrational and expensive federal environmental regulations. The articles referenced below point out more shortcomings of these programs, and recommend ways to make them better -- or eliminate them without reducing the quality of our environment.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is the leading proponent of free-market environmentalism. CEI believes that where individual property rights exist in environmental resources, the environment is most likely to be protected. They are dedicated to reducing regulation and reframing the debate on environmental issues.
An executive summary of Reinventing Superfund discusses the problems with Superfund and proposes a way to make it work better.
A comprehensive analysis of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act can be found at Title V of the Clean Air Act: Will America's Industrial Future be Permitted?
The 1996 Environmental Briefing Book contains chapters on all three of these regulations:
Political Economy Research Center
PERC is one of the pioneers of free-market environmentalism. They were founded on the principles that private property rights encourage stewardship of resources, government subsidies often degrade the environment, market incentives spur individuals to conserve resources and protect environmental quality, and polluters should be liable for the harm they cause others.
Superfund: The Shortcut that Failed details the history of Superfund, why it failed and what to do to correct its problems.
The Heartland Institute gets free-market research into the hands of editors, reporters, and state-elected officials from New York to California.
Heartland president Joe Bast expressed his opposition to more strict standards in this op-ed This Environmentalist Opposes More Strict Air Quality Standards.
A way to privatize Superfund is recommended by Cato in this Policy Analysis titled Privatizing Superfund: How to Clean Up Hazardous Waste.
The Smog-Reduction Road: Remote Sensing vs. the Clean Air Act discusses more economical alternatives to monitoring vehicle emissions than the conventional testing stations and shows how they can be implemented on California freeways.
Earlier this year, Michael Gough submitted written testimony to the Senate regarding the EPA's effects on reducing cancer rates.
In a recent issue of Regulation , a criticism of the lack of cost-benefit analysis of EPA regulation was leveled in the article Clearing the Air. A response from the EPA was also published in the same issue.
Cost-benefit analysis was also called for in another article titled Sound Standards Require Cost-Benefit Analysis.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy
The effects on the state of Michigan and a good analysis of the new standards are available in this article entitled EPA Rules Are Bad News for Michigan.
The Reason Foundation is dedicated to promoting public policy based on rationality and freedom. They are also the publishers of Reason Magazine, the premier libertarian magazine and one of the best Web sites for libertarian commentary and investigative reports.
The effects of the new air quality standards are analyzed in this press release.
Two recent reports show ways to correct the deficiencies of Superfund:
Laissez Faire offers a large selection of books on libertarian issues and free-market economics.
The Environmental Politics page offers a large variety of books on the subject of free-market environmentalism.
Free-market environmentalism is being studied and proposed by many other groups. Below are some highlights:
Citizens for a Sound EconomyCSE does a lot of work to bring about common sense reform to environmental regulation. Excellent information can be found as part of its Environmental Education Program, Campaign for Environmental Reform and press releases.
A Primer on the new Clean Air Standards discusses the new standards and the possible economic effects.
This criticism of the new standards, First, Do No Harm shows that the new standards may do more harm than good. Even other government agencies, such as the Departments of Transportation and Commerce, have expressed opposition to the new standards.
Scientists re-examining some of the EPA's data say that they have made gross errors in their calculation of mortality rates. Kay Hill, a former advisor to Jimmy Carter wrote an analysis of this problem, EPA Overstates Health Risk by Factor of 15.
John Shanahan points out the fundamental flaws of Superfund and identifies ways to improve the process in his article entitled How to Rescue Superfund.
The Clean Air act was the Issue of the Week for January 20, 1997 and the Clean Water Act was featured for the March 24, 1997 issue. These provide a good background as well as some other viewpoints.
National Center for Policy Analysis
NCPA has published two articles on the failures of the Superfund program, Super Mess and Superfund: History of Failure. Four Steps to Reforming Superfund then discusses proposals to being common sense reforms to the program.
Many of the complaints about the Clean Air Act relate to claims of Junk Science being used and outside parties not being allowed to Examine the data that the regulations are based on. Even other federal agencies question the effectiveness and cost-benefit ratio of the regulations.
"Who Wants the Check?" by J.D. Tuccille Spotlight Discussion Forum
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
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