Congressional Accountability, Part 13
Overhaul Environmental Regulations

By: Robert Jay

OVERHAUL ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS! Make each rule and bureaucratic decision pass the common sense test!

     Call me a Mugwump (my mug is on one side of the fence and my wump is on the other) on the politics of the environmental issue. Though an economic conservative, I'm a tree-hugger and clean-air-sniffer. I decry the moneyed and influential Luddites that don't believe policies need change regardless of how many more people are added to the world's population.

     Populations do have an a effect! And they do in turn affect the ecosystem. A couple of thousand years ago Greece was covered with trees. It was a fertile and favored habitat, which incidently, fostered the western culture. Italy, indeed all of Europe and Great Britain were once heavily forested. What bareness our ancestors have bequeathed us! Nothing but shadows of the former majesty and beauty. Mankind has a propensity to pillage and waste everything it comes in contact with.

     But are we the sole culprit? A bed partner is mother nature. As the last ice age receded, the climate naturally warmed up significantly.

     Do we know how much human-kind is responsible for the climate change? I haven't seen any responsible scientific data. Core samples from the two poles are starting to show cyclical patterns, but the data has not revealed man's culpability. Maybe we are nothing more than a straw in the cyclical winds of change.

     It would be a crime to bequeath to future generations the ill effects of a further degraded ecosystem: the greenhouse effect, with its overabundance of carbon dioxide, radiation effects from holes in the ozone layer, river and stream pollution from chemicals and man-made refuse, or any of the myriad and still unknown effects of plant and animal extinction .

     "When in doubt, don't" is a favorite expression of those that aren't sure of their next step. I believe we would be wise to adopt a go-slow policy of implementing changes that we know will alter our environment, or conversely implementing laws of which we don't know the side-effects. For more detailed info. check out the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee internet web page: www.senate.gov/~epw/ Then may I suggest at your next Congressional town meeting talk about:

1. Prohibiting regulations that fail cost/benefit tests, uncompensated regulatory takings of private property and unrealistic risk assessment practices.
2. Examining closely, with cost/benefit tests and risk assessment for future generations: Superfund, the 1990 clean water act amendments; section 408 (the Delaney Clause); the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; subtitles II - IV of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, and the intrastate provision of both the Clean Air and Clean Water Act.
3. Divesting public land to the private sector. The government should not be in the land ownership business. It's not the function of government nor is it in the Constitution. Wise Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions would insure that there is sufficient protection for future generations. This could include parks.