I really ought to create boilerplate for this. I don’t support Donald Trump or his policies. Nothing I write should be construed as a defense of Trump. However, I do think that Christine Todd Whitman should rethink her Atlantic defense of the Environmental Protection Agency that she headed under the George W. Bush Administration:
Pollution poses an undeniable threat to public health, as the Supreme Court has validated. A 2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study reported that roughly 19,000 more people die prematurely from automobile pollution each year than die in car accidents. The same year, Harvard University researchers found that pregnant women living in areas with elevated levels of air pollution “were up to twice as likely†to have an autistic child, compared with women in low-pollution locations. And a new study released in January found that air pollution increases the risk and expedites the onset of dementia and other forms of cognitive decline.
The Clean Air Act of 1970 was designed to control air pollution on a national level by authorizing the development of comprehensive regulations to limit emissions. It has been extremely successful—between 1970 and 2015, “aggregate national emissions [of] six common pollutants alone dropped an average of 70 percent,†the EPA reports. A summary report of the benefits and costs associated with the act estimates that public and private spending to reduce pollution will reach approximately $65 billion annually by 2020. By contrast, the economic benefits are estimated to reach approximately $2 trillion dollars in 2020 alone. Yet under Trump’s proposed budget—despite the public-health and economic advantages—funding for the Clean Air Act would be cut in half.
The problem is that “controlling pollution” and the EPA aren’t synonymous. Not everything that the EPA does controls pollution and not everything that controls pollution was administered by the EPA.
The picture at the top of this post shows the results of the release of three million gallons of contaminated water from the Gold King Mine in San Juan County, Colorado into the Animas River. That’s a prima facie case for an agency that doesn’t just need reform or reining in but punishment.
In the past, and at present, other agencies may do things to cut down on pollution, but it has always been sporadic with outcomes often determined in favor of the local wealthy company/businessman rather than local citizens. (There has been a long running battle between local residents and a large local poultry plant for years.) Not long ago I finished a lengthy article on water in Eastern PA. Water quality has become dangerously bad several times until governments, state, local or a combination, stepped in. The EPA now fills much of that role and you don’t have to wait until the water is deadly to fix it.
The problem is that the benefits that we obtain from cleaner air and water just are not seen. A few extra thousand deaths from lung cancer just blend in, and everyone assumes it was just bad luck (just to give an example). However, it is very visible when the EPA says you can’t exceed certain limits on what you put into the air. Then manufacturers complain about government regulations. Anyway, this is all about tradeoffs. If we want to make the tradeoff, we can have air quality like they have in China, and have our manufacturing costs go down a little bit. Will that create more jobs here? Maybe. Will it result in those who are already wealthy making even more money? Definitely.
Steve
I think it’s more complicated than that, Steve. Large organizations always overreach and always become arrogant and reckless. Always. Yes, there are economies of scale and lower transactional costs in having an umbrella agency.
But there are also risks. We need to take Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy into account.
The choices aren’t just between having Chinese levels of air pollution and an EPA. The EPA shows strong signs of becoming unable to do its job.
One problem is these agencies are concentrated in a single city and that’s no longer necessary or even desirable in the 21st Century. Maintain existing funding but break up and distribute offices, agencies and departments across the 50 states; the more rural and economically depressed the better. I think we’d ve surprised how many careerists and lobbyists will simply refuse to relocate to Boone County, WV.
If only we had structures for decentralizing government and spreading its agencies across the country! Let’s create some. We could call them “states” and “counties”.
As I see it, Ben, you’ve just articulated the argument for giving block grants to the states. The federal government should be more involved with coordinating the activities of the states and less involved with administering the activities within the states.
I don’t think coordination would be sufficient. One state or county’s failure to address pollution issues can affect multiple other states and counties, and litigating afterward can’t reverse damage done to a biological system. The system has to be preventive.
Maybe ending limited liability could make it work. A lot of business persons would rethink their actions if they could be held directly responsible.
I’ve made the case in the past that strict liability is a remedy for a number of problems. IMO the purveyors of autonomous vehicles, for example, should be held to standards of strict liability.
The Gold King Mine might be a bad example for your theory on administrative overreach and incompetence. The locals had been pushing back on classifying it as a Superfund Site, fearing tourism losses, so it was allowed to fester far too long. Efforts to reduce the water pressure in the mine went badly — the contaminated water was already under significant pressure, more than anticipated by the contractors. It would probably have blown out on its own soon enough.
So, we have a problem kicked down the road because no one wanted to deal with it, then handed off to contractors who screwed it up.
If anything, the incident calls for a more aggressive EPA intervening earlier (and possibly less dependent upon contractors)
More generally though, every organization is going to operate with some level of errors, which we can minimize, but not eliminate. That’s just life — humans are fallible under the best of circumstances, and often have to operate under circumstances that are not the best.
It’s reasonable to insist that government organizations learn from mistakes to minimize the likelihood and severity of future mistakes, but it isn’t reasonable to insist upon perfection.
As far as the EPA goes, they’ve done way more good than harm. I prefer my rivers to not be on fire, for instance.
” I think we’d ve surprised how many careerists and lobbyists will simply refuse to relocate to Boone County, WV.”
Heh, their virtuous zeal ends when the nearest Palm Restaraunt is more than an hour drive away. Lots of that in Washington.
BTW – boards are liable if not making decisions within the reasonable man standard.
As for the efficacy of regulatory bodies. Anyone who has to deal with them on a routine basis (like me) knows that precious few do well. There are some very well intentioned, and professional, people to be sure. But most are step behind, operate under quotas or have become tools of activists. It’s out of control. Doing less, but doing it well would be a good objective for most.