Posted on 02/07/2005 8:05:02 PM PST by RWR8189
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Monday proposed cutting the Environmental Protection Agency budget by nearly 6 percent to $7.57 billion in fiscal 2006 by targeting a program that helps cities replace aging sewage systems.
The EPA said the requested reduction was part of the federal government's overall belt-tightening, but environmental groups said it would hurt an important clean water program.
Total EPA funding would decline from $8 billion, which Congress allocated in the current budget year for the agency to protect the nation's air, water and land. In 2004, the EPA had a budget of $8.4 billion.
Acting EPA administrator Steve Johnson defended the plan as "a strong request that allows us to keep up the pace of environmental protections" and said the cuts were part of the administration's larger deficit-cutting plan. The White House is facing a record federal budget deficit.
Most of the EPA cut proposed for 2006 is from a reduction in funding for a revolving fund that states use to upgrade sewage and septic systems, and storm-water run-off projects. Funding for the fund fell $361 million, or 33 percent, in the Bush administration budget proposal.
Environmental groups say cities need the loans and grants to replace and upgrade aging sewage systems, some of which are over a century old.
"This year's cuts are really bad for clean water," said Rob Perks at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
But the lower request actually offsets higher funds appropriated by Congress in 2004 and 2005, which will maintain the total commitment to the program of $6.8 billion through 2011, an EPA spokeswoman said. "Federal funding of this program was never intended to be permanent," she said.
The decision to cut the state water program was "one of savings and making some tough choices," Johnson said.
The administration's budget plan would hold steady a separate $850 million state fund for clean drinking water.
The EPA budget also would increase by $47 million funding to clean up 600 toxic "brownfield" sites and add $28 million to remove toxic sediments from the Great Lakes.
Money for Superfund -- an industry program to clean up toxic waste sites -- would rise slightly to $1.28 billion.
Congress will debate and revise the White House budget proposal over the next few months before finalizing a government spending plan for fiscal 2006, which begins on Oct. 1.
Did he leave out deep cuts for Bert and his significant other? Marvelous!
"You're right. You know nothing about common law. You know nothing about libertarianism. You know nothing of self-rule. And you support the fascist bureaucratic state. We have nothing to discuss. Try the Sierra Club chat room where you'll find allies."
Uh-oh! I know nothing about common law so I'm probably about to get disbarred! What ever will I do to put food on the table! Oh wait! That's right, I know all about common law because I went to law school and have practiced law for 6 years now. This includes defending corporations in environmental cases. What was your job again?
I guess I win this argument since you would rather name-call then address the substance of my points. The "Sierra Club" thing was a particularly nice swipe, I must admit. But in the end, you'd rather call me a fascist than engage my argument. I guess that's because you can't beat my arguments. Thanks for playing, chump.
That's right, I know all about common law because I went to law school and have practiced law for 6 years now.
"And the point of these questions is....to determine if you have a rudimentary knowledge of the EPA and its UN fascist mission."
ROFLMAO!
Oh, you're part of the tinfoil-hat brigade. If it's the UN that poses the greatest danger of fascism, then I'm going to breathe a sigh of relief. If the UN is behind it, then we know it will never happen since they are incapable of doing anything. Now the trilateral commission - that's where its at. That and skull and bones. And the aliens. In area 54.
Better get more tinfoil ...
"Thus we have the clean air act to make sure the actual cost of all of the plant inputs are reflected in the cost of the output product."
Other than keep a set of bureaucrats employed,what does the XX dollars per ton paid for emitting these pollutants accomplish?
This position presumes that it is not in a person's or corporation's best interests to maintain the value of their property. Thus, government control is required to protect society.
The presumption, however, is a false premise. Almost invariably, it is in the best interests of a property-owner to maintain his property in an environmentally friendly fashion. To do otherwise would simply be foolish. One doesn't go into business in order to destroy the value of one's assets.
Ask any farmer, for example. More often, it is EPA policies that are destroying the value of the property -- be it through the Endangered Species Program or Wetlands Protection.
As a people, economy and nation, we'd be better off without the EPA. Hell, the environment would be better off without the EPA. We can't do that overnight, of course. But reducing funding is a damn good start...
Furthermore, chemical companies were forced to come up with substitutes just as DuPont's patent on Freon was expiring...
And DuPont just happened to have a new refrigerant that met the new standards, patented and ready for market...
I'm not saying that there was anything less than kosher about the EPA's new regulations...it's just that the coincidence is so, well, stunning.
There has to be some kind of agency to control the abuses and punish the abusers.
"Other than keep a set of bureaucrats employed,what does the XX dollars per ton paid for emitting these pollutants accomplish?"
Pollution imposes a cost on those around it. With burning coal, that includes particulates and mercury. A perfectly efficient market internalizes all costs to the transactions that cause those costs. So if I'm buying electricity from X, and X is just dumping particulates into the air then everyone breathing those particulates is paying a pollution cost. This is fine if only the consumers of electricity for a given plant are hit with pollution. But the tall smokestacks of most coal plants disperse pollutants all over. CAA requires state plans (SIPs) to reduce air pollution to certain levels (depending on the pollutants).
The result is that coal plants are forced to adopt cleaner technologies (like scrubbers and clean coal. These raise the cost of generating electricity, which the generators pass on to the consumer. Thus consumer preference for electricity usage is a function of the full cost of generating the power - including the cost of not polluting the air to a deangerous extent.
Now there are three options for dealing with pollution.
(1) Allow the plants to polute as much as possible. This will have the negative effect of reducing the value of property in the path of the pollution. Allowing full pollution will screw over every property owner that gets hit by the pollution - not to mention people's health (and lets think of health as a form of property for this purpose). If you believe in property rights, you don't want to entitle power companies to do as they please with the air that ends up on your property.
(2) You could force the power companies to bargain with every property owner that could be affected by the pollution to buy the right to affect their property. This is the classical libertarian solution. Unfortunately, it would be very expensive. The transaction costs in bargaining with the entire class of property owners would be very high. Power plants emit a lot of pollution and they do so over a large area. (For example, New York State is suing Illinois over pollution from Illinois plants winding up in New York.) When you factor in the cost of holdouts - people who refuse to bargain - it would be a nightmare. Some of these holdouts will also be disgruntled environmentalists out to stop all power generation. Imagine greens buying property in the path of a power plant in order to shut it down. Moreover, the costs of these bargains would go right into your bill.
(3) Government regulation is the final option. The idea here is to use a statute, the CAA, to displace common law nuisance and other legal claims with a federal framework that sets a common standard for pollutants but leaves it to the states to figure out how to achieve pollution levels. Thereby saving the insurmountable costs of option (2) above.
A hardcore do-or-die libertarian would go with option (2). He would also argue that the problem with the CAA is that it robs property owners of the right to keep their property pollution free. Of course that libertarian is going to go without power, because under those circumstances, the transaction costs for power plants to open will never be surmounted.
Limited evironmental laws are as necessary of an evil as limited criminal laws.
"Almost invariably, it is in the best interests of a property-owner to maintain his property in an environmentally friendly fashion. To do otherwise would simply be foolish. One doesn't go into business in order to destroy the value of one's assets."
The key to a good environmental law is one that protects a property owner from other property owners who are happy to let their pollution flow to other's property. Say farmer Fred is running a fish farm on his land. That's his right and his livelihood. But say farmer Bob is growing corn uphill from farmer Fred. When it rains, the runoff of fertilizer and insecticide from Bob's corn farm washes right into Fred's fish pens, poisoning the fish and rendering them unfit for sale. Bob is free to grow organic or grow with as much chenical stuff he wants. But Bob isn't free to let his runoff screw up Fred's property.
The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are both these types of law. They both protect your property from the other guy.
Quite true. But the true test of whether regulation is an improvement is whether you will see more abuse without regulation than with it.
In this sense, property is being ill-maintained and abused today because of the regulations. I refer specifically to the Wetlands Protection Act -- where property that would have been maintained and kept productive has been forced to revert to...a bog, a quagmire, a fetid swamp.
My sis is a social worker, specializing in "dysfunctional families". We have this argument all the time. She tells me of families who have been beaten and/or abandoned their children, turning them over to her and, thence, the state.
In return, I ask her, if she and her services had not been available to take the children, how many of these families would have worked out their problems -- rather than taken the easy way out.
There would still be some children who were abandoned...or worse. But, without the "safety net", perhaps there would have been fewer "dysfunctional families". Social work has a tendency to create its own market.
Nobody's perfect. But regulation and government intervention often makes things worse, not better. And it will always add costs -- mostly paid by the people who are doing the right thing in the first place.
At bottom, virtually every pollutant represents a waste of a potential by-product...
If Bob were a smart corn farmer, he would realize that fertilizer that washes down into Fred's fish pens is money wasted to him. He would find a better way to apply fertilizer, so that he wouldn't have to buy as much of it.
Economics can deliver a solution to this problem more effectively than can a regulation.
Not only that, there is existing riparian law to deal with such a problem. There was no requirement for an EPA to address it.
"If Bob were a smart corn farmer, he would realize that fertilizer that washes down into Fred's fish pens is money wasted to him. He would find a better way to apply fertilizer, so that he wouldn't have to buy as much of it.
Economics can deliver a solution to this problem more effectively than can a regulation."
This is only true when the cost of the technological solution is equal to of less than the cost of the wasted fertilizer
Hint: It almost always is. Often, it doesn't cost a red cent extra -- just alter the practice. Understand that, in the first place, farmer Bob doesn't want his fertilizer washing down into Fred's fish pens. That doesn't serve his purpose, at all.
Consequently, if it is happening, he should be looking for a way to avoid this occurrence.
When it comes to protecting the environment, real education has a big role to play: how to recognize the opportunities for cost-savings and develop ways to achieve them. Ingenuity can resolve most of these opportunities.
Regulations are not a way to encourage ingenuity -- except in the legal community. Economics works every time.
Yes, the President's Council on Sustainable Development doesn't exist. It's fantasy.
The senate rejecting the Biodiversity Treaty never happened.
The EPA and its financial support of smart growth is tinfoil stuff.
Nothing more blissful than splashing around in the shallow end of the gene pool. Tell your buddy Bill Clinton I said hello.
Yes like making sure the estuaries are kept free from toxic wastes from multi-billion dollar companies. I inherited property on the Calcasieu Estuary and let's just say it's not pretty what the industries have done to the land and water there. I am all for them operating but not at the expense of my property.
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