The following italicized statements are from:
Natural Process: That Environmental Laws May Serve the Laws of Nature, ISBN: 0-9711793-0-1. Copyrights © 1999, 2000, & 2001 by Mark Edward Vande Pol.
…appreciatively used in connection with the on-going debate here concerning HR2829 and HR3705. (Kate L. Turabian devotees are free to scoff at my flagrant abuse of the scholarly form.)
One premise of Natural Process (NP) is that: Coercion begets resistance, enforcement, and punishment that can be rightly regarded as a destructive waste of energy that all too frequently induces unintended consequences.
This is followed later by the maxim:Regulations become webs of intentional ambiguity by which a punishing trap can be sprung.
The debate concerns the Endangered Species Act and the aforementioned bills, long overdue attempts to correct what is wrong with the ESA, a regulatory piece of legislation that isn’t going to go away by ignoring it or fighting it individually in court. Rather than discussing the connotations of “coercion,” but keeping it in mind, and speaking about the ESA in the light of the maxim above: HR2829 and HR3705 are attempts to remove some of the ambiguity of the ESA. The bills do this by requiring science that isn’t as open to debate as computer generated models; they bring into the regulation field data, peer review, a kind of checks and balances that our government was founded upon.
Assuming the alternative suggested by NP is a kind of free market whose only problems are the maintenance of law and order. Can we have that today? Such a stand on law and order alone (free of regulation), “cannot be justified by the principle of liberty. Only the coercive measure of government need be strictly limited.” (Hayek, Constitution of Liberty. P257)
Hayek again: (p224) “Furthermore, a free system does not exclude on principle those general regulations of economic activity which can be laid down in the form of general rules specifying conditions which everybody who engages in a certain activity must satisfy.”
If we can agree that the ESA needs some work, can we both assume that the other agrees that some form(s) of regulation are necessary? We’ve come too far to recast the die by vote.
From NP, which I’m to understand offers an alternative to the ESA and enforcement thereof….. Government regulation is structurally at odds with competitive principles, simply because non-uniform law enforcement is an invitation to corruption. Single solutions are mandated out of the idea that uniformity constitutes "fairness" even though uniform solutions among variable circumstances are not innately fair.
Bringing the debate to the two Congressional bills, taking the above into consideration, and assuming your argument against the ESA is the manner in which it is being enforced, a kind of “non-uniform law enforcement…an invitation to corruption.”
I’m trying to find common ground. We do agree that the ESA needs work; it is broken. We’re trying to agree to a fix. The Congressional bills do offer a kind of “single solution” though that solution would be based on debate, of all knowledge that can be brought to the table, and by peer review, back again to a kind of checks and balances, lessening the chance for corruption.
I’m not seeing how NP would do it otherwise. Obviously, a good deal of thought and work have gone into it, but I get the impression that you would do away with all regulation, place a value on species/resources (to what standard? The environmentalists?) NP seems to be an attempt at re-labeling the terms: NP: The public can invest in verification businesses that assist individual entities to do their best at accounting the behavior of natural process assets that offset or mitigate human impacts, having a financial stake in that success.
“Verification businesses” sounds an awful, awful lot like peer review, checks and balances, that HR2829 and HR 3705 attempts to put in the process. Later on, NP seems to be saying that we never had to have an ESA to start with: the body of individual interests can more effectively settle disputes within the confines of contracts.>BR> I haven’t read the book, I realize, but this sounds like a juggling of the definitions, the terms we’ll apply to the various players. Either that or wishful thinking.
NP:In order to develop the benefits of successful interdependence, we must choose to apply our collective will through reinforcement of individual integrity and respect for unalienable individual rights.
And here I thought we were both nursing our own personal outrage at the lack of respect for rights. Or wasn’t our country founded on a principle such as this?
NPWe can create a process defined by individual responsibility for the individual share of the whole as a view of the self, enlightened by the price of that share. It is more realistic than to expect an individual to adopt such consideration out of either religious altruism or civic compulsion. In Watermelon Sugar, maybe.
Later, NP talks about brining analytical tools to the table. Those tools have been used. I understand them to be computer models, statistics. The concern is that that kind of science has been used too much, which I suspect is why you are opposed to HR2829.
NP, speaking about resources as a kind of tangible standard of wealth: Much of that investment in analytical tools is available and applicable to manage risk in environmental systems.
Yes, you would be opposed to HR2829/HR 3705 because analytical tools are the darlings of the scientists and here you clearly own the concept.
And then it’s back to a juggling of the terms again: NP:Civil power relies upon third party audit to validate reliable investment data. Civic enterprise has the power and scale to avoid independent verification.
Have you read the wording of HR2829/HR3705? Your use of the expression “third party audit” is simply another way of expressing peer review. “Reliable investment data” is another way of saying that empirical data, field tested data should be at the forefront in enforcement of the ESA.
NP raised the question: Can we trust private enterprise to manage the environment? If not, should we give the job to a government monopoly? That is the choice here.
Your choice is clear. “Monopoly” only has good connotations when we think of the game. But if we think of the game—Monopoly—and recall the objective—to win—and then take into consideration what we already know—that it’s dog eat dog out there, then we are left with a certain amount of regulation again. We’ve lived with it long enough that it’s part of our DNA. Only a radical mutation (Civil War?) will change that.