EPA priorities | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    Since 1962 when Rachel Carson wrote her ground breaking book "Silent Spring" a lot of things in the environmental arena that needed to be changed got changed - mostly for the better. In the beginning, we worried about DDT and the major impact it was having on all of us. We worked our way through water that wasn't fit to drink and air that wasn't fit to breathe. And now we worry about disturbing small lizards in the Arizona desert when we chase "illegals" on our ATVs.

    We worried about the Cuyahoga River in Ohio when it actually "caught fire" in the late 1960s. Yes, it was burning. There is no doubt that it was in sore need of cleanup. Apparently it had been in need of cleanup for quite some time. According to Wikipedia, "The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire helped spur an avalanche of water pollution control activities, resulting in the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA)." It was 1970 when the EPA was created.

    Further, Wikipedia citing Jonathan H Adler's "Fables of the Cuyahoga: Reconstructing a History of Environmental Protection." (2003) reports that a least 13 fires have been reported on the Cuyahoga River, the first occurring in 1868. Clearly the late 1960 pollution was not exactly something new.

    There is no denying the fact that the EPA and the environmental lobby folks have done a great deal to help improve the air we breathe and the water we drink.

    If that's the case, why do so many people (including me) "bad mouth" the environmental movement so much??

    Two reasons:

    First, they seem to have pretty much have gotten the "big stuff" under control. With all the big things seemingly under control (although likely still needing oversight attention) they seem to have turned to environmental "fixes" that would be lost in the background noise but for their attention. They persist in casting about for new things to do. Catching the runoff from a bridge and routing it back to a ditch in a swamp where it will ultimately find its way back into the very same creek being spanned by the bridge certainly falls into that category. If they haven't yet completed taking care of the "big stuff" after 42 years, they probably are never going to be able to do it, so lets not talk about too many things left undone. Clearly it is time to scale back to a "maintenance mode".

    Second, as with any bureaucratic undertaking, there seems to be no end to it. The bureaucrats (whose jobs depend on it) and the faux capitalists whose "capitalism" is largely dependent on subsidies and other government largesse such as requiring the use of the product even though it uses more energy than it creates are certainly not predisposed to give up their comfortable way of life. Trust me. If they weren't using taxpayer money and governmental clout to guarantee the success of their undertaking, (i.e. they were succeeding without taxpayer money) I would not be complaining about them. But, as it is something needs to be done.

    So what is it??

    Here's a thought. Now that the "big stuff" is done, we shift the EPA emphasis to ensuring that we don't backslide. Lets focus on protecting the gains we have made (big stuff only). At the same time, to the degree that they have new ideas about how to protect the environment, how about requiring that the EPA (or DENR or whoever else is laying these crazy extra costs on us) pay for the incremental cost of whatever "new" stuff they want to implement. It seems to me that would be a rather quick way to find out how important they (and those who hold the purse strings) think a lot of their "new"requirements really are..

    Forcing the EPA (or DENR, or whomever) to pay their way (so to speak) would force them, when they appear before the appropriation folks, to have to justify these expenditures. That should be an interesting conversation. As it is now, they simply lay a requirement on someone else and those folks must get the money and pay for whatever it is. When you are free to call the shots with not even a hint of responsibility falling back on you, it's easy to let things get out of hand. It's no wonder we do so many "environmental" things that so many folks look at and simply shake their head in disbelief. It's no wonder that the Highway Department is so short of money. It's no wonder construction costs so much more than it would without a lot of idiotic, unrealistic requirements the environmental folks lay on all of us. They build "predictive models" with absolutely no connection with reality and use them (or try to use them) as the basis for imposing unrealistic requirements on the already overburdened taxpayers. They do not even hesitate when it comes to taking away our property rights. Case in point: Predicted sea level rise. Good grief, even Al Gore got off that kick.....

    We claim to be protecting our environment by mandating that ethanol comprise some percentage of our gasoline. This sounded like a reasonable idea in the beginning. But in the beginning, there was darkness... When subjected to the light of day, what we discover is that but for the massive federal subsidies, ethanol costs more in energy (and money) to produce than it generates. Many of the environmentalists who supported ethanol in the beginning acknowledge that fact and no longer support it's production. That would seem to be the "old" environmentalists. The "new" environmentalists (and well paid and largely taxpayer funded industry lobbyists) don't seem to care how much it costs or how much good it does (or doesn't do), they still want it. If it can be construed as "green", it must be good. In fact today the corn based ethanol that we are adding to our gasoline today is about to make the cost of our breakfast cereal go up. With the current corn crop being as it is, the cost of a lot of other food stuffs is also going to rise. (As an aside; It's likely the "old" environmentalists would worry about the cost of corn flakes; The "new" ones likely eat granola for breakfast, so the price of corn flakes is probably not so much of a problem with them. Hmmm...) What do you suppose would happen if all these ethanol proponents had to appear before an congressional appropriation committee and justify the extra cost occasioned by their outdated and idiotic requirements?? At least, by focusing on those asking for the money and those who approve it we would at least know just whom we should be holding accountable for whatever waste they allow.

    We hear that there are certain places in the Arizona desert where ICE is not allowed to use their ATVs to pursue illegals entering the US in order to protect the habitat of some lizard or other. (It sounds like the Snail Darters all over again). What's wrong with that picture?? This adds new meaning to the term "sub-optimization". Who in the world sets these priorities??

    History would suggest that no matter how long and hard we argue, logic, rationality, fairness, or anything else, doesn't have a chance. What winning (or losing) the argument boils down to is who controls the purse strings. Isn't it time we quit giving the EPA (and, in North Carolina, DENR) a free ride?? Let's require 'em to start bringing their "own money" to the party.

    D'ya think??