On 10/10/10 a great environmental consensus
This election season is full of head-fakes, muddle, and flip-floppery. None more so than the heated rhetoric that surrounds environmental regulations.
As we reported this week, the Republican Party has moved away from environmental policies, even abandoning strategies for cleaning up pollution that conservatives used to champion.
The Chamber of Commerce and other conservative groups have argued that regulation is a major roadblock preventing a new wave of prosperity and innovation.
If you listen to most media accounts, you would think that Americans are sick and tired of burdensome environmental rules.
This rhetoric often swirls here in the North Country, with some groups and local government leaders calling for the Adirondack Park Agency to be eliminated, or its regulatory powers significantly weakened.
I describe all this as political head-fakery because there’s a lot of evidence that Americans are pretty eager and devoted environmentalists — and they want their government to reflect those values.
Here are the facts:
According to a study released this week by the Washington Post and Kaiser-Harvard Foundation, 84% of Americans are comfortable with the amount of environmental regulation we have now — or want more regulation.
Surprising right? But this will surprise you even more: 56% of tea party activists, a clear majority, feel the same way.
That’s right: Even most tea partiers want strict environmental regulations and they want the government to enforce them.
This one data point alone might not be meaningful, but last month the widely respected Pew survey found much the same thing.
By a wide margin, Americans favor tougher laws and regulations to protect the environment. Eight-in-ten (81%) favor greater protections, while just 14% oppose them.
Here again a surprising statistic: A whopping 73% of Republicans favor stronger environmental laws.
But maybe those numbers hide some uncomfortable truths about our willingness to make sacrifices in order to make environmental gains?
87% of us want utilities to generate more energy from clean sources; 78% of us want tougher efficiency standards for automobiles; and 66% of Americans want limits on greenhouse gases.
Obviously, it’s fair to debate how we should reach environmental goals. We should look for the most efficient and cost-effective strategies, and we should eliminate unnecessary or ineffective rules.
But it’s time to stop pretending that Americans aren’t really sure whether we want environmental problems tackled.
There is almost no other issue on which our society agrees more thoroughly and unambiguously.
So maybe it’s time, at long last, to stop quibbling and get to work.
Tags: climate change, environment
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And then there is Darrel Aubertine’s suprising attack on DEC regulations for ballast water. Regulations that are intended to reduce the risk of additional damaging exotic invasive species being added to our Great Lakes / St. Lawrence River. In response to dramatic damage that has already occured, and cost New York State millions of dollars in lost fisheries productivity, damage to infrastructure, and other costs.
I should be part of Aubertine’s ‘base’ in the North Country. But his stance on marriage equality (he’s against it politically because he is personally against it – his vote was key when it came to the Senate vote), made it hard for me to vote for him. But I intended to vote for him, if nothing else but to keep the New York Senate in Democratic Party control for redistricting.
But now I am sitting on my hands. Darrel Aubertine is politically dead to me. My guess is that I am not the only one. And, alas, our next Senator will be Pattie Ritchie. Which I suppose will be, in terms of policy, no change at all.
Sounds like the Republican Party is more interested in what their deep-pocket donors think than they are in what the voters want. The best government money can buy!
Brian says,
“Obviously, it’s fair to debate how we should reach environmental goals.”
Good.
I think we should decrease government intervention, i.e. EPA regulations, and let the market determine the best course of action for making energy and improving qualtiy of environment.
I am in the 87% that wants cleaner sources of energy. I am not in the 78% that wants tougher standards, because I think is the wrong solution to the problem. I am not in the 66% that wants the government to solve green house gases, simply because I think they cannot.
I am in the 22% that wants cleaner cars without government oversight, and the 33% that wants cleaner air without government oversight.
I want my kids to be flying around in George-Jetson-style flying automobiles that fold up into a brief case and run on a thimble-full of water.
Those kind of improvements in our society don’t come from the government, they come from free enterprise.
I simply note that polls only ask questions and the question only reflect a mental exercise. Take the same pollsters and ask different questions- “Are you in favor of having your electrical rate tripled or higher?” “Are you in favor of $8.00 a gallon gas and $9.00 a gallon diesel?” “Do you think the United States alone should carry the burden of changing environmental policies or should the rest of world share equally in costs and regulations?” I think you’ll get an entirely different result.
I’m entirely in favor of a clean and healthy environment. I’m not in favor of hamstringing and bankrupting the western world and the US in particular to achieve questionable goals.
In theory, we all want to protect the environment. In practice we tend to vote with our pocketbooks.
But here is the problem, both Democrats and Republicans avoid dealing with facts and try to move us to vote their way by playing the “fear card.”
No one wants to talk turkey. Democrats say the sky is falling. Republicans say we are being robbed.
Well the sky is falling and we are being raped and robbed by both Republicans and Democrats.
Situation normal. You fill in the blanks.
Yep, Pete. Nothing you can do. Don’t do anything. That’s my motto. And wait for Bret’s magical market fairies to make everything right, just like they did before the EPA was around, and the Cuyahoga River was on fire and Adirondack lakes died from acid rain.
And oa’s magical EPA fairies that refused the Dutch skimmers in the gulf oil spill. The skimmers discharge the water that is only 99% free of oil which is short of the EPA’s 99.9985%.
“This rhetoric often swirls here in the North Country”. Brian, you just don’t get it. Nothing in the mainstream in the NC (in the Adirondacks anyway) feels there is a too much regulation. Most folks just think the regulations are misguided. It is not a matter of how many rules you have, it is about how you make the rules and enforce them. If you think that more regulations will fix the problems in the Adirondacks I think you are missing the point. You can’t “get to work” until you have a framework that everyone can agree on and will get the job done.
I have magic market fairies? I wish the little buggers would get to work then. Odd though, I don;t recall hiring any fairies or saying I wanted things to be as bad as they used to be. Weird the way people put words in your mouth, eh?
Paul makes a great point. We already have all the laws we need to enforce any thing I can think of. More laws don’t solve problems, they sure do make great political sound bites though. “Look at me!! I CARE!”. The complaints I hear and read about environmental regulations tend to revolve around some poor schmuck getting his life ruined over something innocuous, while “the right people” tend to get passes on anything and everything they do. I don’t think your going to get wholehearted support from everybody when someone is telling them they can’t do something on their property while the museum or non-profit down the road does something seemingly worse and gets a complete pass on it.
“This rhetoric often swirls here in the North Country, with some groups and local government leaders calling for the Adirondack Park Agency to be eliminated, or its regulatory powers significantly weakened.”
I really think that the APA should be differentiated from other environmentalists agencies or laws because the APA is not accountable to the people and businesses it regulates. This leads to an abuse of power.
Scratchy –
The Adirondack Park Agency has far more local input and representation in decision making than, say, the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Environmental Protection Agency, etc.
The APA is required to have in-park members of its voting commission and by tradition the Agency chairman lives in the Park.
You may want even more local control (some locals have called for those in-Park commissioners to be appointed or at least nominated by local government leaders) but clearly the APA has more already than most state and Federal agencies.
–Brian, NCPR
“local government leaders calling for the Adirondack Park Agency to be eliminated”.
Brian, is this really accurate? I have heard the LGRB (part of the APA and the main voice for local government) call for reform and specifically say they were NOT for elimination of the APA?
Maybe a few people have suggested this, but again that odes not mean they are opposed to environmental regulations.
Sorry, “odes” should be “does”
Brian Mann,
The APA is appointed by the governor, with the nominations being approved by the Senate. Given that less than 1% of the population lives in teh Park and only 2, maybe 3 senators represent part of the Park, any complaints residents have about the Park are likely to be ignored by most elected officials in Albany. The downstate political culture, which favors park regulations and has little knowledg of what life is like in the park, is likely to prevail.
The DEC’s regs, however, effect all of the state and thus if the public is unhappy with the DEC they can elect new governor or senator.
The DEC commissioner always comes from and lives in NYS, he doesnt come from a different state.
Scratchy –
A couple of points. First, while we only have a few lawmakers from the North Country, they exert enormous power over who is allowed to sit on the APA commission.
State Senator Betty Little effectively vetoed Governor Eliot Spitzer’s first choice of APA chairman (a guy named Dick Booth); she then halted the confirmation of Peter Hornbeck, who was chosen by Governor David Paterson to sit on the commission.
She did so based on objections from local government leaders.
Also, the DEC does in fact enforce a wide range of rules that apply only to the Adirondack Park.
In fact, the DEC is charged with the vast majority of day-to-day management decisions inside the blue line, most involving state land, but many also involving private land.
–Brian, NCPR
The problem is the presidents of the Park have little real say in who sits on the board. Why not elect them? What’s the harm? Of course the risk is the residents of the Park might actually be able to get some real representation and that scares the bejeebers out of the environmental preservationist lobby.
Bret,
Correction. I think you meant residents of the Park, not presidents, though it does sometimes seem everyone thinks they should be president of the Park.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
That said, I don’t believe residents voting for who gets to be a commissioner at the APA will solve anything nor would it achieve true representation.
I say that because who runs as a Democrat or a Republican is who gets picked by the special interests who control each of the parties. It would be the same with voting for who gets to be a commissioner. Correct me if I am too cynical, but I would bet we would get to pick between a small group of developers and snowmobilers. Nothing against developers or snowmobilers but they are not everyone.
Oh, just for the record. If all the part-timers were allowed to vote or changed their voting residence to their second homes, the developers and snowmobilers would be trounced and we would have more environmentalists at the APA.
Either way Pete it would result in the RESIDENTS having a say.
My apologies Bret on the magical market fairies. I conflated your post with JDM’s directly above yours, which said this:
“Those kind of improvements in our society don’t come from the government, they come from free enterprise.”
That speed-reading course I took has its drawbacks.
notinthevillage,
The Dutch skimmers is something of a red herring, especially since the skimmers did get to the Gulf after a month of EPA hemming and hawing, but I’ll take the bait and raise you one:
Why would anyone who believes in free enterprise accept an offer from a government, let alone a socialist European government that believes in global warming, for help in cleaning up the mess that BP rightfully made under the auspices of free enterprise market fairies?
Yes, Bret, and I think we all would agree that the say we have at the local, state and national level doesn’t promise much of anything.
We get to pick and choose after our “leaders” pick who they want us to pick from.
No, I don’t have a solution to that problem. I only recognize it as a problem, best exemplified by gerrymandering and the special interest groups on both sides.
As is often said, we have the best government money can buy.
Sometimes when I head into the voting booth, I feel like I am being asked to choose between being shot or hung.
OA, I won’t presume to answer for notinthevillage, but a free enterprise capitalist would recognize there is a problem and that the equipment needed to combat the problem is very specialized and not readily available. So you hire whomever has the specialized skills and equipment to remedy the problem. If it’s a private firm, fine. If it’s a Gov’t entity, fine. That’s why Clinton gave Haliburton those no bid contracts for rebuilding the Balkans, just like Bush did for Afghanistan.
But Halliburton is private enterprise at its best, because it owns the state. Dick Cheney was the greatest market fairy ever.
And that’s just the type of response I expected. Thanks for verifying your idealogy outweighs rationality.
The only red herring was your response to Pete on October 10, 2010 at 11:48 am.
Because it is in their best interest.
You have a funny definition of a free market.
That is like saying the neighborhood store paying protection money to the mafia owns the mafia.
Yes, “free enterprise” can be a great thing. However, in the case of environmental regulation, pollution, and renewable, clean energy, it took the action of government(s) to create the very market that “free enterprise” will satisfy. A perfect example of how the two can work hand in hand to solve serious problems.
That’s not to say that this relationship is always in perfect balance, as it’s not. But as an example of how it sometimes can be, I’ll mention the gov’t mandates that created the market for cleaner, renewable energy. Without California passing aggressive clean energy mandates several years ago, would Cali. be installing huge wind farms, thermal and traditional solar farms, utilizing more natural gas, etc.?…Would automobile companies be investing billions in electric, hybrid, hydrogen, and more efficient gasoline powered cars if the EPA didn’t raise the minimum standards for mileage? Would utility companies invest billions in “smart grid” technology if they didn’t need to reach these mandates?
Government intervention can sometimes be a good thing. Like nearly everything in life, it’s all about the proper balance…………grasshopper.
Free enterprise would be truly great if in fact it were free.
Same might be said of free government, if we could have it for free.
I vote for a free-for-all!
Anyone want to add their favorite daffynition?
Clapton. interesting you’d mention California. Do a google search, they massaged (lied) the issue. Overstated the air pollution by 340% IIRC. Hows that fit with trusting Gov’t?
NITV, thanks for clearing all that up. I totally see it your way now.