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Gore Versus The Monster Under The Bed Becky Norton Dunlop, former Secretary of Natural Resources for the state of Virginia, describes one case in particular in her forthcoming book, Clearing the Air. During the summer of 1997, the administration signed off on new air quality regulations limiting ozone (smog standards) proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and its head, Carol Browner. The new standards dropped the acceptable legal limit for smog to 0.08 parts per million. The standards also reduced the acceptable level of fine-particle matter or soot from 10 microns to 2.5 microns. Dunlop puts these changes in perspective when she writes, "an ozone concentration of 0.08 parts per million is only slightly higher than the level of ozone produced by natural vegetation. Levels of 0.072 parts per million have been recorded in North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As for the 2.5 micron particulate matter-limit: A human hair is about 70 microns." What would the new regulations cost? According to estimates from the President's Council of Economic Advisers, the cost of full attainment could be as much as $60 billion a year. But would the standards save lives? While the EPA predicted the regulations would prevent 15,000 deaths each year, one private analyst using the EPA's own models came out with a figure of 840 and said that it is even "conceivable that the risk is zero at current exposures." At the $60 billion rate that puts the cost to save a single life at somewhere between $4 million and $71.5 million. The argument commonly heard in situations of life and death is "but if we can save just one life." In a world of limited resources, saving one life at any costs may not be justifiable. This is especially true where saving one life means many others must be sacrificed. It isn't too difficult to estimate how many lives could be saved if the $60 billion wasted by the smog standard were instead spent on breast cancer screening where it costs only $160,000 to save a life. Improved traffic signs save lives for just $31,000 a piece. If resources are directed abroad, $87 spent on diphtheria immunization will save a life in Gambia. One study presented in a 1995 volume of Risk Analysis estimated that the average EPA regulation cost $7.6 million for each extended life-year. A life year is measured as follows: if a regulation prevents the premature death of someone who would have likely lived for another five years before dying of other causes, it has saved five life-years. In other words, seven point six million dollars so that a seventy-five year-old can live to seventy-six! My guess is most people would rather have the $7.6 million and live a really wonderful 75 years. Risk-avoidance at these exorbitant costs is just not reasonable. In the real world, people take chances. Sometimes they are small like not flossing while on vacation. Sometimes they are big like falling while rock climbing or drowning while white-water rafting. In contrast, the panophobic world of Al Gore believes no potential boogie man should be ignored. I'd rather live in the real world.
Feds Need to Clean Their Own Room First Approximately 50,000 contaminated sites in the United States owe their status to pollution by the federal government. In 1996, the General Accounting Office estimated that it will cost $400 billion for the federal government to clean up its own mess. No organization or entity has harmed the environment as much as Uncle Sam. Take one example offered by Virginia's former Secretary of Natural Resources, Becky Norton Dunlop. In her forthcoming book, Clearing the Air, Dunlop describes the Lorton federal prison as "a boil on Virginia's backside." The prison was built to hold prisoners for the District of Columbia, but its aging sewer system was not up to holding the prisoners' waste. The prison often suffered sewage-line breaks and horrid smells that extended out from the prison into the Virginia countryside. In order to resolve an almost decade-long problem, the federal government promised again and again to upgrade Lorton's rundown sewage treatment plant. The feds waited too long. In April of 1996, over 2 million gallons of raw sewage overflowed from a prison manhole into Mills Branch, which feeds into the Occoquan River where Virginians are fond of recreating. With the overflow, Mills Branch was awash in toilet paper and other less savory items. Dunlop was furious with the feds. She wanted D.C. fined and approached the state's attorney general (now Governor) Jim Gilmore about it. "The federal government is the nation's biggest polluter. Do you want to let the biggest polluter in the country go unpunished?"she asked. Eventually, the District of Columbia was fined and agreed to fix the Lorton problem, but it was not until Virginia had made a stink about it. The federal government has been dragging its feet for years at one of the nation's conservation treasures, Yellowstone National Park. Suffering from old age and increased usage, Old Faithful's failing sewage system spilled human waste into pristine streams near the park's most popular tourist attraction. Decrepit sewer systems have also led to sewage spills into Yellowstone Lake. In 1998 and 1999, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality issued citations to the park for violating water quality laws. The 1999 violation arose when the park officials siphoned sewage from one of the sewage ponds at the Fishing Bridge treatment plant into a nearby meadow. In total, the Park Service has identified 142 water and sewer problems needing $30 million worth of repairs. Action on these problems has been slow in coming. Sewage problems probably seem insignificant when compared to the federal mess on military lands. The Defense Science Board, which advises the Pentagon, estimates that it would cost $15 billion just to clean up 5 percent of the nearly 50 million acres that have been used as bombing and target ranges. One EPA expert, wrote, "as measured by acres...buried munitions represent the largest cleanup program in the US." These environmental embarrassments represent only a fraction of the federal government's environmental mishaps against nature. This sampling does not include the indirect harms caused by sugar subsidies in the Everglades, below-cost recreation on federal lands, or predator control programs run by the Department of Agriculture. Volumes could be written about federal policies that have either directly or indirectly resulted in environmental harm. The shelves of the future Clinton presidential library could display them properly. Meanwhile, from 1995 to 1997 in Texas, Governor Bush watched over nitrogen oxide emissions falling by 23.6 percent (second best for all states), volatile organic compound emissions falling 43.2 percent (fourth best amongst the states), and sulfur dioxide emissions falling by 17.1 percent (fifth best amongst the states). These reductions are owed in large part to legislation signed by Bush that required older polluting utilities to meet modern day standards. Not too shabby. The federal government's ongoing legacy as the nation's worst polluter is one that has endured through both Democratic and Republican administrations. Therefore, it would be unfair to tag Gore and Clinton with all of the federal environmental baggage. At the same time, it is equally unfair to tag Governor Bush with the environmental record left by previous Texas administrations.
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