Coming down to Earth Day (2 of 2)
By Becky Norton Dunlop
Copyright 1999 Washington Times
April 22, 1999
This
Earth Day, let me begin with a story. In 1992, Anita Cragg bought
an existing
subdivision in Florida, with plans to expand it and build new
homes. Permits
were in order, and buyers were ready to build. But then agents of
the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service spotted
two scrub jays flying onto the property. Fearing the planned
construction
would despoil a habitat
"suitable for occupation by scrub jays," the agents
halted development.
Neither the federal agents nor the independent
environmental engineer hired by
Ms. Cragg could find any scrub jay nests
on the property. Nonetheless, buyers were stalled for 18 months,
paying
property taxes all the while on property they couldn't use.
Finally, to settle
the matter, Ms. Cragg agreed to buy four acres offsite for every
acre
developed onsite. This cost her more than $100,000,
yet the scrub jay, by all available evidence, was no better off.
Common sense says this is bad public policy. Research on
environmental
regulations tells an even more disturbing story. To cite just one
example,
Heritage Foundation analysts have calculated the opportunity cost
of preventing
one death under the Hazardous Waste Disposal Ban at $4.2 billion.
This isn't the budgeted cost of the program but a statistical
projection of what businesses would have to spend to avert just one
fatality.
For the same $4.2 billion, America could incarcerate 47,890
criminals for three-and-a-half
years.
And what are the opportunity costs of not incarcerating
47,890 criminals
for three-and-a-half years? Crime statistics suggest that if left
on the
streets for that period of time, those criminals would be charged
with 22,680
violent crimes, 1,035 homicides, 7,711 robberies, 658 kidnappings,
586 rapes,
and 1,191 other sexual assaults. The trade -off: $4 billion to
avert one death vs. $4 billion to avert more than 1,000 homicides
- to say nothing of the other
crimes.
In short, environmental regulations of this type do not
save lives or enhance
the quality of human life. On balance, they cost lives and
diminish the
quality of life.
Anecdotes and statistical
studies such as these provide the common-sense argument against
fringe
environmentalists. The thing to notice, though, is that these
cost-benefit
arguments are moral arguments and, more specifically, utilitarian
arguments.
Utilitarianism says the action that would yield the greatest
happiness for the
greatest number of people is the one you are morally obliged to
choose.
By this
standard, environmental regulations are only appropriate when they
would
protect human lives. But the growing body of evidence shows that
environmental
regulations cost lives. Environmentalists lose the utilitarian
debate.
That is why they are shifting their argument. They no
longer say environmental
regulations save lives. They say such regulations are necessary to
protect
fundamental
rights - not human rights but the rights of animals, trees and even
majestic
purple mountains.
To dismiss such thinking as bizarre would be a mistake.
Many who harbor such
ideas are serious people with serious objectives. They mean to
alter core
legal precepts and thereby restrict human freedoms traditionally
protected
by law.
Return to Anita Cragg and her Florida subdivision.
Development was halted
because her land was
"suitable for occupation by scrub jays." Such a
restriction of the landowners' freedom could not be justified by
the
utility of doing so. But that won't settle the matter if the
debate shifts to
rights. If animals have rights, our
rights are not superior to theirs. Indeed, if jay birds have
rights, then their
rights trump our utility. Suddenly, utilitarian arguments have no
persuasive
power.
My point is not to preach doom, but reality. Radicals
ideas shouted from the
streets in the 1960s entered the mainstream and became embedded in
our nation's
cultural and legal fabric. By extension, today's thinking that
bird rights
trump human rights could enjoy a similar elevation, with equally
serious
consequences.
Common sense is no longer enough to thwart the aims of
those who put the Earth
First and people about seventh - after snail
darters. What we need is a restoration of the legal precept that
regulations,
environmental or otherwise, must produce some benefit for human
beings.
Becky Norton Dunlop, a former secretary of natural
resources for the
Commonwealth of Virginia, is now vice president for external
relations at the
Heritage
Foundation.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to
post a public comment on the Trash Talk
Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private
comment to the Junkman.