EPA Raises Ozone Standards

The Environmental Protection Agency recently lowered the level of allowable amount of ozone in the air from the present standard of 84parts per million to 75. The EPA's independent science advisory panel unanimously recommended a standard of 60 to 70 parts.
John M. Balbus, a physician and the chief health scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “Clearly at some point you get to a level where additional benefits just aren’t worth it, but I don’t think we’re there at 75.” “The E.P.A.’s own risk estimates show that between 75 and 70, there will be hundreds more deaths and thousands more visits to emergency rooms, and hundreds of thousands of more lost school days,” he said. Tens of millions of people live in counties that do not meet the current standard of 84. And the timetable for meeting the new one could be decades. In practice, standards are ceremonial to a major extent.
Oil and chemical companies lobbied intensely against the new standard claiming it would trigger layoffs and erode U.S. economic competitiveness. Must we damage our health to have a healthy economy?
Regulation does not create costs where there were none before. It is a matter of who bears the costs. Medical treatment is a cost of making chemicals as much as labor or raw materials. Raising the price of a product is a signal for consumers to buy less of some products and more of others (depending on the elasticity of demand). The same business interests that usually claim the economy is self-regulating and will respond to changes in relative prices seem to ignore their preaching in the case of polluting products. A price increase and lower demand for chemicals may decrease the use of resources in their production and increase demand for other goods. Inputs can't move to new uses that consumers prefer without some transaction costs. Perhaps we should admit it and share some of the transition costs of resources trapped in chemical production, rather than let the prospects of these costs paralyze us and prevent the healthy environment that many prefer to having more plastics, etc.
I have some sympathy for Sen. George Voinovich from economically stressed Ohio, but the answer is not to damage our health to maintain the status quo.

War Profiteering

"KRB, the largest private contractor for the Pentagon in Iraq, has two shell companies in the Caymans.... Because the companies are offshore, neither KBR nor the workers must pay Social Security and Medicare taxes ... according to (the Boston Globe)." "When KBR set up the second of its two shells in the Caymans, it was still owned by Halliburton. Halliburtons's chief executive then was Mr Cheney."
Source: Toledo Blade, March 14, 2008.
Why do we put up with this? Is it because any criticism of the administration's Iraqi policy is subject to the charge of being unpatriotic?

Iraq Policy Failures

Bush supposedly attacked Iraq to improve life of Iraqi citizens.
But, what is the evidence?
1. American soldiers dead—4,000.
2. Iraqi citizens dead—180,000 as reported by Iraqi Ministry of Health (other estimates are considerably higher.
3. Internal citizen displacement—2 million.
4. Refugees fled to other countries—2 million more.
5. Dollar cost to date-- $3 trillion. (And electricity and water are problematic.)
We have done much more harm than good, and staying only makes it worse.

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

The Supreme Court is reviewing a lower court ruling awarding $2.5 billion in punitive damages for a 1989 oil spill occurring in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Exxon argues that it should not be liable for the negligence of the oil tanker’s skipper. The award would be peanuts for Exxon who saw a $39.5 billion profit in 2007. It would mean a lot to thousands of commercial fishermen, seafood processors, and native Alaskans whose livelihood has been damaged. Why should a rich corporation be able to tie up the case for 19 years? Where is justice?

Land Use & Development Rights

Under the banner of protecting property rights, a number of states have passed laws requiring compensation if land use regulations lower owners' property value. This slogan ignores the fact that regulation of one person's property often increases the value of neighboring property including public interests in the environment. For example, a regulation restricting building on coastal shorelines may prevent some owner from putting up an intensive development and thereby make his parcel less valuable, but it may protect the shoreline from erosion and losses to other owners. The issue is which owners count.
The voters of Oregon passed a 2004 law allowing owners to seek compensation if state and local regulations reduced their property values. Voters probably had in mind individuals who wanted to build a house on their property, but it was widely used for large housing projects, strip malls, and landfills.
The voters thought again, and in Novemeber, 2007, approved a law preserving a landowner's right to build homes, but curbs large commercial and industrial development. A coalition of farmers, business groups, and conservation groups such as the Nature Conservancy spent $4.5 million to support the new law. These coalitions are hard to put together as many are tempted to be free riders, as the results of the campaign are available to all whether or not they have contributed (a high exclusion cost good).
Source: Nature Conservancy, Spring, 2008.

CEO Remuneration: Too Much

The pattern of CEO failures being rewarded with huge severance packages is repeated over and over again. The latest is insurance broker Marsh & McLennan who fired its CEO after the company shares lost over a fifth of their value last year. Still he received $7.15 million in severance. The evidence is contrary to the argument that executive talent is so rare that it must be promised a golden parachute to accept new employment.
Yahoo’s CEO received $429 million in stock option profits over his first four years at the helm and a $71 million paycheck in his fifth year. In 2007 he was fired for poor performance.
These absurd rewards for failure are in sharp contrast to the payouts to workers left behind. Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital bought a Tiffin, Ohio, plant and closed it last December denying workers any severance or medical coverage. Bain on the other hand, made $51 million on the deal. The cooperation of the CEO no doubt earned him a tidy sum.
Gardner and Means years ago noted the separation of ownership and management in the modern corporation. They would be shocked to see how it has turned out as boards of directors (many of which are corporate CEOs in other companies) take care of their own at stockholders and employees expense.
Source: Too Much: A Commentary on Excess & Inequality--http://www.cipa-apex.org/toomuch/index.html

Ceremonial Protection Against Terrorism

Amtrak announced that it will begin random inspection of passenger baggage. This does not make me feel safer. Why do officials think that future acts of terrorism will take the same form as in the past--namely related to transportation? There are innumerable places where terrorists can place explosives,and even an army could not cover them all. Let us admit that since the invention of the gun, we are all conditionally safe, and we all exist on the good will of our fellows. We should invest in creating good will rather than putting all of our resources into surveillance. Much of so-called Homeland Security is just ceremonialism and no more effective than any other fetish.