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Don, You are correct that many (but certainly not all) of the environmental laws passed in the 60's had a positive environmental effect, without being too much of a drag on the economy. From the 70's on, the law of diminishing returns has been the rule on the efficacy of environmental law. In fact, the law of diminishing returns had itself been trumped by the law of negative returns. Take CAFE standards. The feel good theory was that simply requiring vehicles to achieve arbitrary fuel efficiency standards would benefit everyone, when in fact what really happened is that the mortality rate for accidents involving high mileage vehicles has gone up due to less impact resistance, the necessary characteristic to make these vehicles more fuel efficient. No matter how you analyse it, higher mortality rates run counter to quality of life goals. Added to that is the fact that customer choice has pre-empted wide spread acceptance of such vehicles. Is consumer choice a quality of life variable? How about the new EPA standards for farm tractors? The Tier II requirements will raise the cost of new farm equipment, but since these vehicles operate outside of areas of impact, what is the point of putting this added onus on our nation's ag producers? Clearly, a higher cost for no societal benefit. The same can probably be said for the new locomotive emissions standards. Is there any evidence that diesel locomotives have contributed in any quatifiable way to urban air pollution? No, but still new engines must meet these standards, at a higher cost that will no doubt be passed on to shippers. Did you know that everytime an environmental group files a frivolous lawsuit against the Forest Service or the Corps of Engineers, it is the taxpayers that end up paying the lawyer fees for these groups? Talk to any professional forester, and they will say that thinning projects in our forests will have a positive impact on those ecosystems. Yet so-called environmental groups will file a lawsuit every single time to stop these projects, for no societal gain. What current environmental law iqnores is that ostensibly "dirty" impacts are a part of human and societal functionality, and since man is part of the natural order, nature itself has the ability to adapt to these impacts. Current environmental law is way too intrusive upon normal human activity.
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