Ron Paul on the Environment: Keep It Clean!

[LightFang]

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/environment/

The federal government has proven itself untrustworthy with environmental policy by facilitating polluters, subsidizing logging in the National Forests, and instituting one-size-fits-all approaches that too often discriminate against those they are intended to help.

The key to sound environmental policy is respect for private property rights. The strict enforcement of property rights corrects environmental wrongs while increasing the cost of polluting.

In a free market, no one is allowed to pollute his neighbor's land, air, or water. If your property is being damaged, you have every right to sue the polluter, and government should protect that right. After paying damages, the polluter's production and sale costs rise, making it unprofitable to continue doing business the same way. Currently, preemptive regulations and pay-to-pollute schemes favor those wealthy enough to perform the regulatory tap dance, while those who own the polluted land rarely receive a quick or just resolution to their problems.

I think he's got his facts wrong. The pollution credits actually serve to mitigate the damages of laissez-faire polluting! Does he not remember the Gilded Age? Or industrialization, when the business owners were allowed to run slipshod over the worker? Remember the famous pepper moth study in England? The trees literally turned black due to all the pollution! This was all caused by deregulation!

The more I learn about him, the less I can support him. Somebody, please, justify his odd position.

 

[Red Door]

It looks to me like he wants to hold up the court system by allowing us to sue polluters.

 

[Godwynn]

It looks to me like he wants to hold up the court system by allowing us to sue polluters.

Like the common man has deep enough pockets to do something like that.

 

[LightFang]

And nobody's arguing against the right to sue the court system. I just find it an odd justification. Somebody supposedly for the free market is going to protect the environment by eliminating the pollution credits. Notice how he doesn't give any alternative. The pollution taxes weren't working; that's why we have pollution credits.

 

[mrt144]

Ron Paul must want to eliminate the modern economy.

 

[skadistic]

Like the common man has deep enough pockets to do something like that.

Individuals don't but civic orgs. do. We* are currently in the process to sue Constellation Energy for dumping fly ash and poisoning local wells. They offered to put the effected well uses on the water works system and continue dumping. Thats not gonna cut it. Enough of a ruckus will get things going. The EPA is getting involved on a federal level and on a local level its being looked into as to weather or not back room deals between elected officials and the BGE were legal or not.


*We being the civic org. that represents 3 cities and and some subdivisions like i live in. We also were successful in sticking it to Wal*mart and making impossible for them to build a new super-centre.

 

[Babbler]

In a free market, no one is allowed to pollute his neighbor's land, air, or water. If your property is being damaged, you have every right to sue the polluter, and government should protect that right. After paying damages, the polluter's production and sale costs rise, making it unprofitable to continue doing business the same way. Currently, preemptive regulations and pay-to-pollute schemes favor those wealthy enough to perform the regulatory tap dance, while those who own the polluted land rarely receive a quick or just resolution to their problems.

Awesome. So we just sue ExxonMobil, BP, et al. until we make a dent in their profits, and they will nicely stop ruining the land.

I see nothing wrong with this.

 

[El_Machinae]

In principle, I think we should be able to use property rights to control pollution. But I don't think that the legal system is cheap or efficient enough (yet) to allow us (yet) to move away from environmental regulations.

As well, we have issues of ecological migration. Suppose that that migrating monarch butterflies have an important ecological function: is it okay to kill them when they're on my land, if their deaths would impact your lands?

Humanity is too powerful and ecology is too inter-related in order for property rights to be the solution. Though I really like the principle.

 

[Stewbert 08]

So because some federal agencies have been taken over by industry interests, Ron Paul, instead of reforming those agencies and eliminating industry influence over them, wants to eliminate the agencies themselves? Gee, WHO would that be a gigantic boon for?

I have no illusions about whose side he's REALLY on here.