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Posted on 04/04/2002 1:03:48 AM PST by JohnHuang2
So, you say you want the government to take a more active role in fighting pollution?
Let's discuss the way the Environmental Protection Agency has dealt with the messy problem of sludge.
Sludge is sewage. It's the wastewater dregs from homes and businesses. It's the stuff nobody wants in their backyard – for understandable reasons.
A investigation by Insight magazine found the EPA, when confronted with a growing problem of what to do with sludge, came up with a creative solution.
The agency renamed sludge. It's now called, effective in 1993, "biosolids." And, guess what? It's good for you.
I'm not kidding.
The EPA now contends that sludge is great fertilizer. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But renaming a formerly toxic hazard does not make it so. Was EPA lying before? Or is it lying now?
EPA says biosolids should be spread on farmland with reckless abandon. You see, the government had a problem it created itself. Congress passed more laws restricting the way individuals could use their land. Congress made more laws restricting the way businesses could dispose of sludge. Congress passed more laws forbidding the dumping of sludge in the oceans. So, what was the EPA to do with the nasty byproduct of all this legislation?
It renamed it. The EPA began promoting sludge as beneficial to the environment – and away went the problem.
Once again, I point this out to you as an example of how government does not and cannot solve real-life problems. Only individuals can. As more Americans turn their eyes to Washington for solutions to everyday problems, it is critically important to understand the way policy is made by the central government.
The truth is that government doesn't know any more than you or I know about the potential harmful effects of sludge.
But, when government says it is good, individuals like you and I lose our rights to object. We forfeit our rights to sue those who spread it on properties near us. We end any accountability we would have if someone in the private sector tried to do something to which we objected.
As I mentioned in a column just last week, the worst environmental disasters the world has ever known have been created by government. Yet, activists continue to push government to become more involved in finding solutions to problems that are most often created by government.
As Alan Keyes would ask, "Does this make sense?"
In the United States, the federal government prosecutes small private landowners for making sensible improvements on their own land. They are jailed, fined, ruined – all because some bureaucrat knows better.
Government is the real threat to the environment. It always has been. It always will be. How foolish for misguided environmentalists to turn to the mega-polluters for solutions.
If government truly wants to conserve the natural state of the environment, the best idea is to get out of the way. In the medical profession, the rule is "first do no harm." That ought to be the new credo for every lawmaker and every bureaucrat. But, instead, government operates under a "hypocritic oath." It destroys the environment in the name of preserving it. It uses its power to tie the hands of private property owners who want only the best for their land, while using command-and-control tactics and master plans that wreak havoc on the natural state.
This is an example of why the founders of America deliberately tied the hands of the central government in the Constitution.
But, I guess, until the biosolids really hit the fan, we're not going to realize just how smart those guys were. We're going to continue to centralize power in the hands of a few elitists in Washington – people who think they are smarter than us and can do no wrong.
Good stuff! - It's the stuff government is made of, you know.
Once again, I point this out to you as an example of how government does not and cannot solve real-life problems. Only individuals can. As more Americans turn their eyes to Washington for solutions to everyday problems, it is critically important to understand the way policy is made by the central government.
Here' how policy is made: Next year congress will create more than five-hundred new laws; the year after that, congress will create an additional six hundred new laws; the year after that, seven hundred new laws... and on and on it will go, has gone and presently exists.
Apparently we don't need next years laws this year but we will need those 500 new laws next year. And the year after next? Well, we don't need those six hundred laws this year. Nor will we need them next year, but we will need them the year after next. Same thing for the seven hundred new laws congress will create in 2005 -- we don't need them now but apparently we will need them in 2005.
Question: how many laws will be removed over the next three years? Will any laws be rescinded? Perhaps a dozen laws will be removed during the three year time span congress creates the expected 1800 new laws.
understand the way policy is made by the central government.
Obviously, though not intended by the founders, the job of every member of congress is to contribute/work towards creating more and more new laws.
In the United States, the federal government prosecutes small private landowners for making sensible improvements on their own land. They are jailed, fined, ruined – all because some bureaucrat knows better.
If not that, then when a land owner improves his land the government raises his property tax. Draining the land owner of some degree of value in the process.
EPA says biosolids should be spread on farmland with reckless abandon. You see, the government had a problem it created itself. Congress passed more laws restricting the way individuals could use their land. Congress made more laws restricting the way businesses could dispose of sludge. Congress passed more laws forbidding the dumping of sludge in the oceans. So, what was the EPA to do with the nasty byproduct of all this legislation?
Though not intended by the founders, the job of every member of congress is to contribute/work towards creating problems that need not exist. And thus empower the many legislative/bureaucratic alphabet agencies with more and more power and control over individuals and private property.
The next three years will have congress creating 1,800 new laws. That's 1,800 new problems that need not exist.
Note: The "1,800 new laws" number is speculative and probably quite conservative. During Clinton's eight years in the oval office 25,000 new laws and regulations were created.
The truth is that government doesn't know any more than you or I know about the potential harmful effects of sludge.
The truth is that government with all it's politicians and bureaucrats doesn't know any more than the market knows about the potential harmful effects of any object, substance or action. Government often knows considerably less.
Government is the real threat to the environment. It always has been. It always will be. How foolish for misguided environmentalists to turn to the mega-polluters for solutions.
Government is the real threat to the people's prosperity. It always has been. It always will be. How foolish for misguided patriots to turn to the mega-problem creators for solutions.
Government does not and cannot solve real-life problems. Only individuals can. As more Americans turn their eyes to Washington for solutions to everyday problems, it is critically important to understand the way policy is made by the central government.
Bump.
And thus empower the many legislative/bureaucratic alphabet agencies with more and more power and control over individuals and private property.Z, And, create the "need" for more "enforcers" and associated equipment, and MORE private sector taxpayer money to pay godgov's bills. Nice scam run by the best politicians money can buy. Peace and love, George.
Joe Farah has spun himself clean around. The fact is that feces do make good fertilizer. Third world subsistence farmers have known that for tens of thousands of years. Nobody in the government is requiring that anybody throw crap all over their land; it seems to me that this rule change reflects the government relaxing restrictions and permitting what people have done throughout the ages. But wait! Here's Joe Farah screaming, "No, no! This stuff is toxic; you were right before! Save me, O government, SAVE ME!"
It wonders me.
Farrah should do some homework before he writes these screeds. It's not 'toxic', the EPA didn't 'rename it' and it has been around far longer than the EPA has.
For the last 75 years, courtesy of the ‘people of Milwaukee’, this has been the most popular fertilizer in the nation and has kept lawns and golf courses green and growing.
. Waste plant sludge is nothing new as any serious home gardener knows. There is nothing wrong in using treated ‘bio-solids’.
I suspect that the power to change the name of a substance is similar to the power to change the definition of a word. That power needs to be closely inspected and never secret, allowed to the PC crowd, or envirowackos, as they will ALWAYS missuse it.
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