[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 94 (Monday, June 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6706-H6709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1600
                               ECO-SANITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Funderburk). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Stearns] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well of the House here to 
talk about the environment. I think as the election process starts this 
year, we are going to hear many elected officials talk about the 
environment and they will say one party is destroying

[[Page H6707]]

the environment and the other party will say we are not destroying the 
environment. One party will talk about its record and the other party 
will talk about its record. So I thought it would be good to put in 
perspective some of the recent literature on eco-sanity, is what I call 
it, the ability to talk about the environment in terms of common sense.
  Most of what I will be talking about today, Mr. Speaker, comes from a 
book by that exact title, ``Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to 
Environmentalism,'' published by the Heartland Institute. The authors 
are Joseph Bast, Peter Hill, and Richard Rue.
  Now, one of the questions a lot of people ask, particularly back in 
the district, is can we not spend more Government money to solve this 
problem? Why can the Government not protect the environment and why can 
the Government not be the sole provider of this protection?
  Well, as many of you know, in 1962 there was a book published called 
``The Silent Spring.'' That is roughly 34 years ago, and that started 
the environmental movement. Until that point we have always relied upon 
the Government to stop pollution, to safeguard human health, and to 
protect the wildlife, and we have always thought, well, why can we not 
just spend more money so that we can protect the environment?
  Well, if we go about giving immunizations, as we generally do; if we 
look at the cost per deaths averted because of this, it might be for 
diphtheria, $87, cost per death avoided. But, when we start to move up 
the chain here, for example, improving traffic signs, that is roughly 
$21,000 cost per death averted. Let us move a little higher up and go 
to breast cancer screening. That is $160,000 cost per death averted. 
But then if we go to the hazardous waste land disposal ban, that is 
roughly $4.2 billion. Now, that is pretty expensive for the cost per 
one death.
  Now, we can move even further up and we go to hazardous waste listing 
for wood preserving chemicals. Do you know what that cost, Mr. Speaker, 
to avert one death. That would cost $5.7 trillion. So you can see the 
Government cannot be expected to stop all environmental problems. So we 
must come up with a solution, and that is what Republicans try to do.
  So heavy is this reliance that many environmentalists measure the 
movement's progress by the strictness of Government-enforced air and 
water pollution standards, the amount of land placed under Government 
control, and the number of plants and animals given protected status 
under the Government-enforced Endangered Species Act. Is that the 
criteria we want to use, particularly in light of some of these 
astronomical figures that we see now in this book to try to prevent one 
death and how much cost the Government will have to spend?
  Remember, Mr. Speaker, when we do that we have to go out and tax the 
American public to do this. So is there another way? Is there another 
sound, commonsense approach here that we can get to solve this problem? 
I think there is and this is what brought me to the House floor today. 
I believe that there is a way to protect the environment and to do it 
without huge enormous litigation costs, without a huge amount of 
Government-run breaucracies.

  In fact, I do not think we have to solve the problem by another 
bureaucratic Government agency. It is unlikely, for example, that 
reduction in air and water pollution would have occurred as quickly in 
the absence of Government regulations, and I think that is true, to a 
certain extent Government is required, or for landfill safety. But 
these victories often came at much too high a price.
  As I mentioned earlier, billions were spent on litigation, 
footdragging, focusing on the wrong problem. Behind these victories, 
too, were conspicuous failures. Let us not forget this. Below-cost 
logging sales, farm and ranching subsidies, Superfund.
  How many of us have not been on the House floor to talk about the 
huge amount of litigation involved with Superfund, and yet we have 
still so many sites around the United States that are still clogged 
with these toxic chemicals. I have one in my district. We spent so much 
money and put up a huge trust fund and most of the money has gone for 
litigation.
  Many feel that the Endangered Species Act has not worked to the 
benefit of all of us. In fact, when you lay off 30,000 people for one 
endangered species, you have to question is there some way to solve 
this problem without more Government bureaucracy. And that is what I am 
here to say; that we can offer a way. Through the markets, through 
incentives, through property owner rights enforcement, and by making 
choices, we can move forward through the channel of politics to results 
where environmental protection is provided for all our citizens.
  This leads me to really the main reason I came on the House floor, is 
to talk about the rules for eco-sanity. The biggest barrier to further 
improvements in the environment quality is not a lack of money, even 
though you hear many people on this side of the aisle saying we need to 
spend more and more money. In fact, the President of the United States 
has said we need to spend vast amounts, more money to improve the 
environment.
  Spending on environmental protection in the United States is greater 
both in dollar terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product than 
it has ever been before, also considerably higher than spending in many 
other countries. Our biggest problem is that it is in the politics. We 
think we have good men in the White House, both Republicans and 
Democrats. We have good people on the House floor. So we really cannot 
say that it is any one individual or perhaps any one type of committee 
or subcommittee or administration.
  What then is the biggest barrier to improving environmental 
protection? Mr. Speaker, I think it is the environmental movement 
itself. More specifically, I believe that the lack of understanding and 
critical thinking on the part of most environmentalists has compromised 
the movement's ability to be an effective force for real true 
environmental protection.
  Many environmentalists do not think clearly about the issues, relying 
instead on environmental organizations to do their thinking for them. 
This trust has been rewarded with campaigns against crises that do not 
exist and supporting policies that are clumsy, expensive, and sometimes 
counterproductive.
  Similarly, environmentalists have said let the Government do it, and 
then they fail to pay attention to what the Government actually does. A 
closer look reveals the Government's record on the environment is a 
poor one, and that Government often suffers from perverse incentive 
structures and information blackouts that render it unreliably an ally 
of the movement.

  So I wish to put into the Record some of these rules for eco-sanity, 
which I think is a little bit beyond the popular wisdom on some of the 
issues, and I think there has been a disconnect by the movement on some 
of these things that Republicans have done in Congress, and 
particularly when we try to relax some of the rules and regulations 
that cities and small towns have so that they can actually inspect for 
the toxic waste materials that are in their water instead of doing the 
entire EPA list. This list is so extensive that they have very little 
money left to really try to identify the toxic waste that is in that 
particular community, which is indigenous to that community.
  So we need to look at some way to equip ourselves to understand if we 
have a problem here and rules of critical thinking. So with the help of 
this book I will put into the Record the first rule of critical 
thinking in the eco-sanity debate.
  The first one, Mr. Speaker, is correlation is not causation. Now, 
this sounds a little complicated, but let us take it a little further. 
Correlation means that two things tend to happen at the same time. 
Causation means one thing is known to cause another thing. Just because 
two things happen at the same time does not mean one is causing the 
other. We need proof, including a reasonable theory, showing the path 
by which one thing causes another to occur.
  Mr. Speaker, these are many environmental scares, including global 
warming. Remember now last winter we had the most severe winter we have 
had in Washington, DC, in many years. There

[[Page H6708]]

has been so much talk about electromagnetic fields and dioxin. They 
resulted in the correlation of two things which are mistaken. To avoid 
future errors we need to challenge people who rely on correlations to 
prove that one thing is actually causing another thing to happen.
  The second rule of critical thinking for eco-sanity is not everything 
can be explained. The truth is in 1994 that the causes of most specific 
cases of cancer, miscarriage, and child deformity in the United States 
are unexplained. We have no idea why it occurs. We simply do not know 
whether a specific case of brain cancer, for example, is due to a 
genetic condition, nutrition, alcohol, or drug abuse, and we can go 
round and round in circles and pointing the blame and asking for more 
Government regulations and more spending, but not everything can be 
explained. We have to recognize that fact.
  While we should sympathize with the victims of these afflictions, we 
should not confuse them with experts on the cause of these illnesses. A 
victim's guess is no more reliable and maybe less reliable than the 
guesses of many other nonexperts. Someday the work of all these 
professionals and other scientists may produce the answers we seek, 
but, Mr. Speaker, I do not think that day has yet arrived. So the 
second rule of critical thinking is not everything can be explained.
  No. 3, trends cannot predict the future. What I as an individual do 
today, lots of times the environmentalists will project that out and 
that might not be right. During the 1970's global temperatures fell 
several years in a row, and, remember, experts like Dr. Steven 
Schneider predicted a new ice age. Well, during the 1980's temperatures 
rose several years in a row and the experts, including Mr. Schneider, 
predicted catastrophic global warming.
  So, first of all, we had the ice age that was predicted in the 
1970's, and then we had this global warming where we are going to have 
the polar caps melt, and, of course, half of North America would be 
under the water. And they predicted this based upon predicting the 
future and certain trends. The cold winter of this year, and, of 
course, the cold winter of 1993-94 prompted Time Magazine, think about 
this, Time Magazine and some scientists warned of an approaching ice 
age.

  These predictions, along with the prediction of a population 
explosion and eventual resource depletion, were wrong because they were 
based upon projection of past trends. And, in fact, the population in 
the United States has more or less normalized. It is not going up at 
the projection many people said. So at this point trends cannot 
necessarily predict the future.
  The fourth rule of critical thinking and rules for eco-sanity are 
facts count for more than opinions. Now that might sound a little 
strange but it is the truth. A person with the loudest voice sometimes 
is heard above everybody else, or he or she might have the most 
controversial opinion. That person gets the attention on the 6 o'clock 
news. This is certainly true in the environmentalist movement where 
there are claims of impending environmental issues.
  A few numbers tell us more than 1,000 pictures. For example, the 
destruction of the world's rain forests changed from a crisis to a 
manageable problem once we recognized that rain forests are being 
diminished at a rate of well under 1 percent a year. Similarly, plastic 
containers moved to the bottom of our agenda when we learned they 
constitute less than 1.5 percent of the solid waste in a typical 
landfill. Yes, we all have heard about the plastic containers.
  No. 5 rule for eco-sanity is do not forget the past. All common sense 
things here, Mr. Speaker. During the 1970's many prominent 
environmentalists predicted an energy crisis, energy crisis in the 
1980's and energy crisis in the 1990's and this huge population 
explosion. Well, some 25 years later oil reserves have grown and 
population growth is slowing.
  Ronald Bailey, a scientist commenting on Paul Erlich and Lester 
Brown, the environmentalists, say quote,

       One reason such apocalyptic abuses thrive is that the 
     public has no longer-term memory. People are unlikely to 
     remember that a doomster made a dire prediction 20 years ago 
     that has since proved absolutely false.

  Bailey is right. We need to remember yesterday's false alarms and who 
sounded them if we are to respond correctly to future calls to action. 
Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, here in Congress we should start keeping track of 
all these doomsters and all these predictions from the people who say 
we will have an energy crisis or a population explosion, to all these 
different problems that they talk about.
  No. 6 in the rule of eco-sanity: We can never avoid risk completely. 
And this is one of the things that Republicans are trying to say, is we 
have choices. There can never be an absolutely pure, theoretically, 
absolutely safe situation. Everything we do carriers with it a risk. 
When I came up to Washington on the airplane it carried a risk. When I 
drove over here or when I walk on the curb there is a risk; even common 
activities such as a bath, you can drown; crossing a street, being hit 
by a car. Seemingly harmless things like balloons and toothpicks 
sometimes can kill people.

                              {time}  1615

  Mr. Speaker, there is no such thing as a product, decision, or action 
that carries no risk whatsoever. So when someone tells us hold on, 
there may be a risk that a chemical, nuclear plant, or landfill will 
endanger our health, we should not be frightened. Instead we should 
calmly ask, how much risk is there? If the risk is unknown, we should 
wait until reliable evidence is available for us to estimate the risk. 
If the risk is 1 in a million, the level of risk often found for things 
like incinerator fumes and pesticides, it may not be worth attempting 
to reduce it or spending enormous amounts of government money or 
setting up another government bureaucracy to do so. It may be a case to 
study and maybe we can find other ways, but in the end it may not be 
worth the cost to attempt to stop it any further.
  Keep in mind, that is one in a million risk. Keep in mind that the 
risk of drowning is 16 in a million. So you have a chance or, I would 
say, Mr. Speaker, that the risk of drowning is 16 in a million whereas 
the risk from pesticide is 1 in a million.
  How about dying in an accident in the home; that is 90 in a million 
or dying in an automobile accident is 192 in a million, greatly exceeds 
the alleged environmental risk being decried by some organizations. So 
if you keep those statistics in mind, you realize that we do not have 
to set up another government bureaucracy just to handle some of these 
things because 1 in a million can be a very low risk.
  The last rule for ecosanity is rule No. 7, we have to make choices. 
We cannot buy two items in the grocery store with the same amount of 
money. We have to choose one or the other. The same, Mr. Speaker, is 
true of how we clean the environment. We have to choose among many 
different ways to do it. We cannot do everything at once, because 
trying to do so would be extremely wasteful, unnecessarily injure many 
people, and probably produce unintended consequences that harm the 
environment.
  Instead we must apply the same prudence that we apply to other parts 
of our lives, because the law of diminishing returns, a zero discharge 
policy would cost huge, huge sums of money and produce very little 
benefit. That, on this side of the aisle, we are trying to do, to 
understand the zero discharge, to understand what amount of moneys are 
required, what is at risk, and what benefit will be produced.
  We must, and here is the key word, Mr. Speaker, we must prioritize 
threats to the environment and find efficient ways to address these 
threats. The more carefully we do these, the more threats we will be 
able to successfully address.
  The importance of environmental issues does not somehow exempt them 
from this discipline. In fact, their importance makes careful planning 
and efficiency all the more necessary.
  I would conclude by saying, we on this side of the aisle are trying 
to bring a new idea to the environmental movement. We have had 36 years 
of more Government spending, more Government bureaucracies and at this 
point we realize there is a way to solve this without taxing the 
American people. That way is, of course, to bring some semblance to 
this environmental debate with ecosanity. Ecosanity is basically going 
to help us understand how

[[Page H6709]]

to attack these problems and what in the end would be the best thing, 
best way to solve the problem.
  I would conclude by pointing out that if people own a property, that 
leads to better stewardship. We tend to take better care of things we 
own than things we rent or borrow. And if the Government and 
local community would enforce some of the already existing laws on the 
books, we should be able to bring the ownership and better stewardship 
and government compliance all together. Because in the end, incentives 
are better than commands. People are more apt to do things if you give 
them incentives rather than commands out of Washington. We think that 
through ownership and incentives, pollution problems can be reduced and 
we should clearly define the rights of property owners, clearly define 
what the Government is supposed to enforce and not have this vague set 
of books where the rules and enforcement are so vague that the actual 
citizen has no idea how to comply with the rules.

  I think the rules to air, water, and wildlife can be defined and I 
think they can be enforced so when you bring in the clear definition of 
these rules, you bring in the idea of ownership being better 
stewardship; incentives are better than command, I think pollution can, 
in the end, be diminished.
  Also we need to understand that when you set up government programs, 
they suffer in themselves. They are like a black hole. They require 
more money and sometimes the Government will act with improper 
knowledge. If we abide by a set of rules for ecosanity, I think we can 
prevent that.
  Also I should point out, Mr. Speaker, that sometimes Government 
subsidies cause waste. When you have the Government involved spending 
this money, it sometimes creates less efficiency and leads to greater 
pollution because in the end if you do not have the efficiency, you 
cannot have less pollution. Of course, I would conclude by saying the 
media gives false alarms by extensive publicity, as I point out. A good 
example is in the area of the energy crisis as well as talking about 
overpopulation. So all of us need to be aware of stories that come out 
of the media when, in fact, if we obey these seven rules of ecosanity, 
we can have a better understanding how to cope. We need to understand 
and not react out of fear. Mr. Speaker here is a commonsense agenda for 
further protecting and improving the environment.

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