Page 6
March 1, 2017
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When Polluters Lose and the Rest of Us Win
The good
thing about
regulations
J ill r ichardson
As the Trump
regime’s anti-envi-
ronment onslaught
begins, there are sev-
eral terms used by
men (and in the case
of Trump’s cabinet,
it’s nearly all men) attempting to
turn us against protecting the air
we breathe and water we drink.
Polluting industries become
“job creators,” and the policies
that allow them to pollute are
“pragmatic,” “balanced,” and
“common sense.” Meanwhile,
the rules put in place to keep
Americans safe and our environ-
ment clean become “government
abuse” or “overreach.”
These are buzzwords, devel-
oped by polluting industries and
their political allies, to convince
us to let them keep trashing our
planet.
Another favorite, already ut-
tered by Trump’s new head of
the Environmental Protection
Agency, Scott Pruitt, is “picking
winners and losers.” Any time the
by
government attempts to rollback
pollution, fossil-friendly politi-
cians trot this phrase out.
Generously speaking, they
mean this: New environmental
rules allow some corporations to
keep doing business profit-
ably (the “winners”), while
requiring others to make
costly renovations or even
shut down (the “losers”).
Sounds unfair, right?
Only, the “winners” are
the responsible companies
sion could be said to “pick win-
ners and losers.”
Suppose the military drops a
supplier making expensive, faulty
weapons and instead gives its
business to a company making
equipment the military actually
needs. Most of us wouldn’t criti-
cize the government for dropping
the dead-weight supplier.
Why should we apply different
standards to environmental safe-
ty? Do we, the American people,
have a responsibility to breathe
Suppose the military drops a
supplier making expensive, faulty
weapons and instead gives its business
to a company making equipment the
military actually needs. Most of us
wouldn’t criticize the government for
dropping the dead-weight supplier.
with cleaner business practices,
and the “losers” are companies
that profit by making Americans
sick. Say, for example, an old
coal-fired power plant spewing
mercury into the atmosphere.
In fact, any government deci-
polluted air and suffer the result-
ing illnesses in order to keep a pol-
luting industry in business?
Of course not. Especially when
the industry in question could
have upgraded to cleaner equip-
ment but refused to do so, in or-
der to save money for themselves
while sickening us.
Let’s re-frame the idea of pick-
ing winners and losers.
When the government allows
companies to profit by polluting,
they’re also picking winners and
losers. The winners are companies
that don’t have to invest in clean-
er technologies, and the losers are
the American people, who get sick
from breathing dirty air.
No matter what the government
does, whether it regulates or not,
somebody wins and somebody
loses. The only important question
is who comes out on which side.
Oh, and a word about “job cre-
ators,” too. Drug cartels employ
all kinds of people. That doesn’t
mean what they’re doing is good
for the rest of us.
Do we want policies that allow
irresponsible corporations to win
while the American people lose?
Instead, I’d propose an ultimatum
for dirty industries: Clean up your
act or go out of business.
For ordinary Americans and re-
sponsible businesses, that sounds
like a win-win to me.
OtherWords columnist Jill
Richardson is the author of Recipe
for America: Why Our Food Sys-
tem Is Broken and What We Can
Do to Fix It.