Environmental laws protect our rights, free market too profit-driven to solve problem

In recent years, the economic right wing of American politics has gone on an anti-regulatory crusade, and anti-regulation candidates like Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry or anyone with an R next to his or her name are always quick to mention that the Environmental Protection Agency is a job killer that will be immediately eliminated when they take office. However, there is an important case to be made for the federal government in the realm of environmental issues. Not only can the government be helpful, but it may also be necessary for protecting the public rights and quality of life.

Those who argue against government regulations are concerned with our freedoms being limited. As business owners and consumers, we should have the right to buy and sell what we choose, they argue, and they're not wrong to say so. I think 99 percent of the public would agree that the government should exist to protect our rights and freedoms, not to restrict them. However, where the environment is concerned, restricting the rights of businesses protects the rights of the public in other ways.

Even for a climate change skeptic, there's no denying the horrible health effects of pollution. It might be easy to mock Al Gore and make light of the environmentalist hippies out there, but it's a lot harder to ignore serious concerns heavy metal poisoning and birth defects.

I'm not saying that businesses' rights aren't worth protecting; I'm saying that we, the general public, have rights to livable environments that are worth protecting. Compared with a business's right to act independently, who would honestly say that having clean air to breathe is less important? Does a factory have a right to act freely if it is physically harming the people around it?

There is always concern that government will do more harm than good, but we have to look at its successes as well as its failures. The trouble is that when environmental regulations are successful, there's nothing visible for the public to comment on. But take a look at an unsuccessful government. The 2008 Olympics in Beijing helped the phrase "China lung" enter the public lexicon, referring to the fits of coughing and respiratory problems caused by the smog in the city. As illustrated in a Jan. 27 CNN article by Jaime FlorCruz, China's environmental standards are terrible. The same article notes that since the 1970 passing of the Clean Air Act, the Los Angeles government has been steadily improving its notorious smog problem with emissions restrictions.

Plenty of folks have horror stories about EPA bureaucrats, but the horror stories from the unregulated developing world are infinitely worse. The United Nations Environment Program published a study that analyzed a Kenya waste dumping site containing dangerous levels of mercury, cadmium, lead and other highly toxic metals, and the study found that nearby children and adults had been drastically affected, reporting respiratory disorders, dental problems, nervous disorders, and myriad other health complications. Even if the EPA oversteps its bounds and creates unnecessary hassle, the fact that Americans don't have similar health issues is a testament to the good it has done.

The government wouldn't need to regulate environmental issues if the free market were adequately taking care of the environment, but unfortunately, the market hasn't done so. An unfortunate fact of our current economy is that it's often cheaper for a business to ignore environmental consequences than to be environmentally friendly. For example, companies often have hazardous byproducts from industrial processes, and the cheapest, easiest way to get rid of those pollutants is to dump them into the nearest body of water. The nearby water supply, soil deposits and wildlife are all poisoned as a result, but oil companies have an unfortunate tendency not to care. The companies are like machines, and an efficiently running machine would rather ignore external problems, like poisoning people, than change the way it runs. Take BP, which, according to a July 30, 2007, USA Today article by Bobby Carmichael, was granted a permit to dump significant amounts of mercury from its oil refineries into Lake Michigan and sparked an environmental outrage.

The mercury issue isn't isolated, either. It's a drop in a very large bucket of danger and stupidity. The market doesn't seem to have enough influence to force companies like BP to clean up their act, even though consumers would applaud it. Short-term profits will very, very often trump public safety as far as big business is concerned, and if the market can't correct the problem, perhaps the government can do some good. It will mean placing restrictions on the freedoms of the private sector, and it may hinder economic growth, but it will protect our most important right of all: the right to a planet that is habitable.

Brian Hampel is a junior in architecture. Please send all comments to opinion@kstatecollegian.com.