The 108th Congress should
- privatize federal lands by granting ownership rights to existing users and auctioning off the remaining lands;
- replace the command-and-control regulations imposed by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts with emissions trading regimes;
- replace the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act with a consumer products labeling program under the auspices of the Food and Drug Administration;
- repeal the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and privatize the cleanup of Superfund sites;
- replace the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act with minimal standards for discharge into groundwater aquifers;
- eliminate federal subsidies and programs that exacerbate environmental damage; and
- replace the Endangered Species Act and section 404 of the Clean Water Act with a federal biological trust fund.
Have you ever met anyone who likes smog? Have you ever met anyone who does not like clean water? Would you let anyone pollute your property? "The environment" is best protected against pollution when it is personally cared for by its owner. "The government" is the worst polluter, and therefore the worst owner. Experience shows that we cannot trust the government to protect our environment.
Environmental health and purity can best be guaranteed by growth and technology, not by a return to primitivism. We live amidst health and sanitation undreamed of by our grandparents 75 years ago. Production and standards of living are up, and smog and impure drinking water are down. Meanwhile, government exempts itself from sensible standards of environmental stewardship, and is the world's greatest polluter. More than 40% of America --
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
-- is now owned by unaccountable government bureaucracies, increasingly off-limits to ordinary Americans. Private ownership of property encourages personal responsibility and protects the Creation for future generations, especially when property owners graduate from competitive schools which teach "religion, morality and knowledge."
next: Environmental Health: Risks and Reality
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