Perversity
Some bureaucrats are giving government of the people, by the people, and for the people
a bad name. The governing class typically demands ever higher levels of funding, but the
very perversity of their actions argues that they’ve got too much time and money on
their hands. You’ll find evidence of that in a couple of articles in this
month’s Florida Business Insight. Our frequent labor-law contributors John-Edward
Alley and Amy Littrell write about two pending Supreme Court decisions on how to define
disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The plaintiffs and the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission seem to believe that the definition should be set so
broadly that virtually any American worker could choose to define himself as disabled.
This seems to put employment supporting oneself into a category of voluntary activity. If
you like to work, fine. If you don’t, there’s gotta be a law out there somewhere
to force someone else to work for you. The other article is our feature story on the
Buckeye Technologies project to clean up the Fenholloway River. This is a case where
activists and regulators are defying science and common sense because the solution
violates one of the tenets of their creed, namely, "Dilution is not the solution to
pollution."
Dr. Robert "Skip" Livingston has commented on the project’s opponents,
"From a scientific point of view, they’re all wet. From an environmental point
of view, they’ve done a great disservice to the state of Florida."
Livingston should know. He’s researched the Fenholloway for more than two decades.
In fact, in the early 1970s, he sued Buckeye over the river. He is a well-respected voice
for environmental protection here in Tallahassee. But all his credentials go for naught
when ideology is at stake.
This situation is a small-scale version of the EPA’s new ozone and particulate
matter rules. Agency officials admitted to Congress that the new air regulations might
have the perverse effect of worsening pollution because the rules delay current deadlines
for cities and states to meet existing guidelines. This is all being done for the sake of
new standards that science shows will have no appreciable affect on human health.
EPA Administrator Carol Browner (whose anti-business career includes a stop in
Tallahassee as Florida’s environmental chief) insists that particulate matter -- soot
and the like -- is causing an increase in asthma. But asthma rates have been rising at the
same time that air quality has been getting better. In fact, science shows that the asthma
increase is caused by cockroach droppings and another environmental enthusiasm: energy
savings. New buildings are now shut so tightly that the air inside doesn’t circulate
and renew itself.
Need further proof that science is a subject that never disturbs the sleep of federal
regulators and environmental activists? In March, the Consumers Union, an ardent foe of
pesticides, published an article in its magazine Consumer Reports warning parents to avoid
fruits and vegetables treated with pesticides in favor of organic produce. This is a
potentially dangerous claim. Consumers of organic produce are more likely to be attacked
by a deadly new strain of the E. coli bacteria than they are to suffer from cancer or
endocrine disruption loosely linked to chemical residues on fruits and vegetables.
So how are the activists and regulators able to dodge science and common sense? By
shifting the debate to motives differentiated by purity and greed.
The indoctrination begins at the earliest levels. Here’s a quote from
Environmental Science a popular school textbook: "Some see risk analysis as a useful
and much-needed tool. Others see it as a way to justify premeditated murder in the name of
profit."
Now that’s perverse.
Jon L. Shebel is president and CEO of Associated Industries of Florida and
affiliated companies (e-mail: jshebel@ aif.com).
May/Junel 1999 -- Florida Business Insight, PO Box 784, Tallahassee, Fla.
32302
(850)224-7173, insight@aif.com
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