Despite the old saying, “Don’t cry over spilled milk,” the Environmental Protection Agency is doing just that.
We all understand why the EPA was given the power to issue regulations to guard against oil spills, such as that of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska or the more recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But not everyone understands that any power given to any bureaucracy for any purpose can be stretched far beyond that purpose.
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In a classic example of this process, the EPA has decided that, since milk contains oil, it has the authority to force farmers to comply with new regulations to file “emergency management” plans to show how they will cope with spilled milk — how farmers will train “first responders” and build “containment facilities” if there is a flood of spilled milk.
Since there is no free lunch, all of this is going to cost the farmers both money and time that could be going into farming — and is likely to end up costing consumers higher prices for farm products.
It is going to cost the taxpayers money as well, since the EPA is going to have to hire people to inspect farms, inspect farmers’ reports, and prosecute farmers who don’t jump through all the right hoops in the right order. All of this will be “creating jobs,” even if the tax money removed from the private sector correspondingly reduces the jobs that can be created there.
Does anyone seriously believe that any farmer is going to spill enough milk to compare with the Exxon Valdez oil spill or the BP oil spill?
Do you envision people fleeing their homes, as a flood of milk comes pouring down the mountainside, threatening to wipe out the village below?
It doesn’t matter. Once the words are in the law, it makes no difference what the realities are. The bureaucracy has every incentive to stretch the meaning of those words, in order to expand its empire.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has expanded its definition of “discrimination” to include things that no one thought was discrimination when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The Federal Communications Commission is trying to expand its jurisdiction to cover things that have no relationship to the reason that the FCC was created in the first place.
Yet the ever-expanding bureaucratic state has its defenders in the mainstream media. When President Obama recently mentioned the possibility of reducing burdensome regulations — as part of his moving of his rhetoric toward the political center, even if his policies don’t move — there was an immediate reaction in a New York Times article defending government regulations.
Under the headline, “Obama May Find Useless Regulations Are Scarcer Than Thought,” the Times writers declared that there were few, if any, “useless” regulations. But is that the relevant criterion?
Is there any individual or business willing to spend money on everything that is not absolutely useless? There are thousands of useful things out there that any given individual or business would not spend their money on.
When I had young children, I often thought it would be useful to have a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica for them. But I never bought one. Why? Because there were other little things to spend money on, such as food, clothing, and shelter.
By the time I could afford to buy a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the kids were grown and gone. But at no time did I consider the Encyclopedia Britannica “useless.”
Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions — and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.
No doubt the EPA’s costly new regulations may somewhere, somehow, prevent spilled milk from pouring out into some street and looking unsightly. So the regulations are not literally “useless.”
Excellent! Along the same lines, how is the RESEARCH conducted that establishes the need for the regulation?
Is there any REAL research done anymore?
Or is it all done by Computer "Modeling" with the inputs provided that support the desired outcome?
Hazmat plan for spilled milk. Wonder how many unionized helpers that will take in every K-2 class in all of our schools to clean those messes up. Ridiculous!
"In a classic example of this process, the EPA has decided that, since milk contains oil, it has the authority to force farmers to comply with new regulations to file “emergency management” plans to show how they will cope with spilled milk — how farmers will train “first responders” and build “containment facilities” if there is a flood of spilled milk".
Right on! If you want to see a real example, take a look at how the EPA and Dept of Agriculture handled the Clean Water Act mandate that farmers "comprehensively manage nutrients". Instead of just ruling that fields need to be tested and not allowed to exceed certain levels of nutrients, leaving farmers to determine how best to manage, they decided to micromanage the whole process by requiring comprehensive nutrient management plans, the composition of which will be determined by them (of course). Typically they run 100 - 300 pages, cost thousands to produce, and more thousands to read, approve, monitor etc. They are neither followed nor used, as for the most part, government really is stupid and they are stupid if they think sane men will follow their requirements without a (metaphorical) gun to the head. Farmers do about what they always have done, in efficient ways, and as long as they know nutrient levels may not cross certain boundaries, they achieve the desired ends of the clean water act without reference to the mountainous paperwork fantasy world constructed by the EPA and dept of Ag.
Shepton - Your arguement is simliar to that described in a post last week about those activists that "encouraged" the removal of phosphates from dishwashing machine detergent. That arguement being "It may only be causing a fraction of the problem we are having, but anything we can do, no mater the cost is good, right?"
No it is not right. There are not milk tanker ships traveling across a dairy farm ready to dump milk into rivers and streams when they run into an iceberg. We are talking about a material which is dealt with in smaller quantities, even on the largest farms. Neither farmers nor dairies wish to have a spill and are going to protect their product so as to make money. Furthermore, any damage which may occur in a rare, accidental spill will have far less cost than the mandates the EPA issues to "protect" us.
Back when I was in the Navy I had an assignment as the Environmental Officer to a Naval Station. One day I received a call that the Hazmat Spill team had been called away for a paint spill in a parking lot. I responded and found everyone getting suited up to clean up the spill. As they were getting dressed, I asked how the spill occurred. The Sailor that was goint to repaint the lines in the lot had spilled some paint while pouring it from the 5-gal bucket into his roller pan. I grabbed his roller and rolled out the paint. Problem solved.
The Hazmat team freaked out. My logic, the paint was purchased to go on the parking lot, it was on the parking lot (one spot had a big spot on it). We saved a bunch of money and went on about our jobs for the day.
The moral of the story. Bureaucrats can only grow their rice bowl when they grow the bureaucracy. That is why the FCC wants to control the internet and one of the reason for the EPA to regulate carbon (and milk).
Whether a milk spill is or is not a concern is not the central issue. It appears obvious to me that the EPA is assuming an authority that it was never intended to have based on the rationale they've used. While we can disagree about what Congress should or shouldn't focus on, I would think there is near-universal support for stopping ANY agency from creating new "missions" from whole cloth.
We can avoid the excessive costs and comply with the regs if we come up with a generic enviromnental impact remediation statement. I suggest that each dairy farmer attach a color glossy of a barn full of cats to their otherwise blank statement, and submit same to the EPA. It will keep the kids at EPA busy for years trying to figure out what it means, and do their field investigations, so they can submit their reports, and recommendations.
"Is there any REAL research done anymore?" Good question. I'd like to ask Mr. Sowell the same thing. Why didn't he link to the supposed EPA regulation? I went looking and what I found was the exact opposite - the EPA is EXEMPTING dairy farmers from oil spill rules, or at least they were in June. (If anything has changed since then, I respectfully ask Sowell to provide his source):
ht...tp://www.idfa.org/news--views/news-releases/details/4792/
Sowell uses the carefully chosen words "has the authority to" but doesn't mention whether the EPA is actually exercising that authority. From what I can see, it's NOT - and this whole column is based on a falsehood.
You wonder why "the media" gets a bad rap?
I'm not typically a fan of the "slippery slope" argument, but for the EPA to EXEMPT Dairy Farmers from a regulation implies that they also have the authority to remove that exemption at any time. If so, then it appears that the EPA is assuming an authority that they were never granted.
"If so, then it appears that the EPA is assuming an authority that they were never granted."
I'd surmise the real issue was not that the EPA assumed any authority; it was probably just a too-broadly-written law (from 1973, I believe?). Someone probably asked "what if" and now the EPA is correcting what WOULD be a ridiculous burden on dairy farmers.
Unless someone can find where the EPA did something more recently, such as rejecting the exemption, there's nothing to see here, folks.
What steams me is that a supposedly respectable journalist wrote an entire column based on a falsehood that he should have checked out, and now people are up in arms over nothing.
In the article is the statement "the EPA has decided that, since milk contains oil, it has the authority to force farmers to comply with new regulations"
If accurate, then it is not a case of a law too broadly written. This implies a deliberate interpretation or misinterpretation in order to increase regulatory authority. One claim could be that "someone" played a game of what-if and it ended up with this result. On the other hand, Mr Sowell signed his column so we know who to hold accountable if he's wrong. Who do we hold accountable if "someone" at the EPA is wrong? They're not called faceless bureaucrats for nothing.
"In the article is the statement "the EPA has decided that, since milk contains oil, it has the authority to force farmers to comply with new regulations"
That's my point exactly. It's the writer's statement, not the EPA's. Sowell uses weasel words like "the EPA has decided" but doesn't cite the supposed law or provide a link to it. It should be easy to research this - the EPA is a federal agency and what they do is public record. Turns out it's NOT true, and he ran with the column anyway. For a journalist to do that is dishonest and inexcusable.
"If accurate, then it is not a case of a law too broadly written."
I was just making an educated guess. Here's the law in question, so we can all see for ourselves if it's too broadly written: External Link
"This implies a deliberate interpretation or misinterpretation in order to increase regulatory authority."
We don't know that either. who's doing the interpreting? Why did this "issue" come up now? It appears the regulation was last amended in 2002.
"One claim could be that "someone" played a game of what-if and it ended up with this result."
That's my best guess, but this article sure doesn't address that.
"On the other hand, Mr Sowell signed his column so we know who to hold accountable if he's wrong."
Which is what we're doing now - pointing out that he's probably full of BS.
"Who do we hold accountable if "someone" at the EPA is wrong?"
I don't know, the EPA?
"They're not called faceless bureaucrats for nothing."
Somebody has to run the place.
I always enjoy your comments on contemporary America. Your critiques on the overreach of govt. are always grounded in common sense; I am your age, and I too bemoan the fact that our govt. does not act as if it appreciates the value of the collective wisdom of our parents or grandparents generations. Everyday aphorisms that we grew-up with, such as, there is no free lunch, or every capable person has to pull his own weight, seem alien in the current age of entitlement.
Your point of judging the usefullness of govt regulations by measuring its costs and benefits is, once again, basic common sense. Another observation in the vein of measuring the usefullness of govt involvement in the private lives of its citizens is that every department or agency the govt runs has the same basic overhead expenses as any business. So the Dept. of Education, for example, needs to not only justify that it is of some value, but it also needs to justify to the citizens that the tax dollars it spends running its own agency provide a value which equals or exceeds its own overhead expenses - in another words, the govt has to pull its own weight.
Diehard meet MikeB - you two appear to be sowellmates.
I do feel the need to explain to Mr. Diehard that Dr. Sowell is an economist and not a journalist. He is writing an opinion piece of his interpretation of the EPA and what they can do if they choose.
