Green Grow the Pressies

IN 1995 they told us that Yucca Mountain was going to explode in a nuclear firestorm. It won’t. In 1998 they told us that nuclear-weapons installations were making people sick. They weren’t. In 2000 they weren’t concerned with arsenic in the water. In 2001 they were. This year they have claimed that the Pentagon is worried about global warming and that phosphate mines are harming Floridians. “They” are journalists, and the issue is the environment. What makes this particular issue so susceptible to bad journalism?

At least part of the answer has to be politics. If you followed the controversy over arsenic in drinking water in 2001, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Bush administration was plotting to poison the reservoirs. Yet in fact the Environmental Protection Agency had simply chosen to revert to standards that were changed only in the last few days of the Clinton administration. The press had gone almost eight years without noticing that Carol Browner and the Clinton EPA were happy to allow these “dangerous” standards of arsenic in the water.

About the Author

Iain Murray

Iain Murray is vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

IN 1995 they told us that Yucca Mountain was going to explode in a nuclear firestorm. It won’t. In 1998 they told us that nuclear-weapons installations were making people sick. They weren’t. In 2000 they weren’t concerned with arsenic in the water. In 2001 they were. This year they have claimed that the Pentagon is worried about global warming and that phosphate mines are harming Floridians. “They” are journalists, and the issue is the environment. What makes this particular issue so susceptible to bad journalism?

At least part of the answer has to be politics. If you followed the controversy over arsenic in drinking water in 2001, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Bush administration was plotting to poison the reservoirs. Yet in fact the Environmental Protection Agency had simply chosen to revert to standards that were changed only in the last few days of the Clinton administration. The press had gone almost eight years without noticing that Carol Browner and the Clinton EPA were happy to allow these “dangerous” standards of arsenic in the water.