Imagine how University of Utah students and administrators would react to this hypothetical situation:
The federal government orders the U to build a new parking structure on the U campus. While the government mandates the structure be constructed, it promises no funding to support the project. The funds will come either from student parking fees, which will double during the coming year, or from low interest loans the U must pay off in the future. In addition, no conclusive evidence exists that proves the new structure will improve the U parking situation.
Sound unbelievable? It’s not if you live in Delta, Utah, where the Environmental Protection Agency’s new guidelines for arsenic levels in drinking water have left the small community?and several others in the state?scrambling for the cash and the means to meet the new federal regulations.
The Deseret News reported that these regulations will force Utah cities to reform approximately 50 water systems, costing an estimated $50 million. This new predicament for Delta and its 3,500 residents highlights three things American politics need less of: political pandering using the environment, the manipulative hyperbole of some environmentalists and increased federal regulation in matters better handled by individual states.
The EPA monitors Delta’s arsenic levels?as well as that of all the nation’s cities?because the substance can cause several forms of cancer if ingested consistently at dangerously high levels. Most arsenic found in drinking water gets there naturally, although cities with mining activity or volcanic soil have greater levels of arsenic in their water.
For years, the EPA’s acceptable level of arsenic in drinking water was 50 parts per billion (ppb). However, only days before his presidency ended, Clinton changed the guidelines, drastically reducing the acceptable level of arsenic to 10 ppb.
That is where the pandering began. Environmentalists and Clintonites hailed the president’s decision, although few supporters questioned why he waited nearly eight years to make such an important resolution.
Many political pundits figured Clinton changed the regulation to hamper his successor, President George W. Bush. If this was Clinton’s motive, he was decidedly successful. In March, President Bush suspended the new regulation until further analysis could prove its merit, an idea many leaders in the Western United States supported. Not surprisingly, environmentalists exploded with characteristic rage and hyperbole.
New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd called arsenic filled water “poisoned drinking water.” She accused President Bush of “[wanting] to keep the poison in?to help the enviro villains who contributed to his campaign.” Dowd’s incredible?but typical?dramatics qualify her more for writing harlequin novels than editorials.
Other “progressives” accused the Bush administration of “raping the environment” and “auctioning off our natural resources.” Such dramatics certainly validate Scripps Howard Columnist Dan K. Thomasson’s assessment of the environmentalist movement, which he said, “lives and dies on pure emotion.”
More rational minds?like those at the Mercatus Center, an education and research center at George Mason University?saw merit in President Bush’s desire for further analysis. The center said in October, “Before requiring all communities to make [investments to meet the new arsenic guidelines], EPA is wise to examine carefully the public health benefits and the social costs of achieving lower and lower levels of arsenic in drinking water.” After all, the center pointed out, the effects of arsenic in drinking water are “very uncertain.”
President Bush did not call for a total repeal of Clinton’s last-minute changes, but simply requested a review of pertinent evidence to see if the benefits were worth the costs. Such sensible analysis is a refreshing alternative to emotional accusations and sound byte bickering.
The U.S. House of Representatives all but ended the dispute, anyway, when by a narrow margin it voted to require Bush to keep the 10 ppb level. Now many communities, which are principally found in western states, must change their water systems.
According to the Deseret News, the city of Delta will try to combine four existing water systems to “draw water from a different source with less arsenic.” Delta officials think water bills will “double to about $30 a month.”
Perhaps the best solution to the arsenic quandary will be to allow communities with higher levels of arsenic to decide themselves when and how to combat the problem.
Such local control, however, is becoming less popular in Washington, D.C., where many legislators feel all roads lead to Capitol Hill. The recent federalization of airport security (motto: inefficiency never cost so much) provides a good example.
In contrast, consider Norman, Okla., home of the University of Oklahoma and levels of arsenic that are now illegal. In April, even after President Bush repealed the new EPA regulations, Oklahomans concerned with arsenic looked to solve their own problems.
Without prompting from the EPA, Boren and the city of Norman were working to solve Norman’s arsenic problem. Such local action can be a simple alternative to the weight of federal bureaucracy and the absurdity of hysterical environmentalism.
Mike welcomes feedback at: [email protected] or send letters to the editor to: [email protected].