For Earth Day ‘95, It’s a Whole New Day : A rethinking is in order for environmental protection

Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, and it is a rather ambivalent commemoration. The 25 years have seen huge improvements in air and water, but further progress now becomes enormously costly and a political backlash against the green movement threatens to reverse years of heroic work. The time has come for a rethinking of environmental protection, for the public will no longer accept the costs of cleanup without assurances that the most effective and efficient means are being used.

The problem, ironically, is that the movement has achieved most of its original goals. Though 80 million more vehicles are on the roads now than 25 years ago, ambient lead in the air has dropped more than 95%, a result of reformulated gasoline. Emissions of carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides and other pollutants are way down--so much so that the Hemlock Society advises people seeking to commit suicide that late-model automobiles simply don’t put out enough carbon monoxide to do the job. And laws and consent degrees that ended sludge dumping in the Pacific have brought a flowering of marine species in Santa Monica Bay, even if storm runoff still threatens swimmers at times.

BACKLASH APLENTY: But signs of backlash abound. Here in Los Angeles, the South Coast Air Quality Management District retreats on car-pooling. In the state Legislature, advocates carrying the banner of private property rights and deregulation seek to scuttle pioneering legislation to protect wildlife, forests and air quality. Gov. Pete Wilson, once viewed as an ally by environmentalists, is noticeably silent on these issues as he seeks the presidency and courts real estate developers and big agriculture. And in Washington, the new conservative GOP majority attempts to gut the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act by imposing impossible cost-benefit analysis requirements in the name of preserving logging and other jobs.

“We are past the point where the public will uncritically assume any additional programs should be funded,” says Paul R. Portney, vice president of Resources for the Future, a Washington think tank. That is not a message the environmental movement has accepted easily. It is clear that the Superfund law, which mandates cleanup of certain toxic dumps, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which requires states to regulate industrial wastes, are too punitive and the Endangered Species Act is too mechanistic. President Clinton has offered welcome “market-based” changes in the laws to align them more with incentives than regulations, but the move comes late and mainly in reaction to Republican threats.

The problem here, in the sage view of William K. Reilly, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George Bush, is more political than real. The Republicans, he says, won’t admit that regulations work; Democrats won’t admit they also work under Republicans.

COST OF WHINING: Polls say the public still favors environmental remediation. But whining and exaggeration over health hazards have cost environmentalists much credibility. The problem now is not so much direct human health threats from contamination but broader damage as seen in the growing number of threatened wildlife species. Environmentalists have little to gain, except in fund raising, from their alarmist denunciations of Republicans in Congress. Likewise, these Republicans should heed the polls and see that by demonizing the environment they are planting a political time bomb that will explode in their faces. Enlightened businesses, small and large, realize a healthy environment is good for business. Both sides should put aside empty rhetoric, look at the scientific facts and focus on what really works.