Are environmental regulations bad under all circumstances?

[musashi]

Interesting at how they appear to be shifting the fuel efficiency standard from MPG towards CO2 per mile. The two metrics are highly correlated. But by focusing on the CO2 it seems to move the conversation much closer to the “Carbon Tax” scenarios.

ADMINISTRATION RELEASES NEW FUEL EFFICIENCY RULES
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration set tougher gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks Thursday, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars.

The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency signed final rules setting fuel efficiency standards for model years 2012-2016, with a goal of achieving by 2016 the equivalent of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The EPA set a tailpipe emissions standard of 250 grams (8.75 ounces) of carbon dioxide per mile for vehicles sold in 2016, equal to what would be emitted by vehicles meeting the mileage standard. The EPA issued its first rules ever on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions following a 2007 Supreme Court decision.

"These historic new standards set ambitious, but achievable, fuel economy requirements for the automotive industry that will also encourage new and emerging technologies," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "We will be helping American motorists save money at the pump, while putting less pollution in the air."

Each auto company will have a different fuel-efficiency target, based on its mix of vehicles. Automakers that build more small cars will have a higher target than car companies that manufacture a broad range of cars and trucks. The standard could be as low as 34.1 mpg by 2016 because automakers are expected to receive credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in other ways, including preventing the leaking of coolant from air conditioners.

"This is a significant step towards cleaner air and energy efficiency, and an important example of how our economic and environmental priorities go hand-in-hand," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a statement.

Dave McCurdy, a former congressman from Oklahoma who leads the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing 11 automakers, said the industry supports a single national standard for future vehicles, saying the program "makes sense for consumers, for government policymakers and for automakers."

LaHood and Jackson said the new requirements will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program. The new standards move up goals set in a 2007 energy law, which required the auto industry to meet a 35 mpg average by 2020.

The rules should add costs to new cars and trucks. The government said the requirements would add an estimated $434 per vehicle in the 2012 model year and $926 per vehicle by 2016 but would save more than $3,000 over the life of the vehicle through better gas mileage.

EPA and the Transportation Department said the requirements would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 960 million metric tons over the lifetime of the vehicles regulated, or the equivalent of taking 50 million cars and light trucks off the road in 2030.

Environmental groups have sought curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming, and challenged the Bush administration for blocking a waiver request from California to pursue more stringent air pollution rules than required by the federal government. The request was granted by the Obama administration last year.

"The standards forthcoming under the 'clean car peace treaty' are a good deal for consumers, for companies, for the country and for the planet," said David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Automakers have been working on an assortment of fuel-efficient technologies, including hybrids, electric cars and technologies that shut off an engine's cylinders when full power isn't needed.

Nissan is releasing its electric car, the Leaf, later this year, while General Motors is introducing the Chevrolet Volt, which can go 40 miles on battery power before an engine kicks in to generate power. Ford is bringing its "EcoBoost" line of direct-injection turbocharged engines, which provide a 20 percent increase in fuel efficiency, to 90 percent of its models by 2013.

[Oleksandr]

Oh, nice, some dude up in government office promises that his action will improve car technology. Who could possibly doubt his word?

[musashi]

Oh, nice, some dude up in government office promises that his action will improve car technology. Who could possibly doubt his word?

The government is not making any promises, only setting an expectation.

From that last paragraph it does seem like the companies do have some ideas to approach the goal. In fact there are dozens of cars that meet that goal now. Look at those grotesque and dangerous Smart cars they are claiming 36 mpg - death traps.

To me the false premise in that article is the $926 in increased cost per vehicle. Most of these cars will only achieve the efficiency goal by hybrid designs and it seems that hybrids have more like $5 to 10K in added costs. Plus it is a major bill when you have to swap out batteries. But hey if the price of gas goes to $6 a gallon by 2016, maybe the hybrids could be the better buy over dedicated C7H16 power plants (Obama renamed gasoline while you weren’t looking - To get us closer to a Carbon Economic Basis).

Look at the list of ugly, little cars that are meeting the regulation right now. Seems like the government is sending us back to the days of Henry Ford, “Any color you want... as long as it’s black.” In the future our choices of transportation will have serious constraints.

[Oleksandr]

Oh, nice, some dude up in government office promises that his action will improve car technology. Who could possibly doubt his word?

The government is not making any promises, only setting an expectation.

That's a nice play of words but the meaning stays the same just as the new healthcare bill sets the "expecation" of lowering health care prices and when companies across US report millions and billions expected losses/spendings on this crap, the congress orders them to appear before a committee to explain their "actions" that didn't conform to original "excectations" of the government.

[Zarkary]

I voted the top option: inherently evil. I found this closest to my thoughts on the subject. Government regulation, outside of protecting individual rights, is done at the point of gun. Case closed for me. The only possible debate that could remain is that the regulation is protecting the rights of the individual, which I think it is not. Any talk of practical outcomes fails when I see the dangling of handcuffs in front of my face.

I am just responding to the threads title question.

[Oleksandr]

The only possible debate that could remain is that the regulation is protecting the rights of the individual, which I think it is not. Any talk of practical outcomes fails when I see the dangling of handcuffs in front of my face.

Yep, anybody who wishes to even consider that regulation might be not 100% evil needs to show what courts wouldn't cover with laws and private property rules.

[musashi]

The only possible debate that could remain is that the regulation is protecting the rights of the individual, which I think it is not.

The mandate in this article is a very long way from protecting individual rights. Taking the devil’s advocate position on this particular article (that this edict does protect individual rights) does not give me much leverage.

Across a broader range of environmental regulation, I think I’d have an easier time in making a case that some environmental regulations do protect the rights of the individual.

Let me give this MPG standard regulation a shot. I think my best chance in this conversation is to indentify a range of individual rights, and then determine if the MPG Regulation has some benefit….

But wait? I could toss the question back… you write that regulation must protect individual rights. I agree with the position, but where do these rights come from, who grants these rights, and what are they? Because I would say that in many circumstances rights come from regulation (environmental or otherwise).

Here my list of rights so far (not granted by regulation)
Right to life
Right to seek my own happiness
Right to be free from enslavement

And my list of rights I get from Government (Which I think we should argue are not rights at all, and actually evil.)
Private property rights are defined by regulation
Criminal and civil law are by definition regulations.
Vehicle codes (one of my favorites – everyone loves vehicle codes!) are defined by regulation.
Intellectual property rights are defined by regulation.
Monetary policy is (in large part) defined by regulation.

Did Thoreau have the best answer to this question? It seems to me that he pursued exercising his personal rights, and all the regulation stuff was a non-factor either way to his life in the woods.

[musashi]

Allow me to pick the low hanging fruit on the environmental regulation question. I'll start with placer gold. That is the gold that is taken from streams. Traditionally placer gold was collected by manual panning, then sluicing machines, and then someone got the bright idea to use mercury. Mercury is really cool stuff - it dissolves gold! A later simple distillation recovers relatively pure gold and a fresh pot of mercury ready for reuse. It was a fantastic innovation as it allowed for more complete collection of placer gold. A productivity improvement for the prospector and an additional stream of gold for the market place great news for everyone right?

Well sort of. Turns out that it is really easy to kill a bunch of fish, livestock and people downstream if the prospector uses the mercury in an irresponsible way. And responsible use requires additional effort and costs to the prospector. Prospector could make the case that regulating the use of mercury abridges her rights (let's make it easy and grant her complete ownership to the claim on both banks). She would be correct her rights are being abridged. But what about the people she would harm if she uses the mercury in an unsafe way? Do those people have as much a right to life as our prospector?

To me regulating the use of mercury for gold extraction is an example of an environmental regulation that preserves individual rights.

[Hieder]

Allow me to pick the low hanging fruit on the environmental regulation question. I'll start with placer gold. That is the gold that is taken from streams. Traditionally placer gold was collected by manual panning, then sluicing machines, and then someone got the bright idea to use mercury. Mercury is really cool stuff - it dissolves gold! A later simple distillation recovers relatively pure gold and a fresh pot of mercury ready for reuse. It was a fantastic innovation as it allowed for more complete collection of placer gold. A productivity improvement for the prospector and an additional stream of gold for the market place great news for everyone right?

Well sort of. Turns out that it is really easy to kill a bunch of fish, livestock and people downstream if the prospector uses the mercury in an irresponsible way. And responsible use requires additional effort and costs to the prospector. Prospector could make the case that regulating the use of mercury abridges her rights (let's make it easy and grant her complete ownership to the claim on both banks). She would be correct her rights are being abridged. But what about the people she would harm if she uses the mercury in an unsafe way? Do those people have as much a right to life as our prospector?

To me regulating the use of mercury for gold extraction is an example of an environmental regulation that preserves individual rights.

This here is something that is currently going on in my state, Alaska. However, I've never heard of mercury being used in gold mining. What's going on now some of you may have heard is the Bristol Bay Pebble Mine issue. The cyanide used in mining kills fish in the surrounding area. Now, if a business owns a plot of land I have no problem with them being able to develop their land however they see fit, but if their pollution cannot be contained and is damaging surrounding areas then this is a problem since the business is committing a crime against their neighbors. There is a fish industry in that area and many communities that feed off the fish there.

Though sovreignty may no longer exist. I'm a lifelong Alaskan that still desires to be a sovreign state, and this pebble mine is a canadian business. I recieve no benifit to see them remain in the state and take our gold. Though, we did sell them the property for which they should be doing business. However, if their business is negatively affecting Alaskan business and the lives of Alaskans then something about what they are doing we have the moral right to prevent.

The thing about this is that the evidence is conclusive. Cyanide kills things and mines use alot of it. But the tough questions come when you ask "What if it could be contained to a high degree?" In the future this may be a possibility, so perhaps the regulation should not extend to the point of preventing certain objectives, only certain negative side effects. Something along the lines; if you can do it without killing the fish then go ahead. The global warming issue isn't so conclusive, perhaps regulation for that isnt justified just yet.

[RoarkRangor]

Regulations are the wrong way to go to protect the environment. The only reason to protect the environment is to protect individual property rights. But you don't need regulations to protect property rights. You just need a good court system where people can try to prove when their property is being violated and demand from the violator that he stops. If someone pollutes a lake or river, the owner of the lake or river would go to court and demand the pollution to end and to pay damages. The same can go for air pollution or other kinds of pollution. Of course, the hard part is for the owner to prove that his property is being violated. For example, you could clearly show the source and the magnitude of pollution to your property if your property is a river. But proving that your neighbour’s carbon emissions hurt your corn fields 20 years from now is a whole other deal.

Governments have found a convenient way to deal with this problem of proof. They don’t care whether property is violated or not. They just make arbitrary rules and punish everyone who violates those. Proving that someone’s property is being violated by carbon emissions is very hard, proving that someone’s carbon emissions is above # mm³ is not. The danger of using these rules of thumb instead of using the normal burden of evidence is that you punish people who aren’t violating anyone’s property. This means that regulations are a source of property rights’ violation instead of a solution to it.

Therefore, I have answered: Yes, because ANY regulation is a constraint on the free market and ALL constraints are inherently evil

[musashi]

But you don't need regulations to protect property rights. You just need a good court system...

Help me get this straight... I've always considered the court system sort of like the referees in a sporting event. They don't make the rules, they only make judgments about any given situation. How do you have a good court system without a good set of rules?

Good being objective, with little or no ambiguity and a reliable method for indicating non conformance. Should we also include a requirement that the law does more to preserve individual rights than abridge them?

[RoarkRangor]

But you don't need regulations to protect property rights. You just need a good court system...

Help me get this straight... I've always considered the court system sort of like the referees in a sporting event. They don't make the rules, they only make judgments about any given situation. How do you have a good court system without a good set of rules?

You may have caught me on an inaccuracy. I didn’t mean that courts should create the law. I meant that the court system should be based on simple and objective laws e.g. do not aggress against the property of others. The court system should apply these laws. We don’t need a specific regulation for every tiny aspect of life.

Because this law is so general, the courts would have a lot of power when they fill in the blanks: what is property? When is an action considered aggression? What is the appropriate compensation fee? I wouldn’t call this making the law, just interpreting what the law is.

There should be one general law (don’t aggress) and this law should be applied by courts to every specific case. I don’t believe this is so different from the system we currently have, except for the fact there instead of 15000 action that are deemed illegal by the state, now there is only 1 action that is illegal.

I hope I have clarified myself a bit. I know I didn’t really answer your question 100%, but this is about the closest thing to an answer I managed to write.

Good being objective, with little or no ambiguity and a reliable method for indicating non conformance. Should we also include a requirement that the law does more to preserve individual rights than abridge them?

I think that should be a very strong requirement. Any law that hurts individual rights (even to the smallest degree) should be illegal. Even if the law also protects the rights of someone else. Because such a law breaks the central idea of the entire law system: protect individual rights. The protection of individual rights does not give someone the right to violate someone else's rights. A clear example of this is in the right to self-defence. You are allowed to use violence to defend yourself, but only against those who aggress against you. If in your defence you hurt or kill an innocent bystander, then you have committed a crime as well. Something governments really don’t like and prefer to call collateral damage.

[musashi]

…instead of 15000 actions that are deemed illegal by the state, now there is only 1 action that is illegal.

So the judge be becomes the final arbiter deciding if harm has been done? But with only one law, do you think that decisions between judges might be widely inconsistent (ie the hanging judge vs. the no fault judge)?

Any law that hurts individual rights (even to the smallest degree) should be illegal. Even if the law also protects the rights of someone else.

You don’t want those regulations in the (Mercury/Cyanide) examples above?

So the individual bears the entire authority and responsibility for their actions. If a miner wants to use mercury in any way they see fit - it is their right.

Let’s say Miner A is completely out of control. Miner B (immediately down stream) is using Mercury in a “more” safe manner. Without any definition of how to use the mercury I think it is safe to presume that each miner would develop their own practices. Time passes in our analogy, and ultimately 2 people die from mercury poisoning. You are the judge. Are both miners responsible for killing the people, or just miner A?

Now what would this situation look like if we had 1,000 miners along the stream? You are the judge. Two have died as a result of the actions of thousands. How do you portion out justice?

And let me ask, what is the compensation for killing those two people? If we had simple property damages the math is easy. What price do we put on a lost life? Or lost health?

[Argat Bogotsch]

Oh, nice, some dude up in government office promises that his action will improve car technology. Who could possibly doubt his word?

Well, they're not doing anything that the car companies wouldn't do on their own in their own time, making more jobs and more economically balanced products as they do so. If the government didn't do this, here's my prediction of what would have happened:

BP oil spill causes gasoline prices to raise.
Gasoline prices force consumers to buy more economical cars.
Increased demand in economical cars causes more cars to be produced by auto companies (and if GM, Ford, and the other big car companies didn't, small ones like Tesla would, building that business up).
???
Profit (everyone does, not because that was the original intention, but because that's how this friggin' works).

But what WILL happen now that this has been imposed upon us?

GM, Ford, etc. will make all of their cars more fuel efficient, mostly with aid from the government.
Government aid for GM and Ford (because dey got's da unions) hurts production from smaller businesses like Tesla and Foose.
???
Everyone dies in a fire.

[Synthi]

Are environmental regulations bad under all circumstances?

Try using any village's well as a toilet. You will quickly be shown that it is environmentally regulated. For a good reason.

[Oleksandr]

Are environmental regulations bad under all circumstances?

Try using any village's well as a toilet. You will quickly be shown that it is environmentally regulated. For a good reason.

Not regulated. Owned. Private property for the win.

[Calthrop]

I have 8 years working experience at a hazardous waste recycling facility, and my view on government seems to be different from most. I view government as a means for people to organize their protection against universal threats. Whether that be protecting their individual rights via basic education and courts, from foreign governments via diplomats and the military, from criminals via the police and prisons, or from pollution via regulations and regulatory bodies. With my job experience I can tell you first-hand that there are some big flaws in how the US regulations for hazardous materials are determined, written, and enforced. I still view regulations as necessary to protect myself and my fellow citizens. As a side point, the regulatory bodies are not just in charge of enforcement, but also research into the hazards materials can pose. This research is another necessity to ensure that citizens are truly being protected. It could be argued that pollution is not a universal threat. However after taking a look at all the potentially hazardous materials under my sink and around my house, and looking at the ways pollution could reduce the amount of time Earth can viably support life; I conclude that pollution is a universal threat.

[Oleksandr]

This question should be what is the only role of a government (protection of individual rights) and then what are individual rights.

As an aside, Calthrop, what is your moral basis for taking away property from some to protect others from some flood?

[Calthrop]

I'm not well versed on dams and didn't mention them in my post, but I thought that land was purchased in the area of the dam before construction. I do not support force majeure.

Edit: After rereading my initial post again, I think I get where you were going with the flood thing. When I say US regulations have big flaws I mean Seriously Big Flaws, and force majeure is just one of them.