[cfiggers]

In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated.

Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be forcefully rejected.

Regulations are not people, and they don't have rights. It is fair and reasonable to demand that environmental regulation justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data or else get chopped. Clearly, banning leaded gasoline has that kind of justification, and therefore I'm strongly in favor of maintaining that ban and extending it wherever it isn't in place yet. The same reasonable standard should be applied to other regulations across the board.

[breakyerself]

Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated.

The worst environmental crisis in human history is going largely unchecked. I find it hard to take seriously any argument that environmental regulation has gone too far as opposed to not nearly far enough.

If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good I'm cool with revisiting anything, but the common sense wisdom around environmental regulation has been corrupted by corporate public relations campaigns.

[an_account]

CEQA in California is very often used to block apartments in existing urban areas.

So, instead, California continues to mostly build single family housing sprawl into natural habitats.

A clear example of environmental regulation hurting the environment and the climate. And of course the affordability of housing.

[colechristensen]

>Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated.

Ok, strong example here: the long term efforts to stop forest fires caused build up of fuel that should have burned up in small fires which then instead burned up ecosystems which evolved for small forest fires and instead were destroyed in large ones.

That's a well intentioned environmental policy that had terrible effects.

Fuel efficiency programs with the goal of reducing emissions with exceptions for work vehicles killed small trucks and meant a ton of people who do approximately 0 work drive around enormous vehicles that were designed big to match the exception criteria.

That's another one.

Ethanol to replace gasoline is also an enormous negative consequence waste that started as an environmental program.

Things don't just work because you want them to and programs aren't automatically right because of what they intend to do.

Far too many people argue for things they don't understand at all because of the surface intention of them and treat discussion about them blasphemy. (I chose uncontroversial negative examples because I don't want to get sidetracked into arguments about my examples with zealots)

[nokcha]

I'd argue that environmental regulations that impede building modern nuclear power plants to replace coal power plants are net harmful. Nuclear power safety has advanced a lot since Chernobyl.

[davidw]

There's certainly some "environmentalism" out there that's using the banner of the environment for other ends.

Here's one example: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-02/california-...

I mostly agree with you, but it is worth paying attention to the details.

[BurningFrog]

CEQA is pretty universally considered a disaster.

The alternative is not to have no environmental regulation. California could copy the regulations of any of the 49 other states and be much better off.

[stinkbeetle]

The unscientific regulation, and in some countries bans or practical stoppages and embargoes on approvals and research, of nuclear power under the guise of saving the environment has been probably the most environmentally destructive initiative ever to come about, and the largest self-imposed contributor to "the worst environmental crisis in human history". The coal industry loves it though.

Needless to say, I disagree with your assessment. Every [action by governments and bureaucrats] is motivated by the desire for personal gain or to perpetuate the power of the state or both.

Environmental regulation, workers rights, drilling for oil in Alaska, making up stories about WMDs to invade Iraq, domestic spying are all fruit of the same tree. Don't let them fool you, the good of these things is never the primary goal, and in many cases does not even exist. And "environmental regulation" is a big culprit.

[gwbas1c]

> If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good

In Massachusetts you can't clear shoreline. Specifically, if you buy waterfront property on a pond / lake, you can't clear the shoreline to make a beach in your backyard. You can only use what used to be there before the law was passed. There's even restrictions on building close to shorelines, so if you want to build, you need to find an existing building and renovate.

Now, I'm not a wetland expert, so maybe someone will chime in and tell me why every inch of freshwater shoreline must be undisturbed. But I like freshwater swimming and suspect that we can allocate some space for human recreation.

[LorenPechtel]

You are acting as if they are somehow equal. Unfortunately, environmental regulations have three huge problems:

1) They become political. Rules are made (or not made) to appeal to voting blocks rather than by evaluating the science.

2) There is a strong tendency not to destroy that which exists. By any reasonable standard coal filed powerplants should not exist.

3) (Could be considered part of #2) There is a strong tendency to look at risks in isolation rather than in the marketplace. We should not be aiming to make industries as safe as practical, we should be aiming to make the outcome as safe as possible. These are very different things! The extreme example of this is electricity. Coal is ~10x as dangerous as oil which is ~10x as dangerous as natural gas which is ~10x as dangerous as nuclear. The risk to society is measured in deaths (or other harm) per terawatt-hour, not by whether any given generator is as safe as it reasonably can be.

[lacunary]

what kind of common sense wisdom are we talking about here, can you give an example? understanding the impact of regulation designed to impact both the environment and the economy, two incredibly complex systems our experts are only beginning to understand, isn't generally a matter of common sense

[busterarm]

How do you explain the bug up its ass that the EPA has about auto racing?

[coob]

Nah some environmental regulation is batshit.

Literally, in the UK you can’t build if there’s a protected bat species in the area.

[loeg]

Except, you know, NEPA.

[throwway120385]

It's really easy to sit and demand evidence before regulating something. But consider that if we waited for hard evidence to accumulate before banning lead in gasoline, we likely never would have banned it because the hard evidence wouldn't exist.

I also don't agree on the principle that regulations are "harmful" or "helpful." Rather, you have to define who the regulation harms, and who it helps. For example antitrust enforcement harms shareholders and some employees of very large firms, but it helps many employees and arguably improves the landscape for competition between many smaller firms. So whether a regulation is preferable comes down to values.

In the case of leaded gas, it harms basically everybody, but it helps fuel companies, so it was an easy thing to change.

[rayiner]

We had research to support the EPA phase down of lead.

Also, your assertion that lead “helps fuel companies” is fundamentally mistaken. Gasoline is a mass-produced commodity. Oil companies have single digit profit margins. These companies aren’t making Big Tech profit margins where they can absorb higher costs without passing them along to consumers. Cost savings from things like gasoline additives accrue to consumers at the gas pump.

[Hikikomori]

>It's really easy to sit and demand evidence before regulating something. But consider that if we waited for hard evidence to accumulate before banning lead in gasoline, we likely never would have banned it because the hard evidence wouldn't exist.

We already knew lead was toxic before we started putting it in gasoline. Even the guy that invented it got sick from exposure and people died from exposure in their plants in the first years of operation. The problem is that we somehow require evidence that something is unsafe but don't require any evidence that its safe in the first place.

[colechristensen]

So we should legislate evidence free based on the vibes of whichever tribe is currently in power?

We're doomed.

[AdamN]

Basically everybody agrees with what you're saying which is what makes this an insidious comment.

In general the pressure against regulation comes from narrow winners (oil industry for instance) whereas the pressure for regulations generally comes from people focused on the greater good (even if they are misled by other narrow winners, for instance compliance firms).

[gosub100]

There are valid reasons to oppose regulations. They can be used to create barriers of entry for small businesses, for example. They constantly affect the poor more than the middle class.

[andychase]

Note that the current administration closed its research and science office.

https://www.science.org/content/article/blow-environment-epa...

[rayiner]

Lead is a textbook example of a good regulation. It’s something where the industry was doing something very harmful-aerosolizing lead and pumping it into the air—which had quite small economic benefits and was relatively easily replaced.

Some regulation achieves this kind of improvement, and we’re probably under regulated in those areas. Particulate matter, for example, is extremely harmful. But many regulations do not have such clear cut costs and benefits.

[cassepipe]

Can you tell more about particulate matter ? You mean small particles in the air right, so air pollution right ?

[GeoAtreides]

>was relatively easily replaced.

It wasn't easily replaced. For many decades there weren't any alternatives for anti-knock additives.

[FatherOfCurses]

It should be uncontroversial that introducing shit into an environment where it doesn't belong is a bad idea, yet many people remain unconvinced that dumping tons of carbon dioxide a year into the atmosphere or tons of fertilizer by-products into the oceans is a bad idea.

[nxm]

It's less that but rather the hypocrisy of promoting burdensome regulations and bans implemented in one county (e.g. Germany) which hurts domestic industry and raises costs for its citizens, all while being silent on countries like China and India continuing to massively build more and more coal fired power plants

[recursive]

You've just shifted the disagreement into a debate about whether the particular shit does or does not belong in the particular place.

[mktk1001]

Who is proposing for environment regulation without proper scientific evidence? You both sided the argument without giving any claims about environment regulation that turned out to be not helpful.

[cfiggers]

Are you aware of scientific evidence that supports mandating paper drinking straws?

[lingrush4]

Maybe ten comments below you there is someone stating "environmental regulations are a win."

No qualifiers whatsoever. All environmental regulations are good as far as this person is concerned.

[lo_zamoyski]

> It is fair and reasonable to demand that environmental regulation justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data or else get chopped.

This sounds good as a general default, but there are differences of approach. The US, for example, tends to be more permissive with new chemicals while the EU tends to take a more precautionary approach. Which is better on the whole, weighing the various competing goods, I don't know. I generally favor health over economic prowess, however.

> a manipulative political maneuver

Yes, under the pretext of concern for the environment. There are well-known cases where the political opposition will commission a bogus ecological studies to stifle construction projects they either don't agree with or as a petty way to simply make the ruling party appear less successful. And naturally, the ecological study will find something, as virtually no major construction project will leave the environment unaltered, which is not to say seriously or irretrievable damaged.

[ZeroGravitas]

Your tone suggests you think they are generally not based on science and given cost benefit analysis. Probably a reflection of your media intake.

In 1981 Reagan made cost benefit analysis a requirement for EPA.

For example in 1984: the EPA " estimates that the benefits of reducing lead in gasoline would exceed the costs by more than 300 percent.... These benefits include improved health of children and others"

Trump has just scrapped the requirement to cost in human health.

I wonder if removing lead would meet the new standard.

[LorenPechtel]

Reagan got it half right. The problem is the cost of figuring out the cost/benefit doesn't get considered.

[tracerbulletx]

That's why the people that would rather policy be based on their personal interests work so hard to discredit all data and the scientific method so that you can't even have that conversation.

[wat10000]

This sounds nice, but in the context of actual politics it's completely meaningless.

It's like saying that some people are dangerous criminals who need to be locked up, and other people are upstanding citizens who should be free to live their lives. Everybody would agree with this. The disagreement is in how you sort people. What category encompasses someone who belongs to the opposing political party? That sort of thing.

Regulation should definitely be justified by scientific data. Who gets to determine what's enough? Who gets to determine what counts? Leaded gasoline is a great example. It was pretty well understood when it was introduced that lead was hazardous and dumping a bunch of it into the atmosphere was unwise. But this was evaded, denied, and suppressed for decades.

Even today, it's not settled. Lead is still used in aviation gasoline in the US. It's being phased out, but it's been in the process of phasing out for a couple of decades and there seems to be no urgency in it.

You'll find plenty of people disagreeing with pretty clearly beneficial environmental regulations because in their view those regulations are not supported by the data. They would completely agree with your statement, while saying that pollution from coal power plants is no big deal, climate change is a myth, etc.

[tjohns]

There definitely is urgency to phase out leaded aviation gasoline. The FAA is proposing that we phase it out by 2030 - just 4 years from now - even though we still haven't agreed on which of the 3 competing gas blends to standardize on, the pumping infrastructure only exists at a small number of airports, and even though there's still open concerns about them causing engine damage.

They just published a draft version of the transition plan here: https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/draft_docs/draft_unleaded_avgas...

[wolvoleo]

Yes when I was flying I really hated having to walk around in lead fumes :( The problem is the whole GA industry stopped innovating the single engine piston market. The engines we used were literally from the 1950s. But nobody cares about certifying modern engines because it's so costly.

Only in the ultralight market they have some newer ones that can run on normal unleaded car gas because regulations are much lighter. In this case I do really think the regulations are holding back innovation and environment.

[soperj]

> while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated.

Prove it.

[cfiggers]

I have proven it to my own satisfaction. It's a pretty trivial proof. I'm sure you could derive your own, if you tried.

How's this: if, at some point, it seems to me that your agreement would benefit me or advance something I care about, I promise I'll consider trying to convince you.

[Ma8ee]

It is fair and reasonable to demand that releasing a substance with new and unknown effects into the environment justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data that it is safe, or else get chopped.

I think people's health is more important than corporate profits. If corporations played fair, I'd be more tempted to agree with your formulation than with mine, but history has shown that that isn't the case. Take a current example like PFAS, where as soon there is enough evidence to prohibit one variety because it is harmful, the industry just starts using a very similar one that the legislature hasn't had time to collect evidence against.

[cfiggers]

I don't disagree at all in principle with what you're saying.

And, some people think that over-regulation on the insecticide use of DDT (which, to be perfectly fair is a nasty chemical and pretty much confirmed carcinogen, also was having negative effects on birds who were eating the poisoned insects and thereby getting unintended higher doses of the stuff) directly facilitated a rebound in mosquito populations in Africa, downstream from that a rebound in mosquito-borne malaria, and downstream from that a death toll debatably as bad or worse in terms of loss of human life than might've been had DDT use been more controlled and less banned outright.

Or think about how the banning of sulfur from cargo ship fuel in 2020 led to an 80% decrease in SO2 emissions... which is great for cutting harmful pollution around ports and such... But caused a measurable RISE in global temperatures because the sulfate aerosols had been reflecting sunlight off of the atmosphere, delaying global warming.

I don't know man, I don't have all the answers and I'm not trying to shill for mustache-twirlingly evil corporations who would turn us all into Soylent Green if it meant ten basis points more profit this quarter. I am just saying that there's gotta be a balance, and we have to recognize that there's no automatic, turn-your-brain-off safe side to default to. We always need science to verify that what we thought would happen happened, and that nothing we didn't intend to happen did, and in cases where the unforseen second-order effects should cause us to revisit the policy decisions we've made, even if just to revise and improve them rather than completely reverse course, we should actually do that rather than let political momentum override scientific validation and feedback.

[enaaem]

It's better to over regulate than under regulate, if you look at it in terms of utility. The damage of under regulation can be catastrophic, like people getting cancer or irreversible loss of species. Based on examples I read here, overregulation is much easier to solve. For example, the weaponisation of environmental regulation to block new development is a political problem not a technical one, which is solvable if people really want to.

[anigbrowl]

Aren't you just waving a flag for less regulation by rushing to align yourself with this inarguable example of regulatory success? Rather than discussing the issue of what impact lead had, or how we might apply this longitudinal method to other other problems (making hair archives into a general environmental data resource), or develop longitudinal methods in general, You've chosen to issue a clarion calla gainst 'bad regulation'.

Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be forcefully rejected.

....nobody was arguing this. It's a classic straw man fallacy. Further, you're leveraging a lot of emotional terms while providing zero examples, inviting potential sympathetic readers to just project their feelings onto any regulations they happen to dislike rather than establish any sort of objective criteria or lay out any map/model of regulatory credibility that could be subject to challenge or criticism.

[cfiggers]

I'm not rushing anywhere or arguing for or against anything at all in concrete detail. I'm trying to refuse the "all or nothing" fallacy that, yes, some people are arguing, and no, is not a straw man (you can see sincere examples of that viewpoint expressed in this very thread).

If I'm doing anything (and I'm self-consciously and intentionally doing next to nothing here), it is suggesting or reaffirming an extremely basic rational grid that, in my opinion, ought to apply across all aisles as universal, table-stakes context within which people who disagree with one another can try to reach rational, reality-informed compromise.

If I'm issuing any clarion call, it is this and only this:

Some environmental regulation is good, and some environmental regulation is bad, and we should use science to figure out which is which and then legislate based on the best good-faith interpretation of that science that we have access to.

That's it. Re-read my parent comment, if you don't believe me. That's literally all it says.

The reflexive contrary reaction, in this thread, against what I see as an extremely mild proposal justifies the (frankly quite minimal) effort I made in articulating it. This is not a universally accepted starting point for public policy discourse, though I think it should be (which is why I said so, in so many words).

Rational people, like both you and me I hope, have to voice this perspective and insist upon its acceptance and application if it is to survive the political polarization we're enduring as a society right now.

[MisterTea]

> while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated.

Which "other" regulations are harmful and what harm are they doing?

[Braxton1980]

>Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be forcefully rejected.

I'm aware of political parties and politicians who make statements similar to "We have too many regulations" or "stop big government" I'm not aware of opposite.

[cfiggers]

You've never heard a politician say, "When I'm Mayor/Governor/President, we're going to make [x] [stop/start] doing [y]"?

[nayuki]

> some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated

You're right. Off the top of my head, the stupidest environmental regulation I can think of right now is the banning of plastic straws. It's such a minuscule amount of plastic used compared to the mountains of bags and packaging used in general commerce and industry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting our environment. I just believe in evidence-based policy and setting priorities correctly. After all, money, labor, and attention are finite resources.

[css_apologist]

give me an example of EPA regulation that needs to be eliminated

[epistasis]

> In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated.

This would be a reasonable centrist opinion, if there existed environmental regulations that do more harm than good!

Actually, I do know of one, in California, that does both harm and good and the harmful parts need to be reigned in. CEQA in California was expanded by courts after it was passed to cover all sorts of things that weren't intended by the authors. CEQA is not so much an "environmental" law as it is a "perform some massive studies law" as it doesn't really regulate anything in particular.

Mostly it serves as a route to use the courts to delay projects, largely housing in already-built-out areas. By delaying a project's approval with a court lawsuit for 2-3 years, the preliminary financing runs out, the cost of owning land without doing anything with it runs out, so projects can be scuttled without the validity of the lawsuit every being evaluated by courts.

Instead of this sort of legal courtroom process that takes long and indeterminate amounts of time, CEQA should be replaced with strict and very clear definitions of harm, or at least move the more subjective parts into a science-based regulatory body that provides answers an a short timeline that can not be dragged on indefinitely.

> Regulations are not people, and they don't have rights.

This is a very weird turn of the phrase "corporations aren't people," because there actually are highly influential politicians that made the case that corporations are people. Nobody is saying that regulations are people. That's silly.

The regulations we need to get rid of are not "environmental" regulations, they are "rent seeking" regulations that allow entrenched interests to prevent disruption by smaller interests. CEQA is not a problem because its an environmental regulation, it's a problem because it's a tool NIMBYs use to get results that are worse for the environment.

[LorenPechtel]

But you are showing an example of an improper regulation.

[loeg]

Put more broadly, we should, you know, enact good laws and repeal bad ones. No major political party has a monopoly on good, or bad, legislation.

[jcattle]

> It is fair and reasonable to demand that environmental regulation justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data or else get chopped

Here is a strawman for you: studies for regulation A show that it is successfull in improving habitat for endangered species. Studies also show that the regulation increases tax burden and decreases competitiveness of national agriculture.

Should the regulation be chopped?

[cfiggers]

Frankly, that's a question of values, not of process.

I'm not championing any particular set of values here (except, perhaps, that I'm implying the values of doing impartial science and of inclusive, rational public discourse).

I'm saying that public debate ought to be had to litigate that question, and that hard data should feature prominently in that debate. That is not something we'll do if we assume in either direction that "environmental regulation is always good" or "environmental regulation is always bad." I'm saying both kinds exist, and that apart from hard data we can't confidently know one from the other, which means we have to assess and re-assess. I'm not pre-registering an opinion on which side of any particular debate should win, or why I think that instead of the opposite.

[diego_moita]

> some environmental regulations work [...] while other [..] do more harm than good

You are (deliberately?) overlooking the elephant in the room: lobbies with money can distort the discussion.

Big tobacco knew for decades that smoking was bad but still managed to block restrictions in smoking. Oil companies knew lead was poisoning. Purdue knew Oxycontin was addicting. Facebook knows their product is toxic.