Poorly Devised Regulation Lets Firms Pollute With Abandon (economist.com) 60
Athletes don't get advance warning of drug tests. Police don't share schedules of planned raids. Yet America's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not seem convinced of the value of surprise in deterring bad behaviour [the link may be paywalled]. From a report: Every year it publishes a list of dates, spaced at six-day intervals, on which it will require state and local agencies to provide data on concentrations of harmful fine particulate matter (PM2.5), such as soot or cement dust. In theory, such a policy should enable polluters to spew as much filth into the air as they like 83% of the time, and clean up their act every sixth day. However, this ill-advised approach does offer one silver lining: it lets economists measure how much businesses change their behaviour when the proverbial parents are out of town.
A new paper by Eric Zou of the University of Oregon makes use of satellite images to spy on polluters at times when they think no one is watching. NASA, America's space agency, publishes data on the concentration of aerosol particles -- ranging from natural dust to man-made toxins -- all around the world, as seen from space. For every day in 2001-13, Mr Zou compiled these readings in the vicinity of each of America's 1,200 air-monitoring sites. Although some stations provided data continuously, 30-50% of them sent reports only once every six days. For these sites, Mr Zou studied how aerosol levels varied based on whether data would be reported. Sure enough, the air was consistently cleaner in these areas on monitoring days than it was the rest of the time, by a margin of 1.6%. Reporting schedules were almost certainly the cause: in areas where stations were retired, average pollution levels on monitoring days promptly rose to match the readings on non-monitoring days.
A new paper by Eric Zou of the University of Oregon makes use of satellite images to spy on polluters at times when they think no one is watching. NASA, America's space agency, publishes data on the concentration of aerosol particles -- ranging from natural dust to man-made toxins -- all around the world, as seen from space. For every day in 2001-13, Mr Zou compiled these readings in the vicinity of each of America's 1,200 air-monitoring sites. Although some stations provided data continuously, 30-50% of them sent reports only once every six days. For these sites, Mr Zou studied how aerosol levels varied based on whether data would be reported. Sure enough, the air was consistently cleaner in these areas on monitoring days than it was the rest of the time, by a margin of 1.6%. Reporting schedules were almost certainly the cause: in areas where stations were retired, average pollution levels on monitoring days promptly rose to match the readings on non-monitoring days.
Money Doesn't Care About The Environment. (Score:4, Informative)
With all the crap they dump in the rivers and oceans and the air, it seems obvious that money is more important than our Earth.
This is just more bullshit that allows this poisoning.
Same as it ever was.
Re:Money Doesn't Care About The Environment. (Score:5, Insightful)
So make the money care. Stop letting them externalize their costs. Every industry. Every product. Priced to account for their true and total costs.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck with that.
The system of government and corporations are too corrupt to let that happen. Politicians make sure of it.
The politicians were voted in by the population, so it is obvious no one cares.
Re: (Score:3)
They don't hope they will be corrupt, they know they will be corrupt.
They just hope that they will be less corrupt than the guy they didn't vote for.
Re: (Score:3)
Yep! Capitalism doesn't care about the environment. Capitalism is a self optimizing system of resource allocation, and it only cares about generating profit in ever increasing amounts. The environment is the care of the general public, and the interest of the general public is supposed to be represented by their duly elected government. A while back we allowed capitalism to begin pulling government strings through special interest lobby groups and bottomless dark money campaign contributions. If we want gov
Re: (Score:2)
Many companies only Privatize the Profits and Socialize the Losses.
https://www.investopedia.com/t... [investopedia.com]
Environmental compliance generates no profit. So its treated as a loss. So the taxpayer pays.
Life is hard, it's harder if you're stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
The companies profits do not typically go to shareholders* at all as suggested by your link. Generally most
Take the power put of power (Score:3)
While I want the same thing you do in the his respect, I've noticed something.
US $20 bills are, of course, money. These days, money most often means a debit or credit card. Monopoly "money" is of course not money, outside of the game. Why not? What *is* the defining feature of money? What makes one thing money and another thing not money?
Monopoly money isn't money (outside of the game). because you can't spend it to *get what you want*. $20 bills are money because they are the ability to get someone to ma
To rephrase (Score:3)
Perhaps I should rephrase that.
$100 indicates an amount of influence you can have - with $100 you can get them to do $100 worth of stuff.
$1,000 can get people to give you more stuff or do more stuff than $10 can.
So we can say:
Money is a way to *measure* influence a person has. Money is measurement of the ability to get what you want.
Politics, in the other hand, is exercise of Influence. A politician can get people to do things, first by campaigning, then by passing a law.
Money : a measurement of influence
Po
Re: (Score:2)
I see your point about the semantics of the phrasing. I agree, it can seem counterintuitive to attempt to reduce the influence of money on government. As you pointed out, money can be thought of as a way to measure available influence, and government is the exercise of influence.
The crux of the issue here is the type of government we're agreeing to live within. How the decisions are being made, not how we execute on those decisions.
If we agree that money (influence) is the only input that should really matt
Re: (Score:2)
I don't disagree with you.
Your post used the word "should" a couple of times. One of the most common ways to fail in great quest like this is to get sloppy about the difference between SHOULD and IS. Perhaps Kim Kardashian's Instagram SHOULD NOT have influence; she's paid $400,000 to post something because it DOES have influence. We must operate in the realm of what is - in the world where what Kardashian says has more influence than what an economics professor says.
As bizarre as this world is, if we igno
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When I buy a burger I'm exercising influence but not engaging in politics. When I post this message I'm utilizing influence but not utilizing money and in this case not utilizing politics.
The same can be said of your previous definitions using power. One is not saying they want to keep the power out of power, they are saying they want
Re: (Score:2)
> When I post this message I'm utilizing influence but not utilizing money and in this case not utilizing politics.
I would say that these types of posts are one of the most important parts of American politics. If your post is attempting to influence those who read it to support certain policy, that's politics.
You didn't directly spend or get money, perhaps (other than the "time is money" thing). Perhaps. We know that organizations DO pay people to make posts supporting their policy. Sometimes people in
Re: (Score:2)
I hate to break it to you, but this has nothing to do with Capitalism, as every other type of economy cares nothing more for the environment. Socialism is famously bad for the environment, and Feudalism was never concerned with the environment, so railing against Capitalism won't fix anything.
What is your alternative if we get rid of Capitalism for something that cares more about the environment?
Re: (Score:2)
That has nothing to do with economic system. As you can easily see if you look at USSR's environmental standards, or China's environmental standards.
Also, FYI, none of those "social democracies" are Socialist, they are, every one, Capitalist, so you have actually given examples that prove my point. Capitalism is not involved in environmentalism, so therefore is also not to blame. It has to do with the people, and their priorities, and how well the government listens to those priorities.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know that too many people voted for Trump, it was just that the alternatives were just as bad or worse.
Re: (Score:2)
Just set reasonable limits on these negative externalities, and then stand waaay back, and let the free market do its what it does best: determining what is most valuable.
Re: (Score:2)
But there's no way to enforce this. Federal agencies don't really have strong enforcement powers. They send strongly worded letters, and if they have the time and political backing they may sue some egregious violators. It'd be better if violating regulations were criminalized and local DAs could take people to court, but that's not how it works in the US.
Money doesn't seem to matter at all (Score:1)
With all the crap they dump in the rivers and oceans and the air, it seems obvious that money is more important than our Earth.
With only a 1.6% difference, that is not obvious at all.
In fact expending the effort to have technology and manpower to run it to tune the output per day by a deference of 1.6%, means they obviously are spending more on adjusting output than they would if they just kept output at a constant level.
Therefore; companies care neither about the Earth, nor about money, but instead all wor
Re: Money Doesn't Care About The Environment. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In the decades since the creation of the EPA, it's been watered down by all those legislators who think it was an unwarranted attack on freedumbs by that commie lover Nixon :-)
But practically speaking, most of these agencies are totally toothless anyway when it comes to enforcement. The only power they really have is to sue, and they don't have an infinite supply of lawyers. So they pick and choose which offenders to go after.
abandon (Score:3, Informative)
1.6% is not abandon
Re:abandon (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it's 7%, with a 1.6% margin of error.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it's 7%, with a 1.6% margin of error.
If so (and I can't access the article), then that is a terrible summary.
"Poorly devised" (Score:2)
This implies the regulations aren't working exactly as the politicians intended. They may be bad about stopping pollution, but you have to believe that's what the aim was to call them poorly devised.
Re: (Score:2)
How about rather than "intended", saying "as they claimed they would". In several cases that I cared enough about to look into the laws were actually written by the companies they were intended to regulate.
Same as food service inspections (Score:2)
And if they don't notify you ahead of time, a few bucks for a heads up, or to change anything to a lesser fault.
Just Bidness.
1.6% is not scary. But it proves the point. (Score:5, Informative)
Look, an extra 1.6% pollution is not enough to matter. This does prove that the problem exists, but is not enough to convince politicians to change their mind.
Instead they should be showing the worst case, not the average.
I.E. The lead smelter that has a 1.6% pollution problem on non-monitored days is not a big deal. But the copper mine that has a 23% increase on non-monitored days needs to have their management removed and replaced by the court.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
at a certain point, everything so polluted that life DIES. we're biting the hand that feeds us.
Without a warrant, Surprise is illegal. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I'm not sure about the law in every state. But, that is a bad correlation in the ones that I know.
Licensed businesses are subject to inspection by the licensing agency etc.: ex. restaurants, bars, mining, smelting, power plants, etc.
Many of those licenses carry requirements for minimizing pollution etc.
Re: (Score:1)
Larger businesses can make you have an appointment.
Re: (Score:1)
I specifically included mining, smelting, and power plants. Larger businesses might get a heads-up as we discussed, but that does not make it the law because it is not the law.
A lack of inspection & enforcement is a problem, but it is a management (budget?) problem.
Re: (Score:1)
https://supreme.justia.com/cas... [justia.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Since then, the Court has identified only four industries that qualify as “pervasively regulated”: (1) liquor sales, (2) firearms dealing, (3) running an automobile junkyard, and (4) mining.Mar 4, 2019, https://www.supremecourt.gov/D... [supremecourt.gov]
Read the last sentence you linked to (Score:2)
The holding in the case you linked to consists of five items.
E), the last sentence, is
"e) Requiring a warrant for OSHA inspections does not mean that, as a practical matter, warrantless search provisions in other regulatory statutes are unconstitutional, as the reasonableness of those provisions depends upon the specific enforcement needs and privacy guarantees of each statute."
Re: Without a warrant, Surprise is illegal. (Score:2)
So the pollution should be checked every day. No surprise for anyone, and the regulators will have daily data to work with.
Re: (Score:2)
Administrative law is somewhat different from criminal law. The criteria for "administrative probable cause" is much looser than criminal probable cause. The agency does not have to provide evidence of employer wrongdoing, they only have to show that the search serves a legally mandated regulatory purpose and is reasonable to achieve that purpose.
Non-surprise inspections are useless (Score:2)
They're intended to nudge the inspected into general compliance at best.
If you inspect anything and sincerely want to find out what's going on, you inspect without warning.
Re: Non-surprise inspections are useless (Score:2)
Wow. Who'd-a-thunk it? (Score:1)
Crazed push for "green no matter how", pulling money from anyone who'll cough up a buck.
And lack of attention as to what the regulation ACTUALLY says and does?
"Never Attribute to Malice..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity...
In this case, however, I find myself wondering if this really is stupidity, or whether malice played a role. There are two elements to consider:-
1. Was the EPA regulation written tightly enough to ensure that testing would not be susceptible to manipulation by the regulated entities being tested?
2. Have the operational activities of the EPA followed the letter and spirit of the law, to ensure that environmental protections remain in force and effective?
This might be particularly relevant. When Louis DeJoy was placed in charge of the USPS, he ordered the deactivation, removal and destruction of unique, custom-made sorting machines; banned overtime; insisted that drivers leave depots "on the second", even if they were told that a parcel of mail would be with them momentarily [thereby causing that mail to arrive a day late]. In short, a man who worked for a direct competitor of the USPS, used his position of authority to ram through a whole host of changes which, with hindsight, destroyed the USPS from within. These changes are established, uncontested fact: the negative impact of the changes on USPS performance is a matter of public record.
Meanwhile, the changes introduced under the last Administration at the EPA were even more damaging. The federal government rolled back more than 100 environmental rules: we pulled out of the Paris Climate agreement, loosened regulations on toxic air pollution, rescinded rules on methane-flaring, weakened fuel economy rules - and then went after California when the state had the temerity to say that no, they wanted clean air, thank you very much..., increased logging on public lands, and dropped climate change from a list of national security threats. See here [nationalgeographic.com] and here [nytimes.com] for details.
So whilst I'd like to live by the maxim of "never attribute to malice..." I find it impossible to believe that this "poorly devised regulation" is happening by chance. This is malice. This is a handful of industrialists, who have second homes on Hawaii or in New Zealand or somewhere, cheerfully cranking out the pollution to make themselves richer, all while the country [literally] burns.
Disgusting.
It not poor regulation, it's intensional (Score:5, Informative)
Industry lobbyists get to congress and upper level politically appointed bureaucrats and whine about "regularity burden" and "free enterprise" and "market forces". They have access to the regulations before the rules are finalized and "suggest changes". It's common that lobbyists actually provide the regulatory text which is written by industry itself. This is standard practice.
It's no wonder that regulation is a joke. The laws are bought and paid for.
A case happening right now: Ohio’s largest corruption case [energynews.us]
First Energy has plead guilty and Householder, the former CEO and the head of the Ohio Public Utilities commission have all been indicted along with others.
Also corruption of the system (Score:2)
The corporatists have cut budgets for support staff in every government so the politicians MUST rely upon outside help just to do their job. It gets hardly a mention since we end up distracted by how agencies are understaffed and underfunded to perform their jobs in addition to the occasional traitors appointed to management, or captured by industry blackmail / bribes... with the last resort being major attacks leading to booting a truly competent effective leader. Those types are often stopped before eve
Intermittent or continuous? (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in the air monitoring field and have done a good bit of work measuring VOC and methane emissions at a range of industrial sites. While many facilities don't have a 6-day monitoring schedule, I can say with certainty that many major emitters are unable to modulate their emissions with regularity at that period. What they WILL do, though is adjust maintenance and repair timelines around the inspection days. Those relatively rare activities can strongly modulate the emissions. Need to replace a gas compressor seal? That requires a blowdown with high emissions, but your flare will be off for a day, so schedule the blowdown for the day before inspection. Need to flare off something during maintenance? Just don't do it on inspection day. That sort of schedule adjustment could easily change overall emissions by a few percent.
I see two solutions to this: randomized inspections or continuous fenceline monitoring. I lean toward the latter as the best solution, since from an air emissions perspective we're starting to realize that sparse super emitters and rare super emission events are responsible for a large fraction of emission budgets. Randomized inspections won't capture that as well as continuous monitoring. Depending on the pollutants there are some cheap, low power monitors out there, but I think it will be awhile before that approach becomes a standard for regulatory activity.
I knew a guy who climbed stacks (Score:2)
I knew a guy who climbed stacks for the EPA in order to drop a probe down them. Literally 100% of suspected violators were producing excessive emissions. Literally 0% of them were fined enough to make it unprofitable.
The EPA clearly works for corporations more than it works for The People.
Re: (Score:2)
I recall something about a similar situation, where the daily fine for dumping etc was say $10,000 but hte daily cost of doing it the right way was $15,000. The business decision? Dump and pay the fine, it is cheaper ...
Location location location (Score:1)
The location of the monitoring stations is also suspect. I went to Boston University which is a city campus. Kenmore Square is a confluence of several roads all with a great deal of traffic particularly during rush hour and Red Sox games. There's a monitoring station placed right in the middle of that mess so the results are likely to be skewed. Sure, you can argue that you would correct for that but how do you really know if you're correcting for it correctly if you don't have additional monitoring sta
God is watching (Score:2)
And on the 7th day... the cement plant rested.