Rep. John Duncan’s recent column, How Environmentalists Destroy Small Towns,received a torrent of comments, mostly opposed to the assertions in his title. As a long time analyst of EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) actions with many articles on the subject at Reason.com, I’d like to redress some of their comments and questions, namely specific examples of extreme environmentalists’ excesses.
Those of us steeped in scientists’ and economists’ questions and challenges to Obama’s EPA job destruction can easily forget that most Americans, especially in large cities, are unaware—perhaps blissfully—of such controversies. Instead they are constantly exposed to government and big media disinformation. I wrote earlier of a typical example, a New York Times headline stating that rising sea levels were causing a decline in seaside property values. Deep in the article’s text, however, one learns that it was the decline in government subsidies for waterfront property insurance that was causing value declines.
As terrorism threats grew I became especially alarmed at the EPA’s false information about the danger of nuclear radiation at tiny, infinitesimal levels. They would have meant a panic evacuation of half a city for a “dirty bomb” which really would only contaminate a few dozen yards in the direction of a blast. My writings and those at Forbes.com finally helped trigger a Government Accounting Office order to EPA to correct its threat levels. At Fukushima some 1,600 people died from the panicked Japanese government evacuation following old EPA guidelines. Actual deaths from radiation even including all the emergency workers were “zero.”
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