“Fifty years after the enactment of the Clean Water Act, its reach is clear as mud,” writes Jonathan Wood, introducing an amicus brief for a Supreme Court case. The Court has agreed to hear a case claiming that the federal interpretation of the “waters of the United States” (known to environmental specialists as WOTUS) is…
Search Results for: water
To the New York Times: No, Bottled Water Is Not Sucking Florida Dry
Florida has a water problem that is revealing something very self-destructive about environmental groups and science journalism. Case in point, the September 15 New York Times article by Michael Sainato and Chelsea Skojec headlined, “Bottled Water Is Sucking Florida Dry.”
The water bottler, of course, is the Swiss multi-national company Nestlé. The opinion piece jumps on the bandwagon whose riders have for decades ballyhooed Nestlé as the archetypal evil corporation. Says the article’s subtitle: “The state’s aquifers are shrinking, yet corporations want to appropriate even more of them.”
The Times’ writers egregiously omit the most important facts while larding the piece with innuendo and misleading or untrue but self-serving statements. Example: “The state and local governments have continued to issue water bottling extraction permits that prevent the aquifer from recharging.” Is it quibbling to note that the aquifers do recharge, but apparently not 100 percent? More seriously, it’s simply false to say the bottling of water prevents the full recharge since bottled water is about 1 percent or less of total extraction.
What Went Wrong with the Obama-Era “Waters” Rule?
In his new PERC policy paper, R. David Simpson reports on his experience reviewing the cost-benefit analysis of an Obama-era regulation defining “WOTUS.” (In Washington lingo, that is “waters of the United States.”) Simpson, an economist formerly with the Environmental Protection Agency, expresses regret that he did not press harder to improve the EPA’s cost-benefit analysis of the rule, issued in 2015. The rule was designed to extend the federal government’s jurisdiction over U.S. waters under the Clean Water Act, bringing relatively isolated streams and wetlands under government regulation.
Interesting Links . . .
- No new gas stations in Los Angeles?
- Canada’s “Zero-Plastic Waste 2030” program will cost $13 billion (Canadian dollars), gain only $619 million benefit, says Fraser Institute’s Ken Green.
- Australian Scientists Discover Styrofoam-eating “superworm.”
- Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that would define “waters of the United States” for EPA regulatory purposes.
- Why does electricity usage go down? Income inequality, says Resources for the Future.
- Ford trying to get more congressional support for electric vehicles, says the Washington Post.
Stanford’s New Sustainability School Gets Heat for Welcoming Funds from Fossil Fuel Companies
John Doerr, a venture capitalist who made billions of dollars in the tech industry, is giving $1.1 billion to Stanford University to set up a school for sustainability. It is the largest-ever gift to Stanford. Wrote David Gelles in the New York Times: “The school, to be known as the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability,…
Should We Even Try to Recycle Plastics?
Pressuring plastic producers to recycle their products has gone on for decades. But two writers at the Atlantic have now concluded, “Plastic recycling does not work and will never work.” In the U.S. in 2021 only 5 percent of all post-consumer plastic was recycled. Furthermore, they say that the plastic producers deny this and those denials…