2011

Communities all over the country feel that their hands are tied with one-size-fits-all DC Brand Red Tape. The rules and regulations prevent them from doing what is best for their specific circumstances. The situation has escalated to the point where elected officials are now taking charge to do what is local and logical.

What took place this weekend in the rural New Mexico town of Cloudcroft could become the model for all who want to cut the red tape. Hundreds of people were at what is being called the “Otero County Tree Party” in support of realigning the federal government and putting them back where they belong.

Ten years ago, the New Mexico State Legislature passed SB1, which was signed into law by then-governor Gary Johnson. The legislature overwhelmingly voted for it, believing that it was a necessity borne out of “Uncontrollable, but preventable wildfires, and unresponsive federal agencies.” The Forest Service’s (USFS) inaction to reduce or remove the fuel buildup put “the lives and property of the citizens of New Mexico” at risk.

SB1 exerted local sovereignty over public lands. But it had never been tested.

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Former Senator Malcolm Wallop died on Wednesday, September 14, after a debilitating illness that had confined him to his home near Big Horn, Wyoming for several years. He is survived by his wife, Isabel, and four children and their families.

Malcolm was a hero of mine long before I knew him, and so it was a great privilege to work for him after he retired from the Senate in 1995 and to become his friend.  After I worked for Malcolm and got to know him, I admired him even more. I loved working for him, as I expect all of his Senate staffers did. He was unfailingly polite and considerate, intellectually engaging, and entirely positive. Malcolm had a healthy sense of his own worth, but entirely lacked the swollen head that afflicts many Senators.

When Malcolm defeated a Democratic incumbent in 1976 (not a good year for Republicans), he came to Washington as an uncompromising Cold Warrior, but as somewhat moderate on many domestic issues. While many conservatives tend to drift toward the center after a few years in Washington (which is variously described as growing in office or selling out), he was so appalled by how Washington works that he rapidly became a hardcore conservative across the board.  He joined an extraordinary group of mostly Western conservatives in the Senate, a group which included Bill Armstrong, Steve Symms, Paul Laxalt, Phil Gramm, and Jesse Helms.

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Many influential opinion-makers, including former Vice President Al Gore, contend that President Barack Obama last week rolled back the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed ozone regulation due to reasons of political expediency.

To me, this mainstream thinking makes sense. The rule likely would have put virtually the whole of the country into non-attainment of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone, and compliance costs would have been obscene. This being the campaign silly season, it stands to reason that the President didn’t want to be perceived by voters as kicking a down economy

At the New York Times website, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has challenged this conventional wisdom. According to Krugman, Al Gore and his ilk are way off-base, because the ozone rule, far from being an economic depressant, is actually an economic stimulus.

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In a previous post, I explained how the Environmental Protection Agency seems to have designed the recently finalized Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to be uniquely onerous for Texas. I wrote,

Texas was excluded from the proposed [Cross-State] rule. In the final rule, however, Texas was included, due to the supposed need to slightly reduce emissions as monitored 500 miles away in Madison County, Ill.—a locale that meets the EPA air-quality standards in question. The EPA ordered the Lone Star State to reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions 47 % within 6 months, despite the fact that it takes 3 years to install sulfur “scrubber” retrofits on coal-fired power plants.

Luminant, the largest merchant power producer in Texas, called the EPA’s timeline “unprecedented” and “impossible.” It suggested that the only way to achieve the reductions, and thereby avoid costly penalties, would be to shut down power production.

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