April 2006 Archives

Goklany explains that:

Nowadays pollutant concentrations, while measurable, are often below levels at which adverse health effects can be confidently identified and quantified. Thus regulatory agencies attempt to prove success (or failure) by measuring not health improvements but declines in pollutant levels (e.g., in the environment, blood or body). But the two are not identical; using the latter can seriously mislead. Consider, for instance, that asthma is one of the publicly offered rationales for controlling various air pollutants. Yet for much of the 1980s and 1990s air quality improved but mortality rates for asthma worsened (age-adjusted for the total population, and children under 15). Notwithstanding the divergence in these empirical trends, asthma still is part of the rhetoric (and rationale) advanced to control those pollutants.

... it is unlikely to prevail soon. Interest groups that have honed their ability to influence public policy through appeals to emotion and mastery of existing narrowly-conceived, emotion-driven, single purpose laws (rather than through dispassionate CBA) will not necessarily cooperate in overhauling the current system if that means ceding their comparative advantages in the public policy arena. Not surprisingly, regulatory reform efforts have largely been stalemated in Washington over the past decade. But if the regulatory reform stalemate is ever broken, Sunstein's outstanding treatise lights the way forward.

My hometown of Portland Oregon is often used as a shining example of how well "smart-growth" planning works. Planners, elected officials, and journalists from all over the world visit Portland to look at the light rail, the streetcar, transit-oriented development, and other ideas they want to implement in their cities.

From the inside looking out, however, Portland is not so attractive. Consider some of the events of the past few months:

• Last October, after nearly ten years of giving tax waivers to high-density housing projects, the Portland city council put a moratorium on tax breaks for such housing, saying they divert taxes from schools without really doing any good for the city
• In January, the idea of putting light rail on the city's downtown bus mall was widely criticized by, among others, bus drivers who say it will be very dangerous
• In February, ballot measure 37, which restored property rights to people whose land was regulated by the planners and which was supported by 61 percent of Oregon voters and a majority of voters in every county in the Portland area, is unanimously endorsed by Oregon's ultra-liberal Supreme Court
• Also in February, after going over budget by nearly 300 percent, an aerial tram under construction between a new high-density development and Oregon Health & Science Univeristy is widely acknowledged as not only a waste of money but simply an extension of the money previously wasted on light rail and streetcars, not to mention high-density housing that few really want
• In March the region's business leaders, from the owner of Powell's Bookstore to the president of the Port of Portland, agitate about the cost of congestion to Portland area industrial, commercial, and retail operations
• The upcoming city council election, to be held in May, has turned into a battle between public employees unions who resent the diversion of tax dollars from schools, fire, and police to light rail and high-density housing, and the remains of the "light-rail mafia" that was put together by former Portland mayor and Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt.

All of this suggests that the planners have lost their dominance over Oregon politics and that the consensus that once held Oregon's land-use planning system together is breaking down. The turning point may have been the revelation in 2004 that the previously revered Neil Goldschmidt had molested his 14-year-old babysitter when he was a 35-year-old mayor. This led to follow-up revelations that Goldschmidt had masterminded (and profited well by) no-bid contracts to construct light-rail lines and similar insider deals.

If the voters are perceptive, they will vote against anyone associated with Goldschmidt in the May election. Several candidates are challenging incumbents in the city's first experiment with "clean-money politics" (i.e., a system in which candidates who get $5 contributions from 1,000 people get $150,000 from taxpayers to finance their campaign). That experiment has also failed, as at least two candidates are strongly suspected of having forged numerous signatures from supposed $5 donors to qualify for the "clean money."

An excellent daily report of Portland politics can be found at Lewis & Clark law professor Jack Bogdanski's blog. Like most Portlanders, Bogdanski is well left of center, so his disgust with the planners is just one more sign that their reign is ending.

This Article is the first academic paper to systematically consider the environmental impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London and of economic development condemnations more generally. Kelo upheld “economic development� takings - condemnations that transfer property from one private owner to another solely on the ground that doing so might improve the local economy or increase tax revenue. The decision stands in sharp contrast to the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling in County of Wayne v. Hathcock, which forbade the use of eminent domain for economic development.

Part I briefly explains the rationales of the Kelo and Hathcock decisions and shows why a Hathcock-like ban on economic development takings is highly unlikely to impede environmental regulation or the use of eminent domain for legitimate conservation purposes. This doctrinal point is buttressed by empirical evidence indicating that none of the nine states with judicial bans on economic development takings have ever used such a ban to strike down the use of eminent domain for environmental or conservation purposes. Part II shows that economic development takings actually threaten environmental harm. Allowing the use of eminent domain for economic development poses a particular threat to private conservation lands and open space. Because land owned by conservation nonprofits produces few economic benefits and does not contribute to tax revenue, it is likely to be targeted by developers and local governments that use eminent domain to advance their development interests. Economic development takings can also damage the environment by promoting environmentally harmful development, undermining property rights, and furthering dubious development plans that sap community wealth and reduce resources available for environmental protection. In many situations, economic development takings end up giving us the worst of both worlds: they cause environmental harm and reduce economic growth by transferring land to inefficient development projects.

Loathing, lies and liberation theology

Multinational corporations duke it out in the Andes

Paul Driessen

LA OROYA, Peru – Pitched battles over ideology and public policy certainly are not confined to classrooms or legislative chambers. They are also fought in poor communities of Africa, Asia and Latin America, often pitting multinational corporations against multinational activist groups.

The corporations seek to extract energy and minerals, provide much-needed jobs and capital, and serve investors and consumers – without harming human health or the environment. They often collide with well-connected global activists who loathe foreign investment, free enterprise, and especially extractive industries – and want to influence elections and policies in these regions.

This town, high in the Andes east of Lima, is one such battleground. La Oroya developed around a metallurgical facility that produces raw materials for computers, medical devices and other modern marvels. Built in 1922, the facility was a major polluter for decades.

In October 1997, a company that is now Doe Run Peru bought the complex from government-owned Centromin Peru. Doe Run eliminated heavy-metal discharges into local rivers, began converting old slag piles into grasslands, and implemented safety procedures that enabled employees to work 7 million man-hours without a lost-time accident. It has already reduced particulate emissions 35 percent from late 1997 levels, and sulfur dioxide (SO2) by one-fifth. The company has requested a four-year extension for completing the SO2 emissions control system, but by 2011 the entire facility will comply with all Peruvian environmental standards.

Last year, at Doe Run’s invitation, I visited Peru with two Catholic priests, to see the operation firsthand. The environmental compliance work was impressive. However, after we explored the town and met its mayor and numerous citizens, what really stood out were programs whose primary purpose was improving the quality of life in the region.

Doe Run has financed or conducted hundreds of projects, mostly suggested by the locals. It constructed a municipal sanitary landfill, paved roads to reduce dust and accidents, and improved schools, built a youth center and clinic, and helped plant 100,000 trees and acres of flowers.

“Many homes here don’t have bathrooms or even running water,� Nilda Gómez told us. Now families can go to public laundry and shower facilities that cost little or nothing to use.

The company also sponsored cleft palate surgeries for 200 children, and jewelry making, pastry baking, electronics and business management classes for local people. They, in turn, have opened scores of new businesses. Most are home-based, but a bakery now employs eight workers, including Emilia Hinostroza, whose speech disabilities previously had prevented her from holding a job.

To improve agriculture in hamlets up to 30 miles away, Doe Run removed debris from water canals and tunnels; builds reservoirs and irrigation systems; imports better breeds of grass, sheep, alpaca and cattle; trains farmers in land management and animal husbandry; and provides medicines and medical treatment for animals.

The hard work and $140 million investment (through 2005) have improved environmental quality and created a new sense of pride, ownership and hope for the region’s 50,000 people. At a union-organized event, we were mobbed by happy parents and children who shouted “Viva Doe Run� and said their lives had improved more in the past seven years than in the previous 75.

These efforts epitomize “corporate social responsibility.� And yet, the company and community are under constant attack by local Archbishop Pedro Baretto and US-based activists led by Oxfam. They have insinuated themselves as “stakeholders,� say Doe Run hasn’t done enough to address blood-lead levels, and strongly object to the SO2 deadline extension.

In fact, Doe Run made the decades-old lead contamination problem its top priority from the outset. The company tests workers and children regularly, reduced lead emissions at their source, built facilities that ensure workers don’t take contaminants home, and initiated programs to clean streets and homes of accumulated contamination. Blood-lead levels now meet US (OSHA) guidelines for nearly all workers, and the children’s blood-lead levels are improving.

Frustrated that the union and residents overwhelmingly support extending the SO2 deadline, the activists constantly lie about these health issues and Doe Run’s efforts and intentions. Many suspect they also want to turn public opinion against mining and foreign investment, and tilt Peru’s presidential race toward Ollanta Humala, a left-wing Hugo Chavez protégé.

La Oroyans deeply resent what they feel is interference by unelected “outsiders� who ignore their views and have no real stake in what eventually happens. “We are the ones who live here,� Mayor Clemente Quincho noted. “We want the archbishop to listen to us, not just make statements and demands.�

Vice Mayor Clariza Amanzo criticized Archbishop Baretto’s “dialogue� process as one-sided. Numerous facilities still pollute the region’s air and water, she emphasized, so he should invite “our people and all the companies, not just Doe Run and people he wants to speak.� Indeed, when I participated in a meeting at the archbishop’s magnificent residence, not one of his “representatives� said anything remotely echoing what I had heard during three days of meetings, tours and interviews.

What their statements did reflect is a commitment to liberation theology, which one of the priests described as “Marxism painted over with a thin veneer of Christian moralizing about class struggle, the supposed illegitimacy of private enterprise, and ultimately the asserted need for radical redistribution of limited wealth.� Worse, it undermines the very goals it advocates, by preventing the foreign investment, technological progress and wealth creation necessary for people to improve their physical and social environment.

Oxfam, Christian Aid and US-based Presbyterian Church groups certainly can afford to support projects like those Doe Run has initiated – thereby buttressing their assertions that they care about the needs of people they supposedly champion. However, aside from sponsoring duplicative blood-lead studies and spending probably millions to attack Doe Run and thwart La Oroya’s interests, they have done nothing.

Town officials say the activists expressed no concern about health or pollution until well after Doe Run arrived. Now that a US company is operating the facility, the agitators want decades of mismanagement and pollution reversed overnight.

A greater worry is that, if they manage to prevent the SO2 extension or shut down the smelter, the activists’ concern for “the children� will evaporate. That’s what happened when Oxfam’s radical soulmates succeeded in banishing DDT from disease control programs, and left millions to die of malaria in Latin America and, even more tragically, in Africa.

Then newly-jobless workers and families would be forced into subsistence farming, coca growing, or scraping by in Lima’s slums. Meanwhile, the agitators would simply return to their comfortable homes in Boston, Washington and London – until they hoist their eco-socialist banners against the next ascendant village they choose to victimize.

The people of La Oroya deserve better than that.

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Paul Driessen, a senior policy advisor with the Congress of Racial Equality and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, is the author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power ∙ Black death. Doe Run sponsored his trip, but the observations and opinions presented here are his alone.