ENVIRONMENT RADICALS FIGHT `UNHOLY TRINITY' OF OPPOSITION

The mindset of the radical environmental movement continues to amaze. A brief story will illustrate.

In February of this year, perusing the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, I came across an article about a bill moving through the Congress. The bill, which had passed the U.S. Senate 98-0, would require that before the Environmental Protection Agency issue a new rule or regulation, it must perform a cost-benefit analysis and publish the results to inform the public of the costs. Inasmuch as I am always looking for ways to rein in on runaway government, I figured this one was right up my alley.

Immediately excited, I directed my assistant to find out if we had a similar law on the books in Missouri. Later, informed that the answer was no, we drafted a simple, two-page bill to accomplish this on the state level, applying the requirement to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR), our state version of the EPA.

It was near the end of February, almost the last day to introduce bills, and I knew I was late with this one if it were going anywhere in this year's session. To make a long story short, we received a hearing and moved the bill out of committee with only one dissenting vote. Testifying in favor were the Farm Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Missouri and others. Testifying against were the Sierra Club, DNR officials and other environmentalists. The reaction from committee members was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, a common, bipartisan reaction from my colleagues was to sort of scratch their heads and inquire of DNR, "Why aren't we doing this already?"

A series of environmentalists' denunciations came raining down on my head, several of which were published in these pages. These missives essentially declared that green grass would never grow on my grave, such was my transgression against environmentalist religion.

The fervor of this kind of stuff tends to amuse me. What is really interesting, though, is to discover later that I had transgressed against what the environmentalists call their "unholy trinity." Yes, "unholy trinity." You see, the environmentalists have identified three trends which, they say, left unchecked, will gut environmental progress.

What are the three prongs of this "unholy trinity"? They are:

1) The fight against federal unfunded mandates;

2) The combination of cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment; and

3) The property rights movement.

Space will not permit a detailed analysis of each one here. All I want to do today is to ask readers to pause and reflect on the garden-variety ordinariness, the sheer simplicity, the flat-out, plain old, common-sense, mainstream nature of each of the ideas the enviros object to.

The fight against unfunded federal mandates? This is nothing but a healthy and absolutely vital reassertion, of local and state governments' rebelling against overweening federal authority and arrogance. It says nothing more, really, than that before the feds impose new programs on us, they must provide the funds, and not simply require the states and localities to do so.

The roots of the fight against unfunded mandates go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, and beyond. We know that Jefferson favored the small to the large, the local to the national government, the yeoman farmer to the huge industrialist or the gigantic bureaucracy. He knew that the latter was an instrument of tyranny, and today would be unsurprised, both at their oppressiveness, and at their official arrogance.

Cost-benefit analysis? Risk assessment? What on earth is wrong with this? Businesses, farmers, individuals in all walks of life do this all the time. Why can't government bureaucrats? Could it be that the enviros and the bureaucrats don't like having done to them what they conspire to do to private citizens every day of the year?

And finally, the property rights movement. Again, what on earth can be the objection to a sound, constitutionally based property rights movement? Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence rhapsodized that we "are endowed by our Creator certain with unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of property" before switching, in the final draft, to "the pursuit of happiness." The Founders' writings and speeches resonate with references to the vital importance of property rights. The modern property rights movement is nothing more than a healthy reassertion of this indispensable bulwark against unbridled government power.

Interesting, isn't it, to reflect on the things environmentalists find threatening? By the way, I'll be back next year with an updated version of Senate Bill 809, my proposal for cost-benefit analysis in environmental rulemaking.

Peter Kinder is assoicate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.