GOVERNMENT REGULATION CAN HAVE A TOXIC IMPACT

The American business community faces challenges not only with competitive marketplaces but with often inhibiting regulations created by its own government. The line that separates necessary rules from those that create undue or prohibitive hardships on the nation's commercial enterprises is frequently hard to distinguish. In one case, the 1990 Clean Air Act, the matter is beyond debate; the law is being implemented and businesses have only to address its compliance. Even with this legislative mandate in hand, federal agencies should monitor closely the impact this measure, and others like it, has on businesses.

Representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency were in Cape Girardeau last week for a seminar on the Clean Air Act and comments made by an official of that agency showed both the good intent of law's creation and the narrowness with which it might be interpreted.

Certainly, Clean Air Act has a ring of desirability. Most would argue that the government is obliged to enforce standards in this regard; as the countries of Eastern Europe opened to Western eyes in recent times, the world was shocked to see the environmental calamity resulting from hands-off industrial policy. However, even Morris Kay, a regional EPA administrator, concedes the clean air measure will be complex in its implementation. Bearing the brunt of that complexity may be businesses that will absorb some of the high costs and pass others along to consumers.

Kay had some thoughts on the costs of the legislation, saying that the United States spends $100 billion a year on environmental programs, mostly aimed at pollution cleanup. He said that if businesses would make their investments in prevention of pollution, the much higher costs of cleanup would dissipate. It is a point well taken, if in a rather after-the-fact fashion. Many businesses, who abided by the previous set of standards, are now being asked to make changes that will cost them money. It is fine to say what would have worked from the outset, but it is reality to face the prospect of many businesses (whose owners are not out to harm the environment) struggling with compliance.

While we might cite examples of where legislation is harmed by the tampering of special interests, it is a fact most measures taken up by government are fraught with good intentions. In fine-tuning regulations to workable levels, government officials should lend their eyes and ears to the business community for clues that the impact of their actions might be excessive.