As we enter the dialogue, the participants are discussing ozone . . .
Q - Someone said there are nine cities with ozone levels 50 percent higher than national health standards. I thought ozone was found in the atmosphere far above the earth. Isn't there talk of a "hole" in the ozone layer?
A - Let's get into that ozone issue a little later. Ozone is a product of photochemical oxidation between oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic substances.
Q - "Volatile organic substances" most frequently means exhaust from automobiles. Am I right?
A - Right. Unless the automobiles are equipped with catalytic converters. Cars with catalytic converters are the cleanest cars on the road today. But getting back to the nine heavily polluted regions: the Bush administration originally wanted to introduce ten million alternatively fueled vehicles into the nine most polluted U.S. cities.
Instead the 1990 Clean Air Act mandated a pilot program which requires the sale of 150,000 clean-fueled vehicles in California in 1996, 1997 and 1998, increasing to 300,000 vehicles in 1999 and thereafter.
Q - Critics of the 1990 legislation claim it asks citizens to accept dirty unhealthy air for up to 20 years in some places. They want further restrictions on tail pipe emissions and they don't want to allow cities to "opt out" by turning down federal funds. They claim such an allowance would be tantamount to issuing those cities a right to pollute. They favor tough mandates with no choices and offer Denver as an example where oxygenated fuel was mandated and accepted.
A - Congressman Michael Andrews of Texas has his own alternative fuel proposal (H.R. 2269) involving approximately $20 million in expenditures. He wants the federal government to provide tax incentives to private fleet owners.
Q - I wonder why? It must be a coincidence that already Houston, which is one of the nine heavily polluted cities, has a large fleet of alternative fuel vehicles.
A - An early version of the Clean Air Bill of 1990 called for auto makers to comply with a government mandate that 30 percent of all cars produced by a specific future date (arbitrarily agreed to by elected officials) be able to use fuels other than gasoline.
Q - I heard that the original proposal from the administration provided for a fine if manufacturers failed to meet a mandated number of vehicle sales in a specific city.
A - It's difficult to keep a production line open while waiting for demand to materialize. It might be better to have manufacturers ready to sell vehicles up to demand and even to promote the sale. Anyway you look at it, the original administration proposal of a fine was blatantly wrong.
Q - What would happen if consumers decided not to buy these alternative-fuel cars? What would happen if dealers didn't want to carry them?
A - A recent USA TODAY poll showed that 68 percent of respondents want alternative-fueled cars and 50 percent would be willing to pay more for them. But a sales mandate would have put undue pressure on auto dealers. Already dealers have no influence over the models which manufacturers could chose to produce as dual-fuel cars, no control over their performance, their range or their cost. Many dealers suffered when the public rejected diesel-fueled vehicles.
Q - I thought the Bush Administration's program was advertised as "market based, fuel neutral and cost effective".
A - Actually it agreed substantially with Senator Chafee's Bill, S.B. 1630, which became Public Law 101-549 on November 15, 1990 after passing both the House and Senate and being signed by President George Bush.
Q - But under Senator Chafee's early version of the bill, weren't manufacturers required to provide alternative-fuel-autos to dealers on a 12 month consignment program?
A - Yes. And dealers wanted that consignment period lengthened and fought for a provision relieving dealers of pressure by manufacturers to purchase these vehicles as part of an overall package deal. They wanted to be relieved of the horse trading which could result. They suggested that the bill specify that the alternative-fuel vehicle either be sold or returned to the manufacturer at the end of the consignment period. Their hope was to shift the burden of any unsold vehicles, and the huge expense that could well entail, back to the manufacturers.
Q - Why vehicles that run on two fuels? Why another fuel and gasoline? What if owners decide to always use gasoline instead of an alternative fuel once they have purchased the cars?
A - The philosopher-kings would have actually preferred cars that run on non-gasoline fuel only, but California found that drivers of the 600 Escort methanol-fueled demonstration vehicles reported a fear of running out of fuel with no supplier available.
Even today travelers encounter auto trouble when driving across country because of the different formulas of gasoline. Often they inadvertently run into high alcohol mixtures in the Midwest or their engine develops knocks when it tries to digest the mixtures found in the Northeast. To answer the driver's need for peace of mind it was necessary to allow flexible-fuel vehicles.
Q - I thought General Motors supplied California's demonstration vehicles?
A - GM did deliver 2,200 vehicles to California's flexible or variable fuel demonstration program. Actually the 5,000 total was split between GM and Ford.
Q - What if alternative fuels are more expensive? Whose responsibility is it to make them competitive? Not more subsidies?!
A - As if you didn't know!
Q - It sems to me that since fuels must be readily available, legislation would naturally follow requiring gas stations to install pumps to provide these alternative fuels. Many service station owners have recently complied with mandates to replace single with double-bottomed tanks for health and safety reasons. That was costly but they complied. What's the idea? Since there was no big furor the government should once again sock it to the same group of citizens?
A - I agree with you. The SDA (Station Dealers Association) reports that the average net worth of small dealers is $81,000. It costs anywhere from $50,000 to $120,000 across the nation to install the double walled tanks.
Additionally, handling methanol means exposure to Superfund liabilities and a hike in insurance premiums and cut-off from commercial bank loans.
Q - Some critics claim the EPA proposal was weighted towards methanol. On the other hand, the methanol industry is concerned about ethanol's subsidies which hurt methanol's ability to compete.
A - Ethanol has garnered support from those who represent the farm states because its use greatly reduces grain subsidies.
Q - Ethanol, which is 90 percent gasoline to begin with, costs twice as much as gasoline and gets a tax break equal to 54 cents a gallon. Methanol emits formaldehyde and "tends to explode".
A - Once in bed with the power of government there is no end to the manipulation----it is wrong for everyone at all times. We've got to stop it!
Q - Just as legislation has tried to control the percentage of blacks, Hispanics, females and so forth in schools, government positions, certain jobs and professions and in some instances, even in private clubs, why can't government require that so much of this fuel and so much of that fuel be carried by service stations?
A - Ahh--once again you prove my point. Once people start thinking along those lines ("Why not make everybody do what I want?") there's no stopping the trend. Unhappily the Bush administration did give serious thought for while to making alternative fuels available across the country. The mentality to control is alive and well even though it didn't win all of this round. There was talk to the effect that government can't just allow stations that want to carry alternative fuels to do so.
Q - But you said that the trial runs in California showed drivers might shun alternative-fuel cars if they feared they might run out of the alternative-fuel before they ran into a station that voluntarily offered the product they needed.
A - Therefore it seemed to some advisers that the only thing to do was to force every station to offer this service whether or not they can afford to do so. After all stations were forced to carry unleaded fuel whether they wanted to or not.
Q - Of course we don't like to use the word "force". We prefer to think of it as cooperation between the EPA, industry and Congress.
A - Anyway The Clean Air Act of 1990 avoided a mandatory alternative fuels program. Alternative fuels would have been hard pressed to compete with the huge investment already made in gasoline fuel.
Q - I heard that the American Petroleum Industry and the automotive industry had begun a joint research program regarding alternative fuels.
A - That may be, but naturally they prefer reformulated gasoline. Arco, speaking from its position in the oil industry, found the standards set forth in the legislation were fuel neutral. I heard Arco's CEO testify at a congressional hearing that his company was confident it could easily meet S.B. 1630's (The Clean Air Act of 1990 ) standards. It has already had successful sales with RC-1, an earlier reformulated gasoline. It also has come up with EC-1 which would clean up the air significantly.
Arco estimates its reformulated gasoline fuel could be responsible for the reduction of 350 tons of pollutants each day. The company is working on EC-X which should be ready in 1992 or 1993 and would meet the most stringent requirements and be a ready match for any alternate fuel. Reformulated gasoline, according to car manufacturers, and certainly the oil industry would agree, is the best and least disruptive approach to clean air.
Q - Does that mean alternative fuels are "out", at least for the time being?
A - It means that service stations will not be required to carry any one specific fuel. All fuels that can meet the EPA standards are now allowed to compete in the marketplace.
Q - Allowed? But no fuel can effectively compete with gasoline, at least in price. Am I right?
A - Absolutely. On the subject of oil prices I would recommend you read Daniel Yergin's 1990 book, The Prize. Mr. Yergin claims that correcting for inflation, gasoline in the 1960s actually cost $1.50/gallon. Between 1988-1990 it was selling at bargain prices, the cheapest it had been since WW II. He pointed out that the U.S. gasoline tax is only ten percent of the taxes levied on this fuel by other countries.
Q - You know, if I understand what you've been saying, then I don't see why you're bothering to raise a fuss about government trying to control everything. It sounds to me like the Bush Administration wanted to allow the marketplace to select the fuels and the cars to meet any mandated standards.
A - There we go again. Allow ?
Q - James MacKenzie of the Union of Concerned Scientists claims that the USA is almost self sufficient in natural gas. We import only five percent from Canada.
A - In its favor is the fact that there are more small parcels of natural gas around the world than there are parcels of oil. Possible drawbacks: It can't be carted around the world because it is too volatile. Relying on natural gas would mean pipelines from the Southwest to the North and Northeast, which would have its own set of environmental hazards besides being extremely expensive.What was the U.S.S.R. has 45 percent of the world's supply and Iran has the second largest supply.
Q - Proponents of natural gas claim that since fleet vehicles rack up two and a half times the mileage of a passenger vehicle, 180,000 fleet vehicles on natural gas would save the same amount of pollution as one million passenger cars converted to natural gas.
A - Without any federal program to encourage natural-gas-powered vehicles there are 30,000 vehicles operating in the USA.
Q - A good thing is recognized for what it is and no government incentives are required. Non-government citizens are not stupid!!
A - The fuel cost savings and maintenance reduction was the only incentive needed!
In the seventies we converted our old Dodge van to propane to avoid the gas lines and uncertainty of gasoline supplies.
Q - I read somewhere that there are 500 propane conversion vehicles in Canada. A number so small it would go unnoticed in this country.
Federal Express has 24,000 alternatively fueled vehicles in use in the U.S.
A -Brazil's alcohol-fuel was not economic and Brazil is trying to phase it out. Ethanol is now used extensively in Brazil.
Q - We've got to kick the fossil fuel habit according to James MacKenzie and he suggests ways to do it.
A - He thinks hydrogen is too expensive but he sees a worthy long term goal in reducing the cost of hydrogen
Q- Didn't you write rather extensively about hydrogen in your 1988 book The Deficit, in the section dealing with deregulation?
A - I think you've got hydrogen mixed up with the remarks I made about government having enough helium stored for the next 140 years thanks to erroneous forecasts upon which the Helium Act of 1960 was based.
Q - I recall Senator Lieberman of Connecticut suggested that government try and help GM get a jump on its foreign competitors in the electric car market.
A - That's a strange role for the government of a nation that preaches private enterprise and free markets!
Q - Do you want to compete or don't you? A government advisory panel suggested increasing the number of electric cars in Japan to 200,000 by the year 2000. They are urging research in order to get the maximum speed up to 75 mph and the distance between recharging up to 155 miles. The panel wants to see infrastructure modified and prices brought down to just slightly more than the price of gasoline-fueled vehicles.
A - Do you happen to know how many electric cars the Japanese have currently and how the price compares to gas-powered cars?
Q - I believe they have about one thousand cars now utilizing electric power in Japan and they cost three times what a gasoline vehicle cost.
A - Are we doing anything about developing electric cars here?
Q - Electric cars are coming along but the batteries still need more work. GM introduced a two passenger electric car to Los Angeles which had a range of only 120 miles.
Alan Reynolds, director of economic research for the Hudson Institute makes an interesting point about electric cars that the philosopher-kings should be made to face:
electric cars require electric power plants, which already account for one-third of all hydrocarbon emissions, while cars account for only one-fourth. And these costly car batteries end up as tons of toxic waste.
A - The Clean Air Act requires experimentation with hydrogen cell electric vehicles and calls for incorporating NASA technology.
The test program must include construction of a prototype, and should be completed within three years. The test program must be performed at a university with the best facilities and expertise.
Q - Goals and guidelines are one thing but miniscule mandates are something else!
A - If you want to talk about micromanagement I'll give you a brief run down of one tiny section of the legislation. It mandates that clean air research be conducted and there are pages and pages telling who is to establish what kind of study of what, how and what to find.
Select at least ten chemicals each year for such research activities with at least two chemicals chosen for field testing, giving highest priority to those posing the greatest threat to human health and the environment.
At least ten percent of the research of EPA-funded research contracts be conducted by disadvantaged business concerns.
Q - "Disadvantaged" is a rather ambiguous term, don't you think?
A - They're way ahead of you. A disadvantaged business concern is defined as one in which 51 percent of the company, or 51 percent of the stock, is owned by one or more socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, or in which the management and daily business operations are controlled by such individuals. . . presumed to be disadvantaged: historically black colleges and universities, colleges and universities with at least 40 percent Hispanic students, minority institutions, and private and voluntary organizations controlled by individuals who are socially and economically disadvantaged.
Q - Excuse me, but you can't use the term "disadvantaged" to clarify what "disadvantaged" means. This is pure nonsense. And besides, the parts about black colleges and Hispanic students smacks of quotas.
A - Oh no. The legislation makes a point of disclaiming ----in fact prohibiting----quotas.
Q - To say something doesn't make it so. Such minute regulation seems somehow unAmerican.
A - I know what you mean. We are masquerading as a free market country while at the same time we are being swallowed up by a thinly disguised socialist mentality which delights in micromanagement.
I always thought America was supposed to represent something; to set an example for other nations to follow. The lesson was supposed to be that government shouldn't mandate market policy. But if S.B. 1630 is really saying let people make choices, it barely escaped an addendum which would have read "those choices better be correct choices!".
Q - "Barely escaped"? Henry Waxman, a very control-oriented California congressman, has been quoted as saying, "In almost every title ( in the Clean Air Act ) we have provisions that are stronger than those we were advocating through the years." What happened?
A - For eight war-torn years the Reagan administration had managed to keep the likes of Henry Waxman at bay. President Bush, in an effort to make good on his campaign pledge to be the Environmental President, presented his original clean air package on June 12, 1989. In the end congress proved to be too much for the President and both Houses began approving tougher and far more costly controls on industry.
Q - Maybe the solution is to put the burden on the auto industry to promote cleaner fuel cars.
A - Maybe you should run for congress. It sounds like you would fit right in.
Q - Excuse me, but no citizen outcry stopped the Cafe legislation. (Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards enacted in 1975 forcing auto makers to comply.) Policy makers fail to mention that most mileage improvement took place before CAFE standards took effect in 1978.
A - The soaring price of fuel in the seventies helped create a temporary market for smaller cars in this country. But as prices fell at the gasoline pumps the demand for smaller cars also fell.
Q - You're right. The consumer demand for larger cars has been recognized by nearly everyone except die hard fuel conservationists. Even the Honda Accord is now a foot longer.
A - Principle is ignored. Freedom is sacrificed and no one notices, no one cares!
So what if Ford is forced to sell a specified number of smaller fuel efficient cars to offset every sale of a Lincoln Town Car? After all farmers have come to accept government wisdom when it comes to what, where and how much to plant or leave fallow, and real estate developers have accepted without a whimper government's decision that they must provide a certain number of low income units in order to be allowed to fill the demand for middle and high-income units.
Sacrificing profits can be looked at as one more tax on any industry.
Q - The trouble is those regulations raise the price of housing for consumers, just as the Cafe mandates raise the price of American-made autos.
A - A practical response. Maybe if enough consumers demand larger cars then the manufacturers will just have to give away the smaller cars if there isn't sufficient natural demand in the market place. The government can't just let demand regulate the supply of production. Ordinary folk might keep on choosing things that aren't good for them or that might prove to be harmful to their neighbors.
Q - Haven't neighbors always had the right to bring suit if they could prove injury? That used to be enough incentive to influence the choice of free Americans.
A - Now days language is everything. The Bush Administration is not acting like a dictatorship and issuing mandates. Oh no. It is "suggesting overall performance standards to challenge the industry".
Q - Nevertheless it is well established that the general welfare clause of the Constitution makes it imperative that the federal government oversees the health and safety of the nation.
A - Horse Manure! Hiding behind semantics again! Citizens can see through the fancy labels and are sick and tired of word games. They were not won over when tax hikes were disguised as revenue enhancements nor will they be if the administration chooses to call a mandate "a standard and challenge to the auto industry"!
Q - I've got an example guaranteed to make you livid.
Good Stuff Food Co,, a Los Angeles bakery, got a $245,000 penalty for failing to come up with an employee ride-sharing plan. As settlement their attorney agreed to hasten conversion of delivery vehicles to propane.
A - Extortion and pay-offs by our government. Why should that make me livid? Los Angeles and San Diego smog agencies are using major employers to control the habits of individual motorists.
It is estimated that 2/3 of Los Angeles' pollution is caused by cars. They are requiring rush-hour car pooling and limiting parking-lot spaces. California has about 26 million registered autos and that's not counting those unregistered. Approximately 1.8 million people have jobs nationwide in auto manufacturing or selling.
What happens to the UAW pensions if auto companies fail?
Q - That's what the Chrysler bailout was all about.
A - Sure, all the restrictions might result in less wear and tear on our roads and cleaner air, but what about the decline in revenue and need for government assistance if the auto industry is harmed? Car dealers are the biggest source of sales taxes. Licenses fees in Los Angeles county are close to $400 million a year. Excise tax revenue comes from luxury cars and tires and then the gasoline tax itself comes to about 30 cents a gallon in most jurisdictions.
Q - There's not much long-range thinking going on. It seems like catering to narrow interest groups and concentrating on isolated details is the name of today's game.
A - Santa Barbara thwarts production from the largest domestic oil field since discovery of Alaska oil 20 years ago.
Chevron spent $2.5 billion on a processing plant which sits idle because environmentalists are concerned about the movement of the oil to refineries in Los Angeles. Chevron wants to ship by double-hulled tankers, at least temporarily, but environmentalists want shipment by pipelines. Industry and environmentalists are at loggerheads. Chevron has worked with the community for ten years and spent millions of dollars to allay concerns .
It has relocated a school deemed too close to its main processing facility, donated 36 acres for parkland, replanted eucalyptus tress that are a habitat for Monarch butterflies and built a desalination plant.
Chevron's plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building a pipeline along the Southern Pacific railroad track may be thwarted by the same cities that blocked a proposed pipeline along a different route in 1987.
Bureaucrats have figured ways to transport the oil along pipelines now owned by other private companies but Chevron says the high cost and other problems make their plan not feasible.
Q - Who will be surprised when the oil industry does an imitation of sheep going to slaughter and then passes the burden on to the consumer?
A - Business in general acted like sheep with health insurance mandates. Everyone's premiums rose. Consumers always take the hit that liberals fire at the industrialists! Exxon is a good example. If you break down its bill you will find that it cost $82,000 to clean each otter after the Valdez oil spill. (Many didn't survive so the total expenditure was divided among those that did.)
Q - Alaskans had a party, complete with the local high school band, when the first cuddly sea otter was returned to its natural habitat. No comparable celebration was held when the fisherman were able to do business again.
A - Government prosecutors got Exxon to plead guilty to violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1916.
Q - Give me a break. What does hunting birds without a license have to do with spilling oil?
A - The government got creative in its attempt to turn an accident into a criminal act. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh even made a criminal indictment, claiming that the spill was willful or knowing.
Q - I understood that Exxon admitted liability from the beginning and on its own initiative paid approximately $2 billion to clean up the mess.
A - So-o-o? Even though a jury found the captain not guilty of all his charges Exxon was willing to reimburse anyone who lost money because of the spill. That should have been the end of it! By the summer of 1991 Valdez was almost back to the normal but judges and prosecutors were still grandstanding to the environmentalists. Unconscionable and foolish!
Q - I wonder if you heard about the October 1991 articles run by the Anchorage Daily News and the Anchorage Times,, newspapers that have not been friendly to Exxon in the past? They claimed that federally funded researchers were killing hundreds of birds and animals in order to beef up the government's case against Exxon.
A - I didn't see the newspaper articles but I did read an analysis of the situation from the viewpoint of a member of the Washington Legal Foundation. Apparently the Justice Department needed to prove that the Valdez accident killed up to 300,000 birds whose bodies floated out to sea.
Q - I didn't read the newspaper articles either, I just heard about the incident. Why in the world would our government need to prove such a thing?
A - In order to reach as far as possible into the deep pockets of Exxon.
Q - You mean to obtain the highest damage award possible?
A - You got it! Bird Study #1 was ordered. FWS (Fish and Wildlife Service under the U.S. Interior Department) killed birds, immersed them in oil. attached transmitters to the corpses and let them float away.
Q - By tracking them it would be possible to estimate what percentage of a known number washed up on beaches and what percentage simply sunk in the sea and extrapolate from there.
A - Right.
Q - I can't believe environmentalists didn't stage riots across the country over such a dastardly deed. I'm not what you'd call an activist and yet I'm certainly outraged that apparently taxpayer dollars were used to kill, who knows what kinds of birds, and that the deed was done by members of FWS who generally are and should be horrified by any unnatural death of fish and wildlife.
A - First of all members of FWS didn't do the killing; the job was contracted out to Ecological Consulting Inc., a Portland, Oregon research firm. You're right, unfortunately, that the $600,000 fee was paid by us taxpayers. According to Glenn Lammi of the Washington Legal Foundation,
The hired killers shot 250-350 murres, scoters, cormorants, and ancient murrelets on remote Alaskan islands, many of them protected national wildlife refuges, and returned them for use in the study.
Q - What about the animals mentioned in the newspapers?
A - Apparently the Alaska Department of Fish and Game were brought into the picture at this point. They killed ducks to approximate the number of birds killed and treated them in the same manner. They then went after and killed 17 Stellar's sea lions, 3 sea otters and minks, 28 harbor seals and 32 deer.
Q - I can't believe the deaths of any of those animals were justified. It appears that the main purpose of the lawsuit was to gain more money to appease the appetite of the federal government. Besides I thought Stellar's sea lions were a threatened species.
A - They were taken off the list recently.
I'll tell you what bothers me the most. It is the attitude that government---at all levels---is above the law. Any killing by private citizens would be punished and you better believe it.
Q- Isn't that the truth!
A - Mr. Lammi offered the example of an ordinary resident of Springfield, Ohio who was ordered by his local government to get rid of the troublesome pigeons that had been congregating on his trees. The poison he laid out in order to comply with the demands of one level of government was determined to have caused the death of a mourning dove and two common grackles.
The federal government, represented by the U.S. Attorney's office, prosecuted the hapless citizen under the Migratory Bird Treaty.
Q - I hear of cases all the time where a citizen is prosecuted for killing some form of wildlife that has threatened his private property---a domestic animal, or animals, or fowl or even crops.
A - At any rate the governments' case against Exxon was finally settled on October 8, 1991. $900 million is to be paid over ten years, plus $100 million more under a "re-opener" clause if more spill-damage is discovered.
And I have to disagree with you assertion that the main purpose of the government suit was to obtain money for federal and state coffers. Although I believe the main purpose was misguided and foolish, it was, in my opinion, to teach Exxon and other potential offenders a lesson and to offer a stern warning.
Q - You mean $100 million isn't an incentive?
A - Actually the settlement was $125 million and only $13 million goes to the federal government. The federal prosecutors justified the $125 million in criminal penalties by comparing it to the $56 million which was the sum collected between 1983 and 1990 in fines, restitutions and forfeitures in all other environmental cases.
Q- My gosh, Exxon paid more than double that amount!
A - The defense showed that the penalty together with the $2.5 billion already spent on the cleanup itself, amounted to Exxon's income worldwide in 1989, the year of the spill.
Q - But Exxon made $5 billion in profits the next year.
A - That has some environmentalists and others angry over the settlement. They set the damage at close to $15 billion and say the agreed settlement is neither an adequate compensation nor an adequate deterrent.
Q - I'd like to change the subject and see what you think about the proposal to ban shake roofs as one outcome of the October 1991, fire in the San Francisco East Bay.
A - State Senator Diane Watson first proposed legislation against shake roofs in 1985. She came renewed her effort after the fire.
Q - She also wants the state to provide low-cost financing so home owners that already have shake roofs can change them or make them fire proof without too much expense. Her legislation would require the fire marshall to look at all new state of the art technology.
A - I'm disturbed by her assertion that the only objection to her bill is not viable---it is economic....They talk about the cost. They talk about the fact there is not an effective fire retardent solution that can be put on shakes... they mainly deal with the economics of it. They don't have a legitimate argument. The argument has never really been legitimate; it's been one based on economics.
Since when is economics not a legitimate concern? Politicians have little trouble spending other people's hard-earned money. Can you or I afford to say economics doesn't matter?
Q - Of course economics matters and most government officials are only too painfully aware of it.
For instance a New Jersey study showed recycling programs can cost cities as much as $200 per ton of materials collected. Officials discovered it was more economic to deposit trash at an average landfill fee of $28 per ton.
A - $40 per ton is a low cost recycling program.
Q - But we're supposedly running out of space to use as dumps, i.e landfills.
A - Sometimes the land can be used for multiple purposes as in Tokyo where a $42 million public golf course was recently built on 18 million tons of garbage.
Q - What about smell and the danger of explosion from the gases formed by the decomposing garbage pent up under the ground?
A - In Tokyo 74 vent pipes were installed along with signs prohibiting smokers and their lighters from setting the gas on fire. As for the smell, it is slight and only on certain days and is readily borne by golf-happy Japanese in return for green fees that are a fraction of the cost of fees at private clubs that already have long membership waiting lists.
Q - I doubt if such a scheme would work in the United States.
A - It is already working in a limited way in this country.
Q - I also can't understand why recycling is so expensive.
A - There are legitimate reasons for the higher cost of recycling. Curbside recycling means more fuel consumption and air pollution because of the trucks. Some recycling processes are energy intensive and produce volumes of wasted water. Sure you save landfill space at the cost of water, fuel and other forms of energy with their pollutant by-products.
Local governments never charge the consumer anything near what it costs to recycle and many cities never directly charge residents for garbage collection. When the costs are hidden in taxes there is not the incentive to recycle and reduce waste as there is when a consumer is charged on a per can basis.
Q - I suppose you would say the marketplace can determine what kind of recycling makes sense.
A - Exactly. Recycling aluminum cans takes less than ten percent of the energy necessary to change bauxite into aluminum. In the sixties it took 164 pounds of aluminum to make 1,000 cans, in the nineties it takes only 35 pounds. This was a result of competition between the can manufacturers, not mandates from environmentalists.
Q - Am I right in assuming you believe competition is the best way to pursue conservation?
A - You're able to predict my points of view. When philosopher-kings ban this product and mandate the use of that material, they not only reduce competition and undermine the drive toward resource conservation and efficiency, but they also neglect the larger environmental picture.
Q - Environmentalists claim that environmental protection and economic efficiency are in competition.
A - I don't buy that concept for a minute. I recognize, however, that the goal of efficiency doesn't have the same emotional ring as "saving the planet".
Lynn Scarlett, an expert on solid-waste management says, "Product bans and waste reduction engineered by government central planners interrupt this process and force inefficient production."
She tells of a ban by Maine of the little boxes that hold juice in favor of glass bottles. The state unwisely overlooked the extra energy expended in filling glass bottles (twice as much) and fifteen times as many trucks to transport juice in glass rather than aseptic boxes.
Ms. Scarlett claimed transportation of the boxes per unit takes 35 percent less energy and because dairy products do not require refrigeration if transported in these boxes, CFC is reduced.
Q - Cities in New Jersey and Oregon have banned polystyrene even though it has been shown that substituted paperboard takes 30 percent more energy in its manufacture, gives off 46 percent more air pollution and contributes 42 percent more water pollution.
A - Newer packaging materials like polystyrene, are also responsible for a reduction in food waste (retard spoilage).
Q - I guess it's easy to treat one resource, landfills, as the most significant, and fail to recognize the whole set of resources that any product uses from its initial production, through its consumption, and then on to its disposal.
A - We simply have to remind ourselves from time to time that resource conservation, not recycling, is the fundamental goal.
Q - The percentage of old motor oil recycled is up to 10 percent in 1992 from only 2 percent in 1988.
A - A company in Chicago with a new $50 million re-refinery is hoping the EPA classifies used oil (which contains chlorinated compounds and lead) as a hazardous waste which would force some used-oil burners out of the business and drive disposal prices up, making re-refineries more profitable.
Q - Under a state law approved last year, counties and cities in California must reduce the waste that they put into landfills by 25 percent by 1995 and by 50 percent by 2000.
A - Los Angeles has plans to haul trash by rail to the desert and deposit it in an old Kaiser Steel iron ore mine, two miles long and a half-mile wide and a quarter mile deep. The site, located in Riverside county, would hold 700 million tons of garbage or about 100 years of garbage at 20,000 tons a day. That's a thousand times larger than large dump sites elsewhere. Los Angeles county generates 50,000 tons of trash a day.
Q - But I heard state and local permits could halt the plan. What can be done when residents in surrounding areas object to having a landfill near by?
A - States and local governments have gotten creative in order to combat what is known as the nimby syndrome---not-in-my-backyard. There are laws allowing nearby landowners who feel their property values will be jeopardized by a facility to be compensated for any provable loss. Some private companies have instituted the same practice without being coerced by government. They find it is in their own self-interest.
Q-What makes you think private industry can be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to safety and pollution?
A-I still have faith in people and their desire to do what is right. The trouble is they don't always know what is right any more than do the government or the victims.
When I was a youngster, for instance, the hazards of cigarette smoke were not widely recognized. Once that information could be backed up with legitimate evidence everyone got on the band wagon and over a period of twenty or thirty years you have warnings by the industry as well as the government and other citizen groups.
Q-That would never have happened without government mandates.
A-I don't necessarily believe that. What about that manufacturing company in Minnesota? I think it's called Sheldahl. It's president wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal in February of 1991 and explained that it had been open and above board about its chemical emission since 1968 and without any coaxing or coercion from government had began to phase out methlene chloride on its own.
The president went on to compliment citizen groups that bring dangerous chemicals and pollutants to public attention as "acting in the best interests of us all." And that company is not alone, and to think otherwise is to do a grave injustice to business people.
Q - I suppose Perrier could be considered an example. Perrier yanked its water from the market even though benzene levels were within safety standards because it knew that customers would be scared away.
A - As far as I'm concerned consumers are best equipped to decide what will or will not sell. Regulators may be better informed, but consumers know what they want and what kinds of risk they are willing to take.
Q - That's just it. Consumers can't judge those risks unless they have access to and the education to interpret technical knowledge about which even highly trained scientists disagree.
A - The EPA has now ruled that dioxin isn't as potent as previously believed and downgraded the risk by a factor of 16. The Center for Disease control is planning to downgrade by a factor of 20. If instead of the current standard of one part per billion, the EPA were to adopt the Centers' new standard of 20 parts per billion, many sites could be cleaned up at a fraction of the projected cost or might not need to be cleaned up at all.
Q - Is there anyone who wouldn't love to believe that? Everyone agrees that safety comes first, but when it comes to safety who are we to believe? The government has certainly been known to hide the truth.
A - You yourself just got through saying experts often disagree when it comes to scientific findings. Science is always expanding, is in constant flux and is as full of confusion as it is order. My habit and advice is always search for the other side. I guarantee you will never come across a point of view where a dissenter cannot be found.
Q - Then comes the hard part. Deciding who has presented the most persuasive evidence and credentials.
A - Near the beginning of Trashing The Planet, Dr. Ray gave a summary of a story in her local newspaper. The story and its headline gave the impression that the EPA suspected that local fish might be contaminated with dioxin. Who among us would be foolish enough to purchase fish if there was the slightest chance of contamination? True or untrue, the report could destroy the livelihood of local fisherman.
Q - I can understand that.
A - As a scientist Dr. Ray knew what questions to ask and concluded that the amount of dioxin detected in the fish was far too small to be considered hazardous and that the tests done on the fish were unscientific and misleading. Nine flounder, including skin and internal organs which normally contain high levels of pollutants and which nobody ever eats, were blended together to determine the parts per trillion of dioxin present. Dr. Ray was incensed that
"On the basis of a trivial 1.5 parts per trillion---not per flounder but in the total of nine flounder mashed up together, guts and all--the EPA proposed a national program to examine the aqueous environment around every pulp mill in the country! Well, that's one way to keep a job going and to keep spending public money."
Q - Nonscientists, including those in the media, can't be expected to pass judgment on the scientific community. What do you propose?
A - As a "big time" nonscientist (I dropped college chemistry) I wouldn't have the slightest clue of what to suggest. That's why I defer to highly credentialed common sense scientists like Dixy Lee Ray and will relay her advice on the subject.
Apparently there are renegade organizations out there who purport to speak for the scientific community. I, and maybe you, wouldn't be able to identify them, but they are recognized as phony by credentialed scientists.
As examples Dr. Ray cites the Union of Concerned Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility as well as pediatrician Helen Caldicott, one-time geneticist Barry Commoner, Amory Lovins who she says has no training and no degree in his purported field of expertise and the host of movie stars and other sports and entertainment celebrities.
If approached by mail, television, print advertising, phone or any other way by these people or organizations, be particularly rigorous about seeking well-credentialed opinions before signing on to their agendas.
Q - Did you know that in 1990 only a dozen of the one thousand sites slated for cleanup under Superfund legislation, had been cleaned up at a cost of nine billion dollars?
A - According to Dixy Lee Ray's book, "The average cleanup cost for each site is estimated to be at least $12 to $15 million, with some going as high as $100 million." Estimates for all sites have been as high as $10 trillion. That undoubtedly led to the downgrading of dioxin by the EPA. It became a political necessity in order to avert economic calamity and an uncompetitive America.
Q - Changed standards could also affect the incinerator paper industries which have been battling the EPA on proposed dioxin-related rules.
A - The dioxin scare came about by scientists painting it on the skin of mice and watching to see which ones developed cancer. Only those already exposed to initiators, like radiation, developed tumors. If dioxin is determined to be a promoter it would join a group os substances including cigarette smoke, asbestos and certain hormones and foods. As opposed to "initiators", which "promoters" become in very high doses, promoters are reversible.
Q - So from all that you've read on the subject do you have any opinion about the new standards. If they are politically motivated do they compromise safety?
A - From what I've observed the new standards are rational.
Q - Of course Barry Commoner and many other heads of activist organizations disagree. The dissenters would prefer the simple definition that if a chemical causes cancer in an animal (no matter the concentration and so forth) it's a carcinogen.
A - Surprisingly less than eight percent of all cancer deaths in America can be traced to all the carcinogenic substances targeted by the EPA---including our polluted environment, additives in our food and water, industrial products and chemicals in the work place. In fact there is evidence that behavior such as sexual activity, diet, drug abuse as well as genetic make up and just plain viruses have more to do with contracting cancer.
Q - What about smoking?
A - You're talking about behavior. Tobacco has now been identified as the number one culprit.
It's stupid to pay taxes to fund agencies whose product we do not trust. In speaking about identifying and regulating carcinogens the EPA admitted "Our priorities appear more closely aligned with public opinion than with our estimated risks."
Q - Perception is a problem. The public is more likely to believe the opponents of science and technology, especially a Ralph Nader or Helen Caldicott, than its supporters.
A - Too many activists see it as a war---business against the environment. Companies naturally have favored a relaxation of cleanup standards for economic reasons. Syntex, in Palo Alto faces $15 billion in liability suits but claims dioxin isn't as dangerous as the EPA has maintained.
Q - I've heard dioxin referred to as the most toxic chemical known to man.
A - Even though there have been no documented instances where humans have been harmed.
Q - Although scientists may be used to admitting mistakes, the public, because of the notoriety dioxin received in the media, is likely to continue to fear it.
A - I guess Times Beach, Missouri gave dioxin the most publicity.
Q - As I recall Petrochemical Corp., a subsidiary of Charter Oil Co., had arranged for a contractor to dispose of waste containing dioxin. The contractor disposed of it by spraying it on roads around Times Beach. The federal government spent more than $100 million to clean up the pollution and purchase the affected private property. What's the situation now?
A - The federal government is seeking $96 million from the manufacturer who is suing 28 insurers demanding that they cover the cleanup costs.
Q - It seems to me the contractor was the one who did the dastardly deed.
A - But the manufacturer has far deeper pockets than the much smaller waste disposal contractor. The U.S. government first sought reimbursement for the cleanup in 1988 under the Superfund laws. It sued Nepacco (the producer of dioxin, Northern Pharmaceutical & Chemical Co.) and the ruling was Nepacco wasn't entitled to insurance coverage.
The issue of who pays the government for environmental cleanups could be a $500 billion question. Insurers never anticipated paying a significant fraction of superfund costs and cannot afford to do so.
Q - As I understand it, scientists wonder if perhaps they acted hastily in condemning Times Beach and ordering the community's permanent evacuation.
A - Exactly right. Ten years later they began to question the seriousness of the dioxin threat. Vernon Hooks, the federal official who recommended the Times Beach evacuation has had the guts to express skepticism and admit that what was done was probably ill conceived. They way he explained it, an alarm is sounded even though what causes problems in lab animals may not affect humans in the same manner. Another leap of the imagination is made by postulating a linear relationship between the amount of toxin consumed and malignancy.
Q - You mean if a pound caused problems in 100 animals then a tenth of a pound would affect 10 animals?
A - That's a linear relationship. This would mean that ingesting even the tiniest amounts for a long enough time could lead to trouble. More recently it was discovered that tiny amounts probably have no affect unless a threshold is already present. This finding means the current safety levels on many substances could be raised over a 1,000 times and the substance would remain harmless.
Q - Those findings could let paper mills off the hook---they have been under pressure to reduce the level of dioxin and were gearing up to face the usual flurry of sure-winning lawsuits and expensive cleanup costs.