zlacker

>>geox+(OP)
In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated.

Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be forcefully rejected.

Regulations are not people, and they don't have rights. It is fair and reasonable to demand that environmental regulation justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data or else get chopped. Clearly, banning leaded gasoline has that kind of justification, and therefore I'm strongly in favor of maintaining that ban and extending it wherever it isn't in place yet. The same reasonable standard should be applied to other regulations across the board.

>>cfigge+7B1
Basically everybody agrees with what you're saying which is what makes this an insidious comment.

In general the pressure against regulation comes from narrow winners (oil industry for instance) whereas the pressure for regulations generally comes from people focused on the greater good (even if they are misled by other narrow winners, for instance compliance firms).

>>AdamN+WB1
There are valid reasons to oppose regulations. They can be used to create barriers of entry for small businesses, for example. They constantly affect the poor more than the middle class.

>>gosub1+oD1
> They constantly affect the poor more than the middle class.

That’s a very broad statement. I expect there are many cases where that is not true.

>>sunshi+hG1
"greater good" is arguably the most broad statement with a large history of hurting many people based on the "greater good".

>>abfan1+qI1
Maybe. But the original context here is an article about removing lead from gasoline. Which I’m pretty sure that helped many people based on the “greater good”.

There’s no copper sulfate in canned green beans or borax in beef. Those seem all around good.

Let’s agree that impacts of regulations are nuanced, and not try to condense it down to something overly simplistic like, “regulations hurt poor people”.