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
Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated.

The worst environmental crisis in human history is going largely unchecked. I find it hard to take seriously any argument that environmental regulation has gone too far as opposed to not nearly far enough.

If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good I'm cool with revisiting anything, but the common sense wisdom around environmental regulation has been corrupted by corporate public relations campaigns.

>>breaky+qS1
CEQA in California is very often used to block apartments in existing urban areas.

So, instead, California continues to mostly build single family housing sprawl into natural habitats.

A clear example of environmental regulation hurting the environment and the climate. And of course the affordability of housing.

>>an_acc+mZ1
Government should be active and in charge of urban planning. It is a matter of the common good.

One of the biggest problems today is that urban planning has basically evaporated. Local and state governments don't plan towns anymore. Things are left to developers who have no other concern than to run a street off a major road and plop a few houses down, sell, and move on to the next project. No thought is given to traffic or public services or walkability or public transportation. No care is given to integration with existing urban structures. Instead of mixed-use zoning or building houses around a common public space, which are historically the more common and sensible form of urban planning, we end up with car-dependent suburban dead zones, suburban sprawl.

This should be receiving more attention from environmentalists, as urban planning is intimately related to environmental issues.