GUEST SPEAKER: Dear secretary of the interior,
thank you for inviting me to weigh in
on this very important counter study
to and indefensible claim by the heritage society.
As you know, this conservative organization
is pushing for free enterprise in limited government.
So they're merely trying to deregulate
to support free enterprise and to help their allies,
including industry to save some money.
As you know, in 1970 the EPA was formed
to control the extreme pollution of water and air
in this country.
These conditions were causing fish kills, bird [INAUDIBLE],,
and having negative effects on human health.
[INAUDIBLE] control policy suggests that clean [INAUDIBLE]
were established, also in 1970, to regulate
the use of these pollutants.
The goal was to protect the ecosystem and human health
for future generations.
And so far, it's been effective from the point
of view of scientists and environmental advocates.
It's a success.
Pollution has been vastly reduced
to [INAUDIBLE] [? implementation ?]
these policies and this is a tremendous achievement,
so why stop now is our argument.
There are still extremely endangered ecosystems
in the country and industries are constantly
inventing new products that have new negative effects
on the environment that we're not yet aware of.
So the study we conduct to challenge the heritage
societies claims will have four parts.
First, we'll focus on science benchmarks.
We'll also focus on topic opinion,
propose an administrative review of the EPA,
and a review by the Justice Department.
So for our first pillar, the scientific measurements
will hire an outside team of environmental scientists
to evaluate air and water quality
and how it has improved since 1970.
Scientists must also prove that threats
to the health of our environment,
to our clean air and water, still exists
and that regulation of anything should be expanded and improved
and not reduced or terminated.
We need to frame our study and focus on scientific results
to counter the heritage societies
focus on economic results.
We will design a study based on science and numbers,
because that is how you will measure
the efficacy of a program like the clean air act.
So focus on how you improve vehicle emissions,
how efficient bird have bounced back.
And this will help legitimate our study
in the eyes of the scientific community
and we'll also involve the scientific community.
We can also come at this from an angle that
will satisfy the business community and congress.
We can require companies to maintain certain air quality
standards as a means to spur innovation.
We've been innovative in this regard so far.
We've invented cleaner fuels, renewable energy
and we believe that the American people can invent even better,
cleaner technologies and the regulation
will help inspire that.
Our second component will focus on the public stance
on the issue of environmental protection.
We're in an unprecedented era in environmental awareness
and the public is completely behind it.
I'd like to bring your attention to a very revealing ruling that
just came out in the last few weeks in Massachusetts.
Two men used their lobster boat to block a coal shipment
from passing through the channel on its way
to Brayton Point Power Plant.
The men were on trial for several counts
and faced several years in jail and the judge
ruled that he approved the use of necessity
as a defense for their actions.
In order to use the necessity defense,
you have to prove that you were in clear and imminent danger.
And in this instance, the defense
argues the men in their communities
were in clear and imminent danger of climate change.
So the judge decreed they had no legal alternative
to protect themselves and their communities
other than to try to block the coal shipment.
So the prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges.
So obviously this is a totally unprecedented case.
This is an exciting time for environmental progressives.
Judges are going rouge on this issue
and they're allowing people a lot of room
to maneuver, to fight environmental problems,
so we want to design a policy [INAUDIBLE] that
involves the public energy as much as possible.
So we're going to educate the public,
we're going to use some of our funding
to organize conferences and small community advisory
committees.
These committees will call small meetings in their communities
and discuss the EPA's [INAUDIBLE] control policies
and they can weigh in on whether or not
they think those policies should continue at this time.
This method will give our study legitimacy
in the eyes of the public and in the eyes
of congress, who depend on the public for voting.
I highly doubt a heritage society did a public assessment
or reached out to the public in their review,
so basically, we'll get our study,
that added legitimacy that we involved the public opinion.
And then, come election time, the public
will play a role in the political evaluation
of the heritage societies policy suggestions.
And we'll also ask the public to consider who the heritage
society is serving in trying to overturn
these important policies.
The courts finally ruled that the BP oil
spill was the result of gross negligence and so we can ask,
are these the types of behaviors the heritage society thinks
we no longer need to regulate against.
OK.
Third component, we're going to play the business community
into the heritage society by holding
an administrative review of the EPA.
They are arguing against the efficiency of the program.
The EPA has had some organizational problems in
the last few decades, so we're going to go ahead and help them
out with that and also better--
organize better [? about ?] EPA is good for everybody.
And that will satisfy the business community, also,
to have some of that what they see
as wasteful practices reduced.
Our fourth review method, like I said,
is to involve the Justice Department
and I'll remind you again of the instance of the judge releasing
the environmental activists who blocked the coal barge.
So the Justice Department, as a whole,
we think should take a stand on this issue of the right
to clean air and water, so we're requesting
a judicial review of the constitutionality of removing
[INAUDIBLE] policies designed to protect
the people and the environment.
So in conclusion, I agree with you, secretary,
that the study by the heritage society is bogus
and we need to organize our own review of command control
policies that highlight their value.
PROFESSOR: Thank you.