It brings me no joy whatsoever to write about what I consider to be potentially very bad news about the environment, however I also feel it needs to be said – the new house spending bill in the United States passed last month is a disgrace when it comes to environmental concerns. Whilst I believe I have a strong understanding of economics and realize that government spending and waste is under the greatest level of scrutiny in recent times as it should be, shortsightedness when it comes to environmental spending and protection is essentially similar to raising your premiums on home insurance to save money while you know your house is going to have a fire in the next few years. We know environmental issues aren’t going to go away due to global financial difficulties, air and sea pollution won’t slow if the stock market levels off or falls and climate change will only accelerate if emissions aren’t regulated stringently.

The spending bill cuts some $60 billion from the federal budget with a greater than anticipated impact of climate to environmental regulations. The changes would impact farming, fish protection and national greenhouse gas emission regulations and the political debate is escalating rapidly about whether many of these cuts were actually financially driven or perhaps political. Things have not reached a conclusion yet though as the bill would still need to pass in the Senate where Democrats committed to block a number of the cuts including the environmental ones. Washington insiders feel that this represents just the first round in the battle over environmental spending, citing that many people were voted into office under the umbrella of reduced spending.

Over the last three decades environmental spending has ebbed and flowed along with the political climate however none have seen the depth of reduction currently being proposed. While there are regional variations in terms of impact the overall agency (the EPA) would be facing a reduction in spending of 30 percent, alarmingly this is more than any other agency which is the part I think is simply delaying the inevitable need to maintain or enhance spending in this area.

The bill would carve out new standards of species protection for fish along with stopping the agency from enforcing new and improved limits on toxic emissions. It would cut back funding for dredge and fill regulations and pull spending from the Bureau of Land Management’s new program designed to identify and protect pristine public lands. That’s just the tip of the iceberg as the cuts impact across the board. In the interest of healthy debate though I wondered how what could be perceived as ignoring environmental issues is being sold by those who support these cuts. Terry Anderson, executive director of the Property and Environment Research Centre, which promotes a free-market approach to environmental problems, explains that the cuts are driven more by political than budgetary concerns

“The regulations that won’t be enforced haven’t been the biggest drivers in improvements in environmental quality in recent years. We have a clean environment, and we’ll continue to clean it up because of technology. And that is largely a function of economic growth.”

It’s an interesting view but I think it’s overtly optimistic, if we could depend upon corporate responsibility and technology to protect our environment surely it wouldn’t have reached the position it currently resides in the first place. While I don’t think environmental matters will be solved exclusively by government and government spending, I do believe the necessary regulation and enforcement should definitely not be cut back at this stage.