I will evaluate each of Jon Basil Utley’s arguments from his article in The American Conservative piece-by-piece, using scientific data and reputable sources.
The first argument I would like to address is the opening sentence of Utley’s article: “Virtually gone amuck during Obama’s last years, the EPA has issued masses of job-killing and job-preventing regulations and rulings that only a very strong and knowledgeable managerial hand can fix.”
In a study conducted by Resources for the Future, an independent nonpartisan organization, it was found that EPA regulations on average actually create jobs. The jobs may be shifted from a manufacturing position to a more bureaucratic one, but the job still exists. To quote the conclusions of the study:
“Our study of environmental regulation in the pulp and paper, plastics, petroleum and steel sectors suggests that a million dollars of additional environmental expenditure is associated with an insignificant change in employment, with a 95% confidence interval ranging from –2.8 to +5.9 jobs.”
Therefore, environmental regulations can cost a particular company a significant sum of money, but it does not affect unemployment levels overall. The inconvenient truth is that manufacturing jobs are becoming obsolete. This is not the fault of the EPA, but big business, who have decided that cheap, programmable robots should perform many of the tasks that used to require more expensive human labor.
Utley goes on to say “I have written before how there is almost no new mining investment in Western lands and Alaska because of EPA regulations and generated lawsuits.” Utley did not link the specific article that he claims to have written previously, so I am not sure of his exact claims, but there are many reasons the EPA has blocked mining investments in Alaska. One particularly relevant reason is that would kill jobs (you know, that thing this article is claiming to defend) and commerce for the fisheries that have existed in the mining areas of interest, Bristol Bay in particular, for thousands of years.
The EPA conducted a study on the effect of mining for gold in Alaska, and found that the consequences could impact the salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay significantly. The full quote from the EPA is as follows “The potential for large-scale mining activities in the watershed has raised concerns about the impact of mining on the sustainability of Bristol Bay’s world-class commercial, recreational and subsistence fisheries and the future of Alaska Native tribes in the watershed who have maintained a salmon-based culture and subsistence-based way of life for at least 4,000 years.” So, the EPA is again actually protecting jobs for plenty of hard-working people. Just not the ones that Utley would prefer to protect, right?
Next Utley proclaims that “The current leadership [of the EPA] should be fired or relocated to Alaska, maybe to study polar bears, which actually are thriving.” Jon Utley should really watch Planet Earth, a beautiful documentary from BBC that clearly illustrates the dire situation polar bears currently face. Additionally, the World Wildlife Foundation reports that polar bears are a vulnerable species, and that the population is expected to drop 30% by 2050.
The next quote is one of my favorites, “Think of all the new bureaucratic jobs and spending money these EPA self-administered funds will generate.” The EPA? Generating jobs you say? I thought the point of this whole article was that the EPA is killing jobs. Perhaps the specification of “bureaucratic” is supposed to scare readers. Again, I will say manufacturing jobs are becoming obsolete. It is not the fault of the EPA, but simply good business practice now to replace expensive human labor with cheaper robots. A bureaucratic job is better than no job at all, is it not?
The next argument from Utley is probably one of the more convincing, so I will spend a bit more time proving its falsehood. On the topic of scientists gathering data to predict future environmental crises, Utley claims that “actually, all the dire computer models of ten years ago proved to be wrong.” First, the referenced link is to the news site The Daily Caller, which is a highly opinionated source, similar to its liberal counterpart The Huffington Post. These sites have their place in entertainment, but reported “facts” on each of these sites should be carefully evaluated. The NASA Climate webpage is a much more fact-based source, and clearly states the data on its front page:
- Carbon Dioxide has increased by 404.93 parts per million.
- The global temperature has increased 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
- The Arctic ice minimum has decreased 13.3% per decade (poor polar bears).
- The land ice has decreased 281.0 gigatonnes per year.
Furthermore, in the Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that there is more than a 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet. So I suppose there is a 5 percent chance that Utley is right. I think that I would rather cut carbon emissions from huge manufacturing plants (and therefore cut the paycheck of a few billionaires) on the 95 percent chance that the emissions are the cause of climate change than risk a runaway greenhouse effect turning our planet into something like the hellish world of Venus on a 5 percent chance that the carbon emissions are not the cause. Also to note from the Fifth Assessment Report is the data showing that the temperature change in Alaska has been the most dramatic, rising 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit) from 1970-2004, so Alaska’s ecosystem absolutely does not need the additional strain of gold mining.
The next Utley quote does not need much of an explanation to refute. He says that “The actual expected sea-level increase of 1 to 2 millimeters per year (according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report) would be 200 millimeters over the next hundred years, or eight inches, which equals less than one inch every 10 years. A newer article from the BBC reports the possible rise at 20 to 40 inches over the next 100 years—or two to four inches every ten years. Then the Washington Post warns that if Antarctica also melted, the seas could rise 50 feet by the year 2500.”
I have not read the Fourth Assessment Report, but in the Fifth, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report a rise by 200 mm in sea level from 1961-1990. If that trend continues linearly then the sea levels will rise approximately 23 inches. Note that the trend appears to be continuing exponentially, so 23 inches is a conservative number. The new article from BBC was probably referencing the newer assessment report.
Phew, almost done. Utley plunges onwards to say that “Even when the EPA does finally correct past errors in one area, it doesn’t follow through to change others. For example, after finally modifying its nuclear radiation threat levels by a factor of hundreds for civil defense (a tiny radiation dirty bomb would have entailed evacuating half a city under its old rules), it still maintains the same obsolete rules for nuclear energy plants and superfund cleanup sites, thus adding billions to their costs.”
I realize that this is not the point of his argument, but I would like to point out Utley’s phrasing of a “tiny radiation dirty bomb.” The man has exaggerated the EPA as a job-killing burden on industry, but decides to talk down the implications of a radiation dirty bomb. If you really want to stay in a city after a “tiny radiation dirty bomb” has exploded, Jon Utley, be my guest. At least now you won’t be required to leave, but I know my ass is getting out.
Finally, and most inaccurately, Utley attempts to define the mathematical concept of the linear no threshold theory. According to Utley, this theory postulates that “if 100 aspirin would kill a man, than [sic] out of 100 men each taking one aspirin, one would die.” This is simply untrue. The linear no threshold theory at its basest form would postulate that if 100 aspirin would kill a man, then no matter how much time separated the aspirins, the man would die after taking 100. If he took 1 a day, he would die in 100 days. If he took 1 an hour, he would die in 100 hours, etc. The theory is commonly used when discussing radiation effects on causing cancer. It is the reason that doctors will not give a patient more than a certain number of X-Rays in a large timeframe. The radiation exposure could create cancerous cells.
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