Why is pro-pollution considered a free market position?

[Old Rocks]

Koch Industries - SourceWatch

Pollution
Koch Industries is also a major polluter. During the 1990s, its faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a landmark penalty of $35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In Minnesota, it was fined an additional $8 million for discharging oil into streams. During the months leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, the company faced even more liability, in the form of a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. Koch Industries was ranked number 10 on the list of Toxic 100 Air Polluters by the Political Economy Research Institute in March, 2010. [1][2]

In a study released in the spring of 2010, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the United States' top ten air polluters. [22]

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Koch Industries - SourceWatch

Pollution
Koch Industries is also a major polluter. During the 1990s, its faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a landmark penalty of $35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In Minnesota, it was fined an additional $8 million for discharging oil into streams. During the months leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, the company faced even more liability, in the form of a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. Koch Industries was ranked number 10 on the list of Toxic 100 Air Polluters by the Political Economy Research Institute in March, 2010. [1][2]

In a study released in the spring of 2010, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the United States' top ten air polluters. [22]

Funny thing. Source Watch and Wikipedia disagree about the nature of those fines and the actual charges that were in the indictment. Which do you think is more reliable, and why?

 

[Polk]

Can anyone answer that. What gives coal and oil producers the right to pollute other people's air?

Tell you what.

Why don't you start by pointing me to a pro pollution promoter and we will talk. Until then, you are just another idiot.

What do you call people who want to disband the EPA?

 

[Polk]

Good to see you are your normal, irrational, self.

Which part is irrational?

The part about anti-regulation being the free market position? Um, no. That's more or less the definition of the 'free market'. But don't take my word for it, go read 'Capitalism and Freedom' by Milton Friedman. A good read with a lot of good arguments actually.

Or the part about the free market failing to adequately keep pollution in check? Um no. The evidence on that one proves it to be a slam dunk.

Sorry, not only is it rational, it's fact.

The irrational part is your insistence that the free market is going to fail no matter what. One of the most polluted places on the planet is in what used to be the Soviet Union. Because they had no free market at all, the people were not free to protest against, and force the companies that were polluting to respond to them.

On the other hand, companies here in the United States, once the dangers of pollution became clear, were forced to bow to demands to cut back. It is not the free market that fails to protect the environment, it is the government. That makes you position irrational. Some regulations make sense, but most of them just make things worse. Some of them exist just to keep large corporations from having to compete.

The free market will fail at regulating pollution. There isn't a market incentive to cut emissions.

 

[Polk]

PS: I believe the term 'pro-pollution' to be just as partisanly disingenuos as 'pro-abortion'.

Frankly, that was for a lack of a better way to frame it in a quick manner.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Can anyone answer that. What gives coal and oil producers the right to pollute other people's air?

Tell you what.

Why don't you start by pointing me to a pro pollution promoter and we will talk. Until then, you are just another idiot.

What do you call people who want to disband the EPA?

Sensible?

Seriously though, they are simply over reacting to the problem that the EPA presents. They no longer do any type of cost benefit analysis, they just impose new rules without hearings or comment from the public. If the EPA simply allowed Congress to make the laws, and then implemented them, you would not have a bipartisan movement to reign them in.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Which part is irrational?

The part about anti-regulation being the free market position? Um, no. That's more or less the definition of the 'free market'. But don't take my word for it, go read 'Capitalism and Freedom' by Milton Friedman. A good read with a lot of good arguments actually.

Or the part about the free market failing to adequately keep pollution in check? Um no. The evidence on that one proves it to be a slam dunk.

Sorry, not only is it rational, it's fact.

The irrational part is your insistence that the free market is going to fail no matter what. One of the most polluted places on the planet is in what used to be the Soviet Union. Because they had no free market at all, the people were not free to protest against, and force the companies that were polluting to respond to them.

On the other hand, companies here in the United States, once the dangers of pollution became clear, were forced to bow to demands to cut back. It is not the free market that fails to protect the environment, it is the government. That makes you position irrational. Some regulations make sense, but most of them just make things worse. Some of them exist just to keep large corporations from having to compete.

The free market will fail at regulating pollution. There isn't a market incentive to cut emissions.

Sure there is. If a company does not cut emissions it will kill everyone off, and no one will buy its products. I watched the market help curb pollution in the 1980s and 1990s, and I can point to numerous companies that advertise that they exceed the government imposed limits on pollution. Amway has been using phosphate free detergents for decades, and the government is just catching up with them.

 

[Polk]

The irrational part is your insistence that the free market is going to fail no matter what. One of the most polluted places on the planet is in what used to be the Soviet Union. Because they had no free market at all, the people were not free to protest against, and force the companies that were polluting to respond to them.

On the other hand, companies here in the United States, once the dangers of pollution became clear, were forced to bow to demands to cut back. It is not the free market that fails to protect the environment, it is the government. That makes you position irrational. Some regulations make sense, but most of them just make things worse. Some of them exist just to keep large corporations from having to compete.

The free market will fail at regulating pollution. There isn't a market incentive to cut emissions.

Sure there is. If a company does not cut emissions it will kill everyone off, and no one will buy its products. I watched the market help curb pollution in the 1980s and 1990s, and I can point to numerous companies that advertise that they exceed the government imposed limits on pollution. Amway has been using phosphate free detergents for decades, and the government is just catching up with them.

1. While it's true that cutting emissions would be good for the whole, that's not true at the level of the individual firm, which is where decisions are made.
2. How did the market "help curb pollution in the 1980s and 1990s"?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The free market will fail at regulating pollution. There isn't a market incentive to cut emissions.

Sure there is. If a company does not cut emissions it will kill everyone off, and no one will buy its products. I watched the market help curb pollution in the 1980s and 1990s, and I can point to numerous companies that advertise that they exceed the government imposed limits on pollution. Amway has been using phosphate free detergents for decades, and the government is just catching up with them.

1. While it's true that cutting emissions would be good for the whole, that's not true at the level of the individual firm, which is where decisions are made.
2. How did the market "help curb pollution in the 1980s and 1990s"?

1. Wrong
2. The same way it still is. Companies that cut pollution for profit / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

 

[Polk]

It's not wrong. That you militantly insist it is shows a lack of understanding of basic economics.

As for the market "help[ing] curb pollution in the 1980s and 1990s", you've still yet to provide an example. You've shown one firm that operates a little niche outfit. Good for them, but that doesn't validate your argument that it is in the interest of firms to reduce emissions.

 

[Dot Com]

Now the EPA is far more interested in political advocacy than in pollution control. They have also far overstepped their mandate and are now engaging in regulation by fiat. Now they need to be shut down.

United States Environmental Protection Agency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.[2] The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 3, 1970, after Nixon submitted a reorganization plan to Congress and it was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.[3] The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Lisa P. Jackson. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The agency has approximately 18,000 full-time employees.[4]

Its an Executive agency meaning its under the guidance of whomever the current President appoints.

Didn't Nixon also endorse universal HC?

 

[Polk]

Now the EPA is far more interested in political advocacy than in pollution control. They have also far overstepped their mandate and are now engaging in regulation by fiat. Now they need to be shut down.

United States Environmental Protection Agency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.[2] The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 3, 1970, after Nixon submitted a reorganization plan to Congress and it was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.[3] The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Lisa P. Jackson. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The agency has approximately 18,000 full-time employees.[4]

Its an Executive agency meaning its under the guidance of whomever the current President appoints.

Didn't Nixon also endorse universal HC?

Not only that, he endorsed a proposal to the left of what was passed last year.