Hearing the Falconer #37 ~ 29-Apr-2019 ~ Moderate Environmental Regulations

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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29-April-2019: Being Moderate with Environmental Regulations
In Defense of Environmental Regulations
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For a moderate, the position that we should have NO environmental regulations at all is too extreme in one direction. On the other hand, having regulations that are too costly, limit freedoms too much, and don't really do any good anyway, would be too extreme in the other direction.

The moderate approach to environmental regulations is to:

1. Define the problem that needs to be solved.
2. Propose a policy that might solve the problem, or at least reduce the problem.
3. Evaluate how effective the proposed solution will be.
4. Consider the cost of the solution in actual dollars, lost economic growth, and restrictions on personal freedom.
5. Do a cost – benefit analysis.
6. Decide whether or not to implement the plan.

This might seem obvious but to many partisans it must not be. Because I still hear some conservatives opposing ALL environmental regulations and some liberals supporting ALL environmental regulations.

If you are always in favor of environmental regulations or always opposed to them, you are probably not a moderate.

The attached article discusses regulations in Pennsylvania and reminds us of the terrible Donora disaster where air pollution on a foggy day killed 19 people in one little town.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Truman

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates

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Copyright © 2019 by Joseph Wayne Gadway