The sweeping actions of the federal agencies ought to have more Americans wondering whether our nation still has a constitutional legislative branch of government in any sense of the term other than vestigial. Each day seems to bring yet another level of regulation which purports to protect us, in essence, from ourselves. Of late, regulation mania has been most notable in transportation. The way things are going, the speculation that taking an international flight will probably soon mean passengers will end up dressed in a government-issued smock for the flight, confined to a human-shaped shipping container, and stacked in windowless cargo planes isn’t as funny as it once might have been.

A few weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) briefly grabbed the headlines when EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced an “endangerment finding” concerning carbon dioxide, the fourth most common gas in Earth’s atmosphere. It seems that the U.S. Senate just was not moving fast enough on “cap and trade” prior to the Copenhagen Conference — how helpful it was for the EPA to skip over all the pesky institutions of representative government to provide the “Change Americans will be Compelled to Believe In.”®

Now the EPA has announced further regulation of another atmospheric trace gas, Ozone. According to the Washington Post:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed limiting the allowable amount of pollution-forming ozone in the air from 75 to between 60 and 70 parts per billion for any eight-hour period, significantly tightening rules the Bush administration had set for the nation's most widespread air pollutant. ...

The final target that the Obama administration adopts will have huge implications for the regulations state and local officials will have to set in the coming months to meet the new federal requirements. Power plants and motor vehicles are significant emitters of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds, which form ozone when exposed to sunlight, but sources as small as gas lawnmowers could face restrictions depending on what EPA chooses as its ultimate goal.

Yes, that’s right: The two-cycle gas lawnmower is the destroyer of worlds. Thank goodness we’ve got Lisa Jackson to protect us. There is no realm of human activity so trivial as to escape the watchful eye of government regulators.

"Smog in the air we breathe poses a very serious health threat, especially to children and individuals suffering from asthma and lung disease," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a statement. "Using the best science to strengthen these standards is a long overdue action that will help millions of Americans breathe easier and live healthier."

Depending on the level of the final standard, EPA estimates the proposal will cost between $19 billion and $90 billion to implement and will yield health benefits of between $13 billion and $100 billion. The proposal would translate into thousands of avoided premature deaths by 2020, though the exact number depends on what exact limit the agency adopts.

Well, my son may breathe easier at the idea of Administrator Jackson regulating our family’s self-propelled gasoline lawnmower out of existence — until he realizes that it will be replaced by teen-powered reel mower. But among the crazy points of this entire round of regulation (and I realize that this is what one might term a ‘target rich environment’ for such a designation) is the bland way in which the EPA throws out a cost/benefit analysis that makes ‘back of the envelope’ figures look like a careful scientific study. Costs of $19 to $90 billion? Health benefits of $13 to $100 billion? Well, dear reader, the appropriate descriptives for such calculation are terms such as “wild guesses” and “wishful thinking.”  When the bureaucracy throws out numbers like this, it is probably safe to assume this means that they actually think the cost will be at least $90 billion, and the benefit will be $13 billion. But regardless of the calculations, one ought to ask: “Who will be saving the money? Who will be spending the money?”

The main ‘contribution’ of the various alphabet soup agencies (EPA, USDA, ED, HHS, DHS, HUD, etc.) to the average American is not greater longevity, wealth, education, or security — at least, certainly not at a level proportionate to the cost, financial and otherwise. No, what these agencies ‘provide’ us with is diminished productivity through time wasted “jumping through hoops,” heightened anxiety over the complexity of complying with the dictates of overlapping regulatory authorities, and, on occasion, genuinely frightening infringements on our constitutional liberties.

It is not that each and every action undertaken by the federal agencies is somehow inherently evil or corrupt. Far from it. Sometimes regulations are downright common sense or are at least not utterly counter productive. But every program, every regulation, at best serves the interests of one community, or one industry, over another. Whenever a regulation is imposed the full power of the federal government may be brought to the aid of one private interest against another.

Some readers will no doubt protest: “Cleaner air is in everyone’s interests!,” and presented in such abstract terms, it is an undeniably true statement. But “cleaner air” does not, if you’ll pardon a bad pun, “exist in a vacuum”— environmental regulation always comes at a cost and that cost must be paid by the people who are supposedly being aided by such regulations. The cost of regulations will be passed along to the consumers, and when weighing the health benefits of cleaner air, one must also weigh the health cost of elderly and lower income people setting the thermostat lower in the winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes as well as they could before.

The recent revelation that the EPA and USDA are working together to, in essence, spread pollutants from the waste of coal-fired power plants on American farmlands stands in marked contrast to the righteous eco-warrior image the EPA tries to inculcate. Trying to reconcile such inconsistencies into a rational, uniform policy will simply make your head hurt. In the end, the benefits of the regulation are doubtful or debated, but the costs are very real. And what is certain is that the seemingly-ever expanding regulatory power of government is most certainly leaving us all less free.

Rt. Rev. James Heiser has served as Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas, while maintaining his responsibilities as publisher of Repristination Press, which he established in 1993 to publish academic and popular theological books to serve the Lutheran Church.  Heiser has also served since 2005 as the Dean of Missions for The Augustana Ministerium and in 2006 was called to serve as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). An advocate of manned space exploration, Heiser serves on the Steering Committee of the Mars Society. His publications include two books; The Office of the Ministry in N. Hunnius' Epitome Credendorum (1996) and A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (2006), as well as dozens of journal articles and book reviews.

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rprew said:

Another (major) source of ozone You know how when there’s a thunderstorm, the air has that electrical charge to it? It smells fresh and you have twice as much energy as before. That fresh smell you detect during and after a thunderstorm is created by ozone. An ozone air purifier can produce that same smell. These are illegal in the United States, but are manufactured, sold, and used in other parts of the world. Since lightning is a major source of ozone (a pollutant), and the source of lightning is nature, what is the EPA going to do about this? Slap major fines upon God?

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January 11, 2010
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rprew said:

13 Major Effects of Ozone On The Human Body 1. Ozone stimulates the production of white blood cells. 2. Interferon levels are significantly increased. 3. Ozone stimulates the production of Tumor Necrosis Factor. 4. Ozone stimulates the secretion of IL-2. 5. Ozone kills most bacteria at low concentrations. 6. Ozone is effective against all types of fungi. 7. Ozone fights viruses in a variety of ways. 8. Ozone is antineoplastic. 9. Ozone oxidizes arterial plaque. 10. Ozone increases the flexibility and elasticity of red blood cells. 11. Ozone accelerates the Citric Acid Cycle. 12. Ozone makes the anti-oxidant enzyme system more efficient. 13. Ozone degrades petrochemicals NASA says: "Shortness of breath, dry cough or pain when taking a deep breath, tightness of the chest, wheezing, and sometimes even nausea are common responses to ozone." Yet, the air is fresh and energizing right after a violent thunderstorm, when the air is ripe with what? Ozone! Explain to me again... why is ozone a bad thing? Ozone is bad at ground level, but desired at high altitude?

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January 11, 2010
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Larry Brown said:

	... Didn't we eliminate Freon because it destroyed the Ozone in the atmosphere?
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January 11, 2010 | url
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DDW said:

	Has anyone noticed That the fedgov is becoming more and more like a controlling, domineering, greedy hateful, meddling, power-hungry, prying, snooping virago?
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January 11, 2010
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Lee Gonzales said:

informing the RVers Rvers down in Florida inspired a mini debate on the "global warming " theory. The moderator shut the thread down. Too controversial.Before the shut down I posted: "... the Twilight Zone. One episode featured a gal who was sick and her fever was causing her to hallucinate about a heat wave... the end of the 1/2 hour show the girl's fever broke just long enough for the sick girl to realize that the entire world was in a deep freeze. "...I recall reading and hearing my teachers talk about a coming Ice Age. ...Fiction is fiction and science is a process of investigation and observation... "...Plants need co2 in order to live and of course man eats plants. But scientists have observed that dying trees and other vegetation also give off C02. The growing, robust plants consume C02 and give off oxygen. However most of the oxygen was produced not by plants but was produced before the plants. You have the account in Genesis or in Science books to pick from. Regardless, of which one you believe in we need oxygen to survive and the plants need C02, but the EPA nows claims that Co2 is a poison. Is it science or is the EPA trying to rewrite a play by Rod Serling?"

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January 14, 2010
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