Policy Counsel

Fred L. Smith Jr.
President
Competitive Enterprise Institute

Fred Lee Smith - president and founder, Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market public policy group established in 1984; popular speaker at universities and conferences around the world; frequent guest on national television and radio programs to discuss and debate regulatory initiatives, and topical policy issues, has appeared on CNN's Crossfire, PBS’s News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and Now with Bill Moyers, ABC's 20/20, and This Week, NPR's Talk of the Nation, The Diane Rehm Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, and many others; published in leading newspapers and magazines such as the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Economic Affairs, and the Washington Times; academic articles have appeared in journals such as Harvard Journal of Law, Economics, CATO Journal, and Economic Affairs; contributing editor, Liberty magazine; co-editor, Environmental Politics: Public Costs, Private Rewards and the Field Guide for Effective Communication; contributed chapters to more than a dozen books, including Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths, True State of the Planet, Corporate Aftershock: The Public Policy Lessons from the Collapse of Enron and Other Major Corporations, Solutions for an Environment in Peril, Market Liberalism: A Paradigm for the 21st Century, and Assessing the Reagan Years; board member, Institute Turgot in Belgium; served as director, Government Relations for the Council for a Competitive Economy; senior economist, Association of American Railroads; five years as a senior policy analyst, Environmental Protection Agency; did graduate work in mathematics and applied mathematical economics at Harvard, SUNY at Buffalo, and the University of Pennsylvania; BS, Theoretical Mathematics and Political Science, Tulane University, where he earned the Arts and Sciences Medal (Tulane’s highest academic award) and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Spouse - Frances. Washington, DC.

The use of the terms eco-paganism and eco-socialism is provocative and deliberately so. My goal today is twofold: first to persuade you that conservatives should engage the environmental debate (our neglect here has been foolish and dangerous); and, second, to warn that, while we have a deep and important moral responsibility to care for God’s creation, that this responsibility should be by extending the conservative institutions of liberty (private property, the rule of law, private action) – not by joining the collectivist environmental parade.

Let me clarify why I selected these terms:

·        Eco-Paganism? Most environmentalists do not, of course, see themselves as pagans. Yet, many do espouse a watered down form of pantheism which elevates nature to near deity. They have confused the biblical truth that The earth is the Lord’s with the fashionable environmental slogan that The Earth is the Lord! Moreover, the environmental establishment demands a status for the Cathedrals of Nature that they deny vigorously for the Cathedrals of God.

·        Eco-Socialism? Again, most would reject the socialist label, insisting that they wish only to “correct market failures” (which they seem to find everywhere). But, their “free market” would be rigidly controlled by environmental rules, with “market-mechanisms” rhetoric used to justify pervasive regulatory taxes and quotas to micro-manage the economy. That was the system put forward by communist theorists in the 1930s as market socialism. It failed; eco-socialism is now failing in the global warming sector. In their world: EPA will steer; you and I are allowed only to row! In their world, as in that of their socialist precursors, there is little role for private conservation or private property.

With the defeat of communism and the failures of economic socialism, the hopes of the left have moved decisively into the environmental area. No longer does the left pretend that it offers the promise of realizing Heaven on Earth - now they claim only that they must retain power to prevent Hell on Earth.

The leader of this Doom and Gloom Alliance, former presidential candidate Al Gore, is not your friend. Yet, we should realize that Al Gore (a former theology student) believes passionately in this apocalyptic view of nature. He champions the Malthusian view of the relationship between man and nature, the famous

I=PAT

equation. To Gore, man’s impact on our planet (always negative) is seen as exacerbated by:

·        P, population (the enviros lead the population control fight, often praising China’s one-child policy)

·        A, affluence (America, they note, consumes a disproportionate fraction of the world’s goods – they fail to note that we produce an even larger share)

·        And T, technology (nuclear, biotechnology, chemicals, cell phones, you name it – they find it worrisome).

In effect, they’ve adopted a Terrible Toos viewpoint: there are too many people on our planet, we consume too much of the world’s finite resources, and we use too much technology that we understand too poorly!

Their solution? Population controls (fewer people)! Consumption controls (rationing and taxing of resource use)! And, technology controls (holding the creative genius of the American entrepreneur down to the speed of the political bureaucracy). All voluntary, if possible; coercive, if necessary.

To we conservatives, this program – less people, less goods and services, less innovation - sounds suspiciously like the old collectivist goals of Death, Poverty and Ignorance!

Yet, I do not believe we can or should denigrate environmental values. We more than anyone must realize and accept our duty to care for God’s Creation, to protect and respect the beauties of Garden Earth. The conservative neglect of environmental policy, our failure to develop and then commit the resources to implement a conservative limited-government vision for addressing environmental issues has created a vacuum into which the left has moved.

Their effort to seduce religious, social, defense and populist conservatives is strategic and dangerous. Yesterday’s USA Today editorial, numerous TV shows over the last few weeks, paid ads in New York Times – all emphasized the same point: “even Christian conservatives” concede the moral need to endorse Al Gore’s agenda.

This setback reflects the confusion conservatives feel over how to meet our stewardship duties – and, that confusion in turn reflects our failure to extend conservative principles to this increasingly important policy area. The result is that too many conservatives have come to doubt that our moral and constitutional values are applicable to the environmental policy area. Moreover, being conservative and Christian in a liberal, secular world is sometimes a lonely existence. Wouldn’t an eco-evangelical alliance with the environmental establishment grant us long-denied respect and make it easier to advance other more important conservative goals?

But, before anyone concedes anything, we should first reflect that this is not the first time that such doubts have arisen, not the first time that conservatives have been pressured to seek accommodation with the enemies of freedom. Recall that it was not long ago, that conservatives were widely attacked as caring little about the poor. Liberation Theologians championed the gospel of social justice, seeing the Welfare State as the only moral, the only compassionate way to meet our moral obligations to the unfortunate. And, although conservatives were critical of the welfare state as costly, as incompatible with our freedom and responsibility ethos, our lack of a positive alternative vision left us guilty, vulnerable to the blanishments of the left.

And some conservative succumbed. Fortunately, over time, the Welfare State’s intrusiveness, its paternalism, its denial of respect and rights, became evident. But, the real change happened as the inability of political programs to resolve poverty became ever more apparent. That awakening was accelerated by the creative works of conservative scholars and religious leaders such as Charles Murray and Marvin Olasky. They noted that policies that viewed private charity as degrading, welfare as a right, that saw the poor as victims – were incompatible with basic human nature, that we are all free and responsible – that they had failed. Earlier critics had pointed out the waste and the inefficiency of these programs; but these individuals went further, demonstrating that poverty programs perpetuated poverty. And with that realization, conservatives recaptured the moral high ground and welfare reform became a political bi-partisan reality.

Today, we’re becoming increasingly aware that the Endangered Species Act endangers species, that Superfund enriches lawyers while cleansing only taxpayer’s wallets. The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts restrict growth and control land use but do little to make America more healthful, that EPA increasingly alarms rather than informs the American citizenry. And these problems are becoming increasingly evident.

When I was a kid, many people were worried that chemicals in the water supply might cause harm – and many still do today. But then it was fluorides, most people weren’t alarmed and the alarmists were private citizen groups. Now the fears are about chlorination to kill bacteria, many people take them seriously, and the alarmists is our own EPA. And, ironically, that fear in part explains the massive expansion of bottled water – with its attendant energy, litter and solid waste problems. Ironic!

The Risk is Real

A few weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that the National Association of Evangelicals has decided not to endorse the environmental establishment’s global warming policies. This was a strange piece to appear in a newspaper; normally, the decision of a group not to take action is not news. But, behind that story was a concerted effort by major environmental groups and their funders to attract religious support for their globalist policies.

Eco-evangelicals were confident that the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals would issue a public statement on the dangers of global warming, marking a potentially fatal rift in the right-leaning coalition of climate-change humbugs. Fortunately that didn’t happen. NAE President Ted Haggard made it clear that the association “was not considering a position on global warming … not advocating …specific legislation or government mandates." Indeed, he noted that NAE's executive committee recently passed a motion "recognizing … the lack of consensus among the evangelical community on this issue."

One leading evangelical environmentalist, Calvin DeWitt, saw the NAE statement "a retreat and a defeat." "A year ago,” he noted, “it looked as though evangelicals would become a strong, collective voice for what we call 'Creation care' and others may call environmentalism," he said. His regret seemed prompted by his subsequent remark that "This will have negative consequences for the ability of evangelicals to influence the White House …."   The chatter on the internet showed similar dismay by the environmental establishment.

The eco-evangelicals, having failed to persuade the National Association of Evangelicals, formed an ad hoc. the Evangelical Climate Initiative and issued An Evangelical Call to Action. That manifesto was a highly political statement:

“In the United States, the most important immediate step that can be taken at the federal level is to pass and implement national legislation requiring sufficient economy-wide reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through cost-effective, market-based mechanisms such as a cap-and-trade program.   On June 22, 2005 the Senate passed the Domenici-Bingaman resolution affirming this approach, and a number of major energy companies now acknowledge that this method is best both for the environment and for business.

“We commend the Senators who have taken this stand and encourage them to fulfill their pledge. We also applaud the steps taken by such companies as BP, Shell, General Electric, Cinergy, Duke Energy, and DuPont, all of which have moved ahead of the pace of government action through innovative measures implemented within their companies in the U.S. and around the world. In so doing they have offered timely leadership.”

Thus, there is now religious, conservative support for the policies of Al Gore. The Chattering Class by chattering long and loudly have begun to gain mainstream Republican support and adherents throughout the conservative ranks. Environmentalism poses a real and present danger to America’s future.

These policies would do great harm to humanity, for the only known way to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases is to drastically reduce fossil fuel consumption. Many nations have ratified Kyoto but the only nations that are meeting their reduction targets are those whose economies have collapsed. Kyoto-type policies would inflate the already high cost of gasoline, natural gas, and home heating oil in this country, placing even more hardship on poor households. Exporting such policies to China, India, and other developing countries, where emissions are growing most rapidly, would doom those nations to perpetual energy poverty.

This push to use our vulnerabilities to enlist evangelicals and other conservatives in a global environmental crusade will continue. Yet, the expanded use of concentrated energy has been (literally) the engine of growth for the past century. Energy lights, cools and warms our homes; allows us the freedom of mobility to move when conditions change, to unite our geographically dispersed familes; to lighten the burdens of the workplace. Former missionary and climate scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, commenting on this statement, noted: “Access to inexpensive, efficient energy would enhance the lives of the Africans while at the same time enhance the environment.”

Yet, these evangelicals would “help” the poor by closing the doorway out of poverty. As conservatives, we must recognize that the path to a cleaner environment is to increase global prosperity, to gain the wealth and knowledge that allows better Creation Care, better stewardship.

The eco-evangelicals mean well but they are confused. They fail to understand both the biblical and the economic basis of sound policy. Let me now review these confusions:

The Eco-Pantheism Confusion:

Modern intellectuals heavily influence our environmental thinking. Having abandoned God, many seem eager to worship Gaia – the goddess of earth. Few join the Church of Wicca or dance around trees at midnight but they seem to have substituted for the Christian rule – The Earth is the Lords – a confused view that The Earth is the Lord!

This is foolish. If any credence is given to the concept of Gaia (our planet evolving toward some form of self-consciousness), then man is clearly its “soul” and its “brain cells.’ To reject this special responsibility is to abandon our unique ability to care for God’s creation.

The Christian tradition is clear: mankind was given both dominion and stewardship over the earth.

The dominion concept is clear (all quotations taken from the New Living Translation of the Bible):

Genesis 1:27-28 “So God created people in his own image…God blessed them and told them, multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and the birds and all the animals.”

And also:

Psalm 8:5-6 " For you made us only a little lower than God, and you crowned us with glory and honor. You put us in charge of everything you made."

But, equally clear, is the fact that we are made responsible for its care:

Genesis 2:15 "And the Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it."

But, Christianity denies deity to nature. The Bible warms against this explicitly:

Roman's 1:25 "Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself.”

Again, conservatives recognize that the biblical statement that The earth is the Lord’s is very different from the environmental view that The Earth is the Lord.

Our challenge, as in the case of welfare, is to translate our moral obligations into meaningful effective acts. We can care – but we must also act wisely to ensure that our moral concerns have moral consequences. Simply passing a law will not suffice. The Bible is not “green” in the sense that our eco-evangelical friends would pretend.

The Eco-Socialist Error:

The old progressives favored economic and technological growth since they were confident the future belonged to them. Theirs was the heresy of arrogance – the Tower of Babel hubris – that would create Heaven on Earth. Our new “green” progressives hate progress – modernity in general – and fear that change means loss of power. Their policies alone can prevent Hell on earth. Thus, their endorsement of the Malthusian I=PAT equation.

The Greens not only reject the private property focus of the Bible, but also reject the Constitution with its focus on private property. The checks and balances of the Constitution, we’re told, make it too difficult for the EPA to achieve its noble missions. But this is exactly wrong. Nothing is more suitable to integrating environmental values, to reducing conflict, to advancing both liberty and environmental quality than our constitution of liberty.

The Constitution lays out that environment of liberty. One scholar defines it thusly:

“The environment for liberty is characterized b a social order where the individual is secure in his person and his property against invasion by other persons, including agents of the State, by an economic order of well-defined opportunities for a person to contract for goods and services and freely to transfer property to others; by a civic order providing a myriad of opportunities for voluntary cooperation on projects for social good; by a political order in which the power of the State is strictly limited, and where common law rules on trespass and tort govern, instead of bureaucratic regulations of productive activity, govern the problems caused by accidental injury to others.” Dennis: p. 64

Al Gore recently spoke to a conservative gathering in Washington. Gore spoke eloquently on his concerns for our planet, his belief that a “wrenching transformation of America is critical,” is deeply worried about the fragility of our natural environment. Yet, Gore seems totally unaware of the fragility of the environment for liberty and the harm his policies would create for those institutions.

Yet, as all conservatives know well, the environment for liberty is always fragile and made far more so by a government seeing its duty to protect us from everything. George Washington warned us that political power like fire was a dangerous servant. And the EPA has become a very dangerous “servant” indeed – seeking to manage our life styles, our backyards, our very bodies.

Eco-socialism is no more likely to advance environmental goals than socialism did economic goals. The road to serfdom can be paved with green as well as red bricks but it still leads to the same authoritarian end state.

But then what is the Conservative Alternative?

Conservative environmental policies should be based on the same principles that have done so much to advance economic progress. The elements can be found in those two great documents of civilization: the Bible and the Constitution. No text is better to kick off this discussion that the parable of the Good Shepherd (Gospel According to Saint John, Chapter 10, verses 11-14, King James Version):

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.

The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd….

The Christian tradition makes it clear that man is to meet his moral duties to care for God’s creation prudently. Our duty is not simply to “care” but to devise institutions that will empower and incentivize each of us to fulfill our moral stewardship obligations wisely. It is not enough to care, we must devise effective policies to ensure that our responsibility for this planet is effective.

A story from a friend and wife of one of my oldest friends who teaches in Northern Virginia made this clear to me. She was administering an achievement test to a young Johnny and asked, “Now, Johnny, why does oil float on water?” And without a pause, young Johnny responded: “Well, ma’am, I guess it’s because people don’t care anymore!”

The Johnny story says much about the greenwashing of America’s youth in our schools but also poses our challenge.

And, as the Good Shepherd parable shows, private property is the most important environmental policy in the world. We must find ways of clarifying that only the extension of the institutions of liberty to the environmental area is compatible with meeting our moral duties to ‘care.”

Most environmental problems reflect problems with resources that have been left unattended, watching over by “hirelings”, parts of the commons of the world, and, too often, suffering the tragedies of such collectively controlled resources.

The environmental establishment plays on our fears: desert tortoises are endangered in Nevada, human chromosome damage is found in citizens around Superfund sites, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio catches fire, tropical rainforests are disappearing, and (of course) global warming threatens the future of mankind. That such claims may be false, over-stated or causally linked to non-human causes is rarely considered. Bad things are happening – man must be the cause. And, as moral individuals, we do feel a responsibility to concern ourselves with these factors.

But, we remain too unaware of the history of private conservation, the real trends that saw the reduction of the horrendous pollution of waters and air of air in the much poorer cities of a century or so ago. And that is tragic, for as Roderick Nash noted: "To defend a tradition, you first have to identify it." Conservatives have done a very bad job of educating ourselves and our fellow Americans on the history of man’s relationship with nature. We’ve allowed the left to create a caricature where error was intent, where progress has been belittled, where creative experiments have been ignored.

After all, America depleted – for a while – our wildlife and our forests but we transformed that natural heritage into wealth and knowledge. We used our greater abilities to lighten our footprint on this planet, to become better stewards, and Bambi now nibbles the gardens around Washington and forests are expanding throughout America. Would we deny the Brazils and Indonesias of the world the freedom to take this same path toward a better world?

Unfortunately, there’s little literature – too little literature – describing how Americans far before the EPA or the DOI were even dreamed of were already reducing waste, protecting wildlife, buying and protecting national amenities. One scholar, Pierre Desroches, has documented the rapid reduction in emissions as entrepreneurs looked at the liquids, solids and gases flowing out of their plants in the 19th century and found ways to transform these waste streams into wealth. Industrial ecology was discovered by the market long before it was thought of by the environmentalists.   The view that only the government cares about efficiency, about waste reduction, is a modern secular heresy

And technology did much to lighten our footprint on this earth. Consider the massive reduction in pollution as the automobile replaced the horse. After all, the horse relied on renewable energy, was “organic,” and bio-degradable. But, a horse produced 40 pounds a day of solid wastes, a gallon or so of liquid, and required many acres of farm land devoted to providing it grain. Moreover, although an abandoned car can be an eyesore, it is far less objectionable to the dead horse in the front yard.

Man is not the cancer of planet earth. We are not mere “stomachs” – consumers of scarce resources – rather we have hands and a brain and a soul and – given the institutions of liberty that America’s Constitution has granted us – we can and do make the world a better place. The creative linkage of man’s genius and energies via the institutions of liberty has steadily lightened man’s footprint on this planet.

There is much yet to do but we should not be unaware that we’ve done much that is right. Consider some of the proudest examples of private conservation -- Jefferson's Natural Bridge, Mount Vernon, British anglers successfully suing upstream polluters, big-game ranches in Texas where dozens of species endangered in their home nations now flourish (America has been a refuge for nature, not just people). People care about the environment but conservatives must demand that the institutions support that concern, empower the individual to protect his or her part of this Garden Earth. That institutional development has been blocked by years of neglect but where it has been allowed it has demonstrated the viability of private property based environmentalism. The challenge is to an imaginative policy of ecological privatization - extending the institutions of liberty to those resources left behind – integrating the economic and ecological worlds.

Civilization as the Slow Evolution of Conflict Resolving Institutions

Mankind’s long prehistory as hunter-gatherers – living in communal, egalitarian tribes suppressing all individual experimentation because of fear that freedom would be used irresponsibly. The gradual development of the institutions of liberty which allowed freedom to expand but ensured that this freedom would be used responsibly - the family, private property, fences, customs of honesty and tolerance (but not affirmation) of error, contracts, trade, the market, and the array of complex arrangements that make modernity possible – all are steps along this path. The result is that mankind today in America especially – is far more capable of acting as a creative and responsible steward of this Planet.

Yet, the Greens disparage these institutions. They would have us return to the Dancing with Wolves lives of the primitives (aka indigenous peoples) of the world. Yet, as anthropologists gradually grow away from their romantic idealization of these often brutal societies, it is becoming increasingly evident that our world is far more sustainable than was theirs, our world is for better prepared to evaluate and respond creatively to environmental concerns.

Environmentalists seem horrified by mankind’s increased knowledge and power. To them, man only harms our planet. Yet, the authors of the famous bird guides, Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher, in a book Wild America, speaking of America noted:

..”never have I seen such wonders or met landlords so worthy of their land. They have had, and still have, the power to ravage it; and instead have made it a garden.” (quoted in Dennis, p. 59, mss; from their book p. 418, Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, 1955)

Americans spend vast energies, time and resources to better this planet, to make the world more a garden, an ark. Indeed, that point is sometimes realized even by critics of America such as John Kenneth Galbraith. He once noted that in America our homes and yards are beautiful, while our government parks and roads are a mess. From that observation, as a liberal, he drew naturally the conclusion, that we should raise taxes on our homes and yards, to fund our starved public sector. Conservatives would draw another conclusion: Is it possible to make more of this planet someone’s “backyard”, someone’s garden, someone’s pet?

Consider that the world needs two critical underground liquid resources – one is rare and costly to acquire, one falls freely from the sky; one historically has become ever more abundant, one has become increasingly scare. And, of course, I refer to oil and water. The difference is that oil – because of America’s unique provision allowing private ownership of subsurface mineral rights - allows private management of the oil resource. Water, everywhere, is controlled politically. Couldn’t we consider w hether the techniques used for oil management might not be extended to groundwater? (Almost all the world’s potable water resides in aquifers.)

The resources that are at risk today, the resources that are of concern in the environmental debate are those that lack the constitutional protections that allow caring individuals to own and protect them. The environmental problem is not that there is too much private property, but rather that there is too little.

Pets, wildlife? Offshore oil fields, offshore shrimping or fishing areas?

Indeed, as we become a wealthier people, we also come to realize that this is our planet and we should be better stewards. Since my childhood, I’ve noted a general decline in litter, especially given the massive expansion of material use and travel. A friend notes that mountain climbers now use less intrusive pitons and other climbing equipment. Even stone colored chalk needed to improve holds has become the preferred climbing product. And all this has happened because a free people with greater wealth and knowledge, motivated to be sure by peer pressure, have lightened their footprints on the earth. That cultural shift has happened by word of mouth – not restrictive rules.

Conclusion:

Conservatives must reject, not compromise with, the eco-pagan and eco-socialist biases proffered by the environmental establishment. We should be Green - -But we need not, indeed must not, become Pagans or Reds.   Rather, we should begin now to devote the time, energy and resources needed to bring conservative principles to the fore of this emerging policy area. Our goal should not be to accept any watered-down, Al Gore lite policies, nor to give credence to the pantheistic language of the more extreme wings of modern environmentalism but rather to infuse environmental policy with the wisdom and moral concepts that structure our economy.

The rule of law, private property, enforceable agreements (contracts) creates an environment within which trust arises and it is that mix of legal and moral disciplines that has held our economic problems in check. And those same institutions can and should be extended to those resources – wildlife, groundwater, western lands and Alaska, offshore areas, space – the areas and resources which have for too long been left under the stewardship of the “hireling” rather than good [private] shepherds.

We can no longer stay on the sidelines while the left seduces our youth and our co-conservatives to their side. This will take time, resources and energy. We are not bereft of individuals and ideas, our intellectual ammunition stockpile is meager but not non-existent. Becky Norton Dunlop, CEI, Steve Hayward from PRI, David Reidenour at the NCPPR, Cal Beisner at Knox ? and Ken Chilton at Westminister, and a handful of others. Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute, CEI and Jane Shaw in Montana produced one book on environmental education – Facts not Fears – and CEI has a number of books (look at our web site) but the field is wide open and all of you and your groups should engage it also.

We’re late to this game – as we were late to the welfare reform fights, But our ideas and our ideals are correct.   And we have some interesting rallying cries. To paraphrase that famous populist candidate, William Jenning Bryan, we reject both eco-paganism and eco-socialism. We will not crucify mankind on a cross of green!

Alternatively – Conservatives should espouse property rights approaches proudly. We realize we need be neither red nor pagan to be green!