The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a broad and complex mission to control air and water pollution, hazardous waste, chemicals, radiation, and a wide range of other environmental hazards. Does that include rain?
Apparently so. The EPA has proposed a new initiative to “rein in the rain,” as Americans for Prosperity aptly puts it. The agency is proposing requirements “including design or performance standards, for stormwater discharges from, at minimum, newly developed and redeveloped sites.” No later than November of 2012 the EPA says it will publish final regulations controlling “stormwater runoff.”
To me, that looks like treating the symptoms, rather than the causes, of the outrageous impacts of rain. Apparently rain has a tendency to create water on the ground and on buildings, which then runs in a downhill fashion toward streams, rivers, and ultimately oceans. Clearly that cannot be allowed to continue unchecked, at least not without some regulation to insure that the water runs off correctly, meaning in smaller amounts. But if the government is truly concerned about too much stormwater, and its disastrous propensity to run downhill, wouldn’t it be smarter to regulate the rain itself?
The new regulations may dictate the design of roofs, parking lots, streets, curbs, gutters, storm drains, pipes, and a host of other construction features involving drainage. Notice that the intent is to regulate such facilities for new construction “at minimum,” meaning they may also decide to implement new regulatory standards for already existing cities, towns, neighborhoods, roads, and even homes. You may have thought you were merely letting rainwater run off your place, but no – you are “discharging” it. On purpose. You need an EPA permit for that.
The cost of implementing such new federal regulations on every new development in the United States can only be guessed, but will be staggering, and unnecessary. Instead, I think the government ought to go directly to the source of these problems and regulate rain. All this expense on individual developments would be unneeded if it didn’t rain so much to begin with, so why treat symptoms and not the cause?
If you are skeptical of the government’s capacity to regulate a natural phenomenon like rain, you are clearly not paying attention. Research over the past few years, upon which many government programs now rely, focuses on the astounding ability of people to change the weather, and even the overall climate of the Earth. EPA is moving into regulation of naturally occurring gases like carbon dioxide (perhaps we will soon be required to stop breathing) precisely because our lifestyle is said to affect the weather. Another case of treating symptoms, not causes. So why not focus all these regulatory efforts directly where it would count the most and simply make it rain less where stormwater is an issue, perhaps redirecting that rain to areas where it is needed, such as the arid West?
It is not clear how long the reign of the current federal regulators may last, but maybe while they’re in power they will figure out how to rein in the rain – before it’s too late.
Another expansion of the nanny state that gained its foothold with FDR. The progressive movement is a highly determined and patient force…e.g although there exists no “public option” in the new Obamacare legislation, the progressives have set the foundation for eliminating a market based solution for reforming health care by having the power enact rules and set limits as to what for profit health care insurance companies can charge for risk. The percentage of the U.S. population that survives on entitlements continues to expand at an ever increasing rate. Next will be a massive transfer of wealth from the private sector to the public sector (entitlements) via the largest increases in marginal tax rates in history. The constitution is not a “living document” subject to the whims and will of progressive political activists that believe legislating from the bench, The United States is not a democracy…it is a republic in which the constitution was expressly drafted to protect the minority form the democratic majority.
Think about it…what is it that the government does not regulate??
Such articles ineedd are written to scare the public. Tap water monitoring under the lead and copper rule is intended to indicate the effectiveness of corrosion control, and does not measure human exposure. But this cuts both ways. Given the temporal variability of tap water lead levels, a site could measure low and still be high in some circumstances, or test high and still be low most of the time. This aspect of the lead rule is confusing to reporters and even some regulators.The original lead rule was finalized in 1991 .20 years ago ..and was the subject of litigation in which I was directly involved. There are many possible causes of a high tap water lead measurement. I understand all of this well. But the basic regulatory framework to address this issue has been in place for 20 years ..and yet it is still being pushed by EPA and environmental groups even now I am not at all convinced that more lead regulations are needed .but whether it is reported by the press or not, water systems need to communicate to customers that they are acting to minimize customer lead exposure from drinking water and then act to do so. Otherwise they look very stupid .
Why not let the epa control rain. They think they should control everything else in our lives.
Sunday Driver
And after they have mastered the rain, they ought to do something about all the problems we face from completely unregulated heat. Perhaps when they are finished “reining in the rain” they can find a way to diminish the serious effects of what is at times, an unbearably warm sun. If not, I say we throw the bums out!
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