(4 of 5)
While the EPA endorses objective calculations of risk, it fears being bogged down by endless cost-benefit studies. Agency officials want a limit, for example, on the number of risk assessments required for similar regulations in different parts of the country. Then, too, many environmentalists are nervous about the whole concept of cost-benefit equations. It's easy, they say, to figure the cost of an antismog device. But what is the value of saving even a single child from developing asthma?
PROPERTY RIGHTS Contract advocates believe that when Washington imposes environmental restrictions on landowners, preventing them from, say, filling in wetlands to build motels, the government has "taken" the value of the land-a concept based on the constitutional provision that the government cannot take personal property without "just compensation." The courts have accepted this principle but have made it tough for landowners to get payments; in some cases, government action must reduce the value of land 85% before any legal remedy is available.
A bill now before Congress would lower that threshold to 50%, a requirement that would increase the compensation paid to landholders. That would benefit Margaret Rector, who owns 15 acres of land northwest of Austin, Texas, that was valued in the mid-1980s at $1 million. In the early 1990s, she was informed by federal officials that her land contained the sort of old-growth cedar favored by the golden-cheeked warbler, an endangered species. For that reason, she says, "they told me I can't clear it, I can't build on it, and I can't cut it." And because of those restrictions, she can't sell it. These encumbrances, say supporters of the Gingrich legislation, constitute a federal "taking" of her land, for which she should be compensated.
More than 100 law professors and most state attorneys general have signed documents objecting to the "property rights" bill, claiming it would block new regulations by keeping environmental enforcers tied up in court. Under the proposed reforms, critics contend, anyone's neighbor could threaten to convert his land into a toxic-waste dump-and claim compensation from the government if he was not allowed to do it.
The momentum behind all the proposals has stunned ecogroups. "It's all happening very fast, without a lot of discussion, not by the public and not even by members of Congress," says Sharon Newsome, a lobbyist for the National Wildlife Federation. Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, the greens' point man in the New York State assembly, thinks he knows why. "Newt's troops have to do this in the first 100 days because it won't stand scrutiny."
After weeks of virtual silence on environmental issues, the White House has at last gone on the attack. Vice President Al Gore stated flatly that President Clinton cannot support some of the property-takings bills, and a parade of Administration officials has trooped to the Hill to warn against hasty, ill-considered action.
Both the Administration and conservation groups admit that the Republicans have identified some real problems with the enforcement of environmental laws. But they also agree that the remedies the G.O.P. is proposing are so broad and excessive that they almost invite a presidential veto. If Congress and Clinton cannot compromise, the cause of environmental protection may be the main casualty.