I just returned from the other Washington, the one on the Potomac. I met with people in think tanks, universities, the federal judiciary, and intellectuals from the Reagan Administration. A common question was, “are the Republicans in the 104th Congress brain damaged or just cowards?” We all wondered what could possess Republicans to blatantly attack […]

Water is precious to life on earth. Healthy organisms, ecosystems, and weather cycles depend on it. A sufficient supply of clean water is the critical first step to improving public health in every society. Just because everyone needs water, however, doesn’t make managing it easy. Developing countries are struggling for water. The World Bank says […]

Economic analysis can promote environmental quality. By identifying subsidies, inefficiencies, and new opportunities, economists apply their powerful analytical tools to environmental ends. Yet despite its great potential, economic analysis has failed to improve environmental policy in many areas. Environmental regulators often ignore the importance of secure property rights and advocate regulatory “takings” of property with […]

Beneath Greater Yellowstone, powerful thermal energies relentlessly shift tectonic plates. The subsurface motion creates rifts and faults, occasionally volcanoes and earthquakes. The fundamental tensions are always there. The tectonic plates of culture and political economy are also shifting and generating profound tensions in the new American West. In Oregon and Idaho, hi-tech industries now provide […]

“Don’t Gore us with new taxes”, picketters in Miami shouted last week. They opposed Vice President Gore’s plan to “tax” the sugar industry in Florida. A sugar “tax” would be used by the federal government to purchase Everglades land for ecosystem restoration. In addition to the penny-per-pound “tax”, Gore announced a $1.5 billion environmental cleanup […]

Public policy failures can take their toll on economic efficiency, ecological integrity, and even human lives. These failures are endemic to fisheries commons the world over. Recent issues of Field and Stream, Scientific American, and National Geographic all featured stories about the dire straits of our fisheries. Now the Bering Sea brings tragic news of […]

The epicenter of Ecotopia lies somewhere in the area encircled by Bellingham, Eugene, and Bozeman. Four colleges of forestry, dozens of environmental groups, and busloads of environmental writers are based there. Hence, the federal land management agencies are under intense scrutiny. But even here, the institutional arrangements are so perverse that often management is grossly […]

The feuding between the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Hooters chain of restaurants results from government overstepping its bounds. Government has made “Hooters” a household name by stimulating confrontations between market forces and those who abhor sexism and their allies in the Nanny State. People become hot and bothered over Hooters simply because […]

Here’s a benchmark to evaluate environmental policy: economic security and environmental protection go together. Conversely, when environmental policies thwart material wants, green goals languish. Only when environmental policies foster economic security and productivity can we reasonably expect long term protection. This understanding helps us protect environmental values. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Garrett Hardins’ “Tragedy […]

If you aren’t a good boy, you’ll find a lump of coal in your stocking Christmas morning. This is an unhappy prospect for most American children. However, we can imagine situations in which a large lump of coal would be a blessing, for example in a city under siege. Coal would be a wonderful gift […]