Date: Sat, 18 Jun 1994 23:05:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Competitive Enterprise Institute Subject: CEI LIST - MANIA FOR MANDATES To: Jeff Chan MANIA FOR MANDATES By Jonathan Adler, CEI's associate director of environmental studies appeared in *The Washington Times*, 4/12/94 The managers of the Gadsden, Ala., drinking water treatment plant have reason not to like the federal government. Each month when they rinse the plant's filters, the chlorine content of the water increases to 0.06 parts per million (ppm). This is above the permitted level of 0.044 ppm. So the rinse water must be pumped 7 miles to the nearest sewage treatment plant. At this plant the water is treated as sewage, so it is cleaned by increasing the chlorine content to 0.1 ppm. All because of federal water laws. Jack Rutledge is the general manager of the Gadsden Water Works and Sewage Board. He explained the situation to Insight magazine in the following manner: "The outcome is that we've been forced to spend $1.5 million to add chlorine to water that we couldn't discharge into the river because the chlorine content was already too high." The Gadsden experience is becoming all too common as a result of federal environmental mandates. In these times of massive government debt, Congress is no longer able to establish a new federal program to address every societal concern. Instead, Congress passes the buck to state and local governments by passing requirements that certain environmental standards are met. Rarely, if ever, does Congress appropriate any money to assist in the process. The result is a swath of unfunded mandates that state and local governments are forced to meet, with the burden shouldered by taxpayers in the affected regions. These unfunded mandates are proliferating rapidly. Prior to 1988, there were only 40 unfunded mandates, environmental and otherwise. Between 1988 and 1991, that number nearly tripled, much to the chagrin of state and local officials. With administration proposals on the table to reauthorize the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, more mandate costs could be just over the horizon. Approximately 12 percent of municipal revenues are devoted to meeting these requirements, but sometimes localities simply cannot afford to comply. Atlanta expects to issue $400 million in debt in 1994 and 1995 to pay for unfunded mandates. Some smaller municipalities are getting hit much harder. Lewiston, Maine, population 40,000 is looking at $92 million in total mandate costs, roughly $600 per household. This year, major cities will spend $3.6 billion on the Clean Water Act alone, and another billion on solid waste disposal mandates, and another half-billion on the Safe Drinking Water Act. But the cities are not alone in bearing these costs. A recent Prince Waterhouse survey found that seven environmental mandates will cost county governments $16.1 billion between 1994 and 1998. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that unfunded environmental mandates will amount to approximately $40 billion by the year 2000. Unfortunately, it is hard to put a lot of faith in the EPA's numbers. The EPA estimated that the cost of filing storm water permits for Philadelphia would be $76,681. However, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell testified before Congress that the permits actually cost more than $900,000. The EPA was off by more than an order of magnitude. The increased fiscal strain caused by unfunded mandates has caused state and local government officials to look closely at the justifications for these costly environmental programs, and they have found them to be wanting. These programs simply do not produce the environmental results to justify such outrageous expenditures. For examples, New York City could be forced to spend $4 billion to build a filtration system in line with federal standards. This system will cost approximately $800 million per year to run and maintain. However, New York City's drinking water is arguably the cleanest municipal drinking water in the entire United States and this system will do next to nothing to improve public health. Columbus, Ohio, is being forced to spend $16 million in order to lower atrazine levels in the city's water supply to 3 parts per billion (ppb). However, were a human to drink 3,000 gallons of water a day, one would still not receive a dose equivalent to those where toxic effects have been observed in lab rats. Columbus is also forced to comply with waste disposal regulations that cost as much as $7 billion for every premature cancer death that is averted. Given the many priorities that local governments are forced to address, it is no wonder that many local officials consider all of this to be money for nothing. Mayors, state legislators and governors are fed up, and they're not going to take it anymore. Barbara Todd of the National Association of Counties has said local officials should make unfunded mandates "an issue in every campaign," and the states of Utah and Arizona are forming Constitutional Defense Councils to challenge the federal government's authority to impose these mandates in federal court. The response to unfunded mandates is nothing short of a revolution. The battle against irrational environmental regulations has at long last been joined. _______ __________ ___________ / | / | | | |__________ | | | | \ | | \ _______ |__________ ___________ COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 1001 Connecticut Ave. NW #1250 Washington, DC 20036 202-331-1010, fax 202-331-0640 Permission to copy granted as long as these lines are left intact. To subscribe to the cei list, send a message to cei@digex.com. "The Virtual Hand: CEI's guide to the information superhighway" is available for $5. CEI's monthly newsletter, "CEI UpDate," is free to contributors of $25.