Damn Those Environmentalists!

He goes on to say: “Obviously, more regulation and more fines cannot possibly solve this problem. They caused it [his emphasis]. The restraint we need today is not restraint on oil companies (let alone more restraint); that approach has been tried — and it’s been both deadly and economically costly. What we need is restraint on the destructive environmentalists …”. Mr. Salsman says that environmentalists and their regulatory lackeys impede the construction of new refineries, of oil transmission pipelines, nuclear power plants, hydroelectric dams, and so on. Why, these green-freaks have actually managed to prevent decent polluters from making a good profit, especially in the oil patch. And that’s why they’ve had to ramp up their production facilities to levels far beyond safe operating tolerances. When that happens, something has to give and it can’t be profit; so it has to be protection for the health and safety of employees because that costs money. The article contains a litany of statistics that allege to show how tough things are in the oil industry owing to these pesky environmentalists: not a single new refinery built in the US since 1976; 54% fewer gas and oil refineries than in 1981; the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (no doubt an uninterested third party) reports that environmental costs have topped $47 billion over the past decade, enough hard cash to have built 19 new refineries. And all of this has come about, according to Mr. Salsman, because of those environmentalists and their unreasonable demands on good hard-working capitalists. Now let me get this straight. Some environmental lobby group succeeds in getting a refinery to stop fouling ground water, or polluting the air, or contaminating soil as far as the eye can see. And this is a bad thing. Because, in response, the refinery will decide it has to pump up productivity and cut corners on safety. Apparently, in Mr. Salsman’s world, maintaining a clean environment always comes with the risk of workers’ lives, since to operate otherwise would somehow impede the rapacious profits of the oil companies. Mr. Salsman says - and this is the really humorous part - that “the American people need to wake up … They are morally right to want to drive their gas-guzzling SUV’s (sic) ….” I have added the emphasis myself because I am utterly flummoxed that any human being bright enough to dress himself could say or think anything so astoundingly stupid. A ‘moral right’ to drive SUVs?? After declaring the environmentalists to be “obscene, inhumane and criminal,” the article ends by claiming that the explosion at the BP refinery was the result of terrorism, “the terrorism inherent in environmentalism.” I have no doubt that Mr. Salsman is correct in his analysis that oil companies are forgoing safety for the sake of maximum profit. But that is not the fault of those who would like to see us have a clean planet; it is the fault of those who can’t be satisfied with anything less that the most savage slaughter of everything good and holy in the quest for every last penny of profit. It is the owners and operators of those refineries, the ones forgoing safety measures and hoping like hell no one dies, who are the "obscene, inhumane criminals." Capitalism Magazine (www.CapMag.com) appears to be the illegitimate child of author Ayn Rand. I read it regularly for the same reason that I read lots of ‘rightist,’ ‘leftist’ and ‘centrist’ writings: in order to have a balanced view of what my fellows are thinking and to help sharpen my own perception of the world. But the magazine usually does not publish such incredible rubbish. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 6, 2005]