Environment Becoming BETTER

The WSJ relates on a new EPA report on the state of the environment in the US.

The air is cleaner, for example, with major pollutants declining 25% over 30 years despite more people, cars and a larger economy. Of 260 U.S. metropolitan areas, 212 have pollution levels that are trending down. The days across the country in which air quality violated a health standard fell to 3% in 2001 from 10% in 1988.

The volume of toxic chemicals released in the environment has declined by nearly half in 15 years. The U.S. has addressed the threats at 846 of its 1,498 most toxic waste sites...Forests still cover one-third of America, with acreage increasing by two million from 1997-99. Just 4.3% of the nation's total land area is developed (no, that's not a typo).

There are areas that need improvement. While 94% of the nation drinks water that meets all health standards (up from 79% in 1993), water quality is still poor in certain rivers and lakes. But the main lesson of the report is that Americans have never lived in a cleaner, healthier country.

If cornered by the truth, the green lobby will even drop its veil of woe and admit this good news. But then it will attribute all progress to the power of government regulation and its attendant lawsuits. This is also a mistake. Those of us who believe in free markets understand that pollution is an "externality" that isn't factored into normal transaction costs; even Milton Friedman endorses effluent taxes.

But the point the lefties miss is that only a prosperous country can afford to pay for those externalities. America only developed the political consensus to clean up the environment in the 1970s, after it had become a society of two-car garages. The key to future green progress is maintaining the free-market growth and innovation that can produce hydrogen cars or find a way to turn wind into cheap power. Our main beef with the greens -- other than that they make depressing dinner companions -- is that their household remedies are always the kind of regulation that will stifle this growth.