CO-PERMITTING AND OTHER ISSUES: CONCERNS AND CONSEQUENCES

摘要

What does all this mean and where does it lead us? It is hard to say, but we will conclude this paper with a few thoughts. First, even if the CWA granted EPA the authority to permit all livestock operations and require co-permits of all agricultural processors, it would still be bad public policy. The structural and global implications of this type of public policy have not been properly analyzed by EPA or tested within the legislative arena. Secondly, our Constitution provides for three distinct branches of government - if one branch over-reaches their authority, it is the responsibility of the other two to provide check and balances - my point - under our system of government, the ends does not justify the means and "popular environmental causes" are no different. Unfortunately, the relation between the ends and the means remain widely misunderstood within EPA. Milton Friedman believes "it is tempting to believe the social evils arise from the activities of evil men (or business) and that if only good men (like good EPA bureaucrats) wielded power, all would be well." A. de Tocqueville, - predicted a "new kind of servitude" when - "after having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic character can not penetrate to rise above the crowd. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of which government is the shepherd."