Why have clean air, clean water, protecting endangered species, conserving of open space for wildlife and people, and a variety of other national environmental laws become the whipping boy of American politics?  Current legislative proposals to reverse decades of environmental protection include:

• Amending the Clean Water Act (CWA) to allow a loophole for the timber industry, exempting it from several pollution discharge permit requirements.

• New rules to protect streams from surface mining would be prohibited.

• Wetlands protection would be curtailed, reversing the pledge made by Presidents from both parties that there shall be “no net loss of wetlands”. Because of conflicting court decisions the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working to clarify which wetlands should be protected under the CWA. Any such actions would be disallowed.

• The EPA would be prevented from overseeing mountaintop mining removal.

• The Forest Service would be limited in managing its extensive road system unless it considers allowing off-road vehicle use.

• The EPA would be unable to use its funds for new water quality standards for Florida’s lakes and flowing waters, essentially allowing nutrient pollution from fertilizers and sewage.

• Sizable budget cuts that will seriously limit enforcement of anti-pollution laws.

Prior to 1980 several highly effective environmental laws and regulations were enacted with strong public support and bipartisan cooperation. Among them were the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

So why are many politicians proposing these destructive changes? They are claiming that environmental protection is “job killing”. In reply Elizabeth A. Stanton accurately wrote how “environmental regulations create jobs and save lives”. Another study relating climate policy to jobs have shown that actions to limit greenhouse gases would actually create more jobs than would be lost. A report on jobs in the solar industry is telling, where more workers are employed than in the steel industry. The Solar Foundation reports that from August 2010 to August of 2011, the solar industry grew by 6.8 percent, the overall U.S. economy’s growth was 0.7%. David Roberts and Frank Ackerman offer more substantiation.

See the full recent Brookings report on the ‘clean economy’, partially summarized here: “As the nation continues to search for new sources of high-quality growth, the present findings depict a sizable and diverse array of industry segments that is—in key private-sector areas—expanding rapidly at a time of sluggish national growth. With smart policy support, broader, more rapid growth seems possible”.

Michael Brune concluded “Today the clean economy employs 2.7 million American workers across a diverse group of industries, which is greater than the number of people employed by the entire fossil-fuel industry”. This is invariably true for a host of laws protecting our environment. They are less job-killing than they are job creating and they keep our environment and ourselves healthier while doing so!