Toilet Papers Wars, New Powers for the EPA and Bottled Water Hypocrisy
Environmental groups attack the use of soft, comfortable toilet paper.
President Obama proposes a 34% increase in the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Cities and college campuses attempt to ban sales of bottled water.
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1. ENVIRONMENT
Environmental groups attack the use of soft, comfortable toilet paper.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Research Associate Ryan Young on why the criticisms don’t hold water:
“Let’s see how big the impact of softer toilet paper really is. Maybe, hyperbole aside, [environmental activist Allen] Hershkowitz has a point. Let’s look at the data and find out. Despite the proliferation of tree-intensive soft toilet paper, forest area in the U.S. has remained almost unchanged over the last century; right around 33% of total land area. Over that same time period, U.S. population more than tripled. That’s a lot more bottoms, demanding ever softer toilet paper. And yet – no net deforestation. That doesn’t sound like ecological destruction. To use one of the New Religion’s buzzwords, that sounds… sustainable.”
2. TAXES
President Obama proposes a 34% increase in the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Jonathan Tolman on the new taxes tucked into the EPA budget:
“Environmentalists like to tout that the Superfund taxes are an example of the ‘polluter pays’ principle. The superfund program is that it is supposed to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites, but the companies paying the petroleum and chemical feedstock taxes now may have had nothing to do with an industrial site abandoned 20 years ago. Even more egregious is the Corporate Environmental Income Tax, which actually raises the most revenue, as it implicitly assumes that any company with enough income must be a polluter, and therefore should be forced to pay.”
3. POLITICS
Cities and college campuses attempt to ban sales of bottled water.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Risk and Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on the hypocrisy in San Francisco:
“Apparently, ‘Mayor [Gavin Newsom] Newsman’ of San Francisco – one of the first lawmakers to condemn bottled water and bar government agencies from buying it – has a separate standard for himself! A partially empty case of bottled water was recently discovered in his car. Supposedly, the water belonged to his security detail. But a spokesman for the Mayor admitted: ‘The mayor will be the first to admit that he occasionally indulges in bottled water .. . It’s not something he’s proud of.’ Good grief. If he thinks it so bad that others should be denied access, the least he could do is not indulge! It just to goes to show, bottled water is valued even by those who condemn it. I just wish they valued our freedom as much.”
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