Environmental Regulation Harms Environment

A law called NEPA requires costly and expensive environmental assessments before the government does a lot of things — even if what the government is doing would likely help, rather than hurt, the environment.  Solar power is viable in consistently sunny areas, and expanding its use would cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but the federal government was blocking solar power plants from being built on federal land, in order to comply with NEPA.  Now, the government has belatedly ended its freeze on solar power plants.

We earlier wrote about how environmental lawsuits sabotage attempts to fight infestations and prevent forest fires that devastate the environment, and how environmental regulations have caused other environmental catastrophes and starvation.   Iain Murray explores these issues in his bestselling book The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About — Because They Helped Cause Them.