Free market and private property advocates and activists are bemused by the current crop of hostile measures coming out of Congress and the Obama administration. Their interests are being ignored and they're saying so.
Robert Gordon, the Heritage Foundation's senior adviser for strategic outreach, sees the big picture:
"Washington has been ceaselessly issuing environmental regulations that target energy producers, fishermen, farmers, ranchers, foresters and miners -- the people who provide our food, fiber, minerals and energy."
I asked Gordon what our leaders should do about that. "Some have rightly recognized the negative effects these regulations have on jobs," he said.
"What I would like to see front and center in the political discourse is that when environmental policies hurt people, they cease to be good environmental policies. Human well-being is the first measure of an environmental policy."
Frank DuBois, former rodeo champion (he even kept on after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis) and a four-term New Mexico secretary of agriculture, takes the detailed look.
He's puzzled by the Republican presidential candidates and their silence about problems that can mean life or death to the family ranch. He said, "To my knowledge the candidates are saying nothing about issues such as property rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, and wilderness that are important to us in the West."
Like many, DuBois is soured on the campaign ruckus. "The candidates are more focused on attacking each other than on defending those whose lives and livelihoods are under attack by the federal behemoth."
Myron Ebell, president of the Washington-based nonprofit Freedom Action, expands on today's GOP presidential front-runners: "Unfortunately, neither Mitt Romney nor Newt Gingrich appears to know or care very much about what federal environmental and land use regulations are doing to destroy the livelihoods of rural Americans and particularly rural Westerners."
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/02/washington-ignores-key-free-enterprise-issues/2163386#ixzz1lMpUVVI2
Washington ignores key free enterprise issues | Ron Arnold | Columnists | Washington Examiner
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