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Free market environmentalism
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Free market environmentalism focuses on addressing environmental issues through market forces and private property rights.[1]
Background
Free market environmentalism is critical of government regulations meant to protect the environment. Free market environmentalists have argued that government is not as efficient as the private sector at addressing environmental issues such as air and water pollution. These environmentalists argue that economic growth is best achieved by markets and property rights and that economic growth is responsible for greater environmental protection. Some free market environmentalists have argued that federal environmental laws produce high regulatory costs with little to no environmental benefit. Further, free market environmentalism proponents have argued that more time and resources are devoted to enforcing environmental regulations than implementing conservation efforts.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Principles
Free market environmentalism advocates have argued that less regulated markets, property rights, economic growth contribute more to environmental protection than government regulation. According to free market environmentalism, more wealth produces more resources for addressing environmental issues. In addition, free market environmentalists have argued that private property and less regulated markets provide individuals with incentives to conserve the environment voluntary. Terry Anderson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and free market environmentalist, argued that individuals or private organizations are more familiar with local environmental issues than government officials. Similarly, some free market environmentalists have argued that government officials lack information about local environmental issues. According to these advocates, government officials support programs that may or may not be beneficial in conserving the environment and produce unseen costs. Further, these free market environmentalists have argued that public officials who oversee environmental protection programs allocate resources less efficiently than the private sector.[7][8]
Figures
- Jonathan Adler was the director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center, a free market environmentalist group, as of March 2015. Adler has published articles on water use, endangered species, and fisheries management. From 1991 to 2000, Adler was director of the environmental studies program at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian organization. He has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.[9][10]
- Fred L. Smith is the founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian organization in which he served as president from 1984 to 2013. His public policy writing has focused on environmental regulations and free market environmentalism. He previously served as a senior economist at the Association of American Railroads and a senior policy analyst for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Ronald Reagan (R). Smith has also published articles criticizing the theory of human-caused climate change.[11]
- Terry Anderson is a former senior fellow, former executive director, and former president of the Property and Environment Research Center, a free market environmentalist group. As of March 2015, he was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a professor emeritus at Montana State University. He is the author or editor of 37 books, including Free Market Environmentalism, and has published articles on property rights, water use, federal land policy, and the theory of human-caused climate change.[12]
Groups
- The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and advocate of free market environmentalism. Its non-research activities include the Enviropreneur Institute, a program for the study of free market environmentalism and its practices.[13][14]
- The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and libertarian group. Its stated mission is "to promote both freedom and fairness by making good policy good politics." It was founded by free market environmentalist Fred Smith in 1984 and is known for its libertarian views on environmental policy. The institute's largest program is devoted to energy, environment, and climate change topics. The group opposes government policies requiring wind and solar energy use, government regulation of carbon dioxide, and what the organization has called global warming alarmism.[15][16]
- The Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) is a policy organization that supports less regulated markets and property rights in environmental policy. The foundation's research focuses on the relationship between ethics, economics, and environmental policy and the economic analysis of environmental policies. The group hosts seminars and publishes articles and books on the judiciary, environmental law, economics, and science.[17]
Issues
Endangered Species Act
- See also: Endangered Species Act
Free market environmentalists have argued that the Endangered Species Act creates incentives for property owners to kill endangered species on their property or modify their land to drive away endangered species to avoid land regulations and/or fines. According to free market environmentalists, landowners have a stronger incentive to destroy endangered species or their habitats discreetly, which some free market environmentalists have argued harms the species the Endangered Species Act was designed to protect.[18][19]
Free market environmentalists have also argued that the Endangered Species Act is costly and ineffective. These critics have argued that 1 percent of species listed under the Endangered Species Act have been removed from the federal list of endangered species list since the law was passed in 1973. Laura Huggins, a research fellow at the free market environmentalist group Property and Environment Research Center, argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spent $190 million between 1996 and 2009 on the desert tortoise while the population grew below federal estimates for the period.[20]
Some free market environmentalists have proposed market incentives meant to encourage private landowners to preserve endangered species and their habitats. These incentives included a system to encourage landowners to adopt habitat conservation plans in exchange for credits. Once a landowner conserves a threatened or endangered species, the landowner may sell credits to other landowners for a profit. The credits would then be used to purchase land for threatened or endangered species.[20]
Federal land
- See also: Federal land ownership by state
Free market environmentalists have criticized the way federal land is managed. Some free market environmentalists have argued that federal land management should be transferred to local residents who are more familiar with the land and surrounding areas. These environmentalists have pointed to state trust lands, which are state government-owned lands used to generate revenue for public institutions such as schools, as examples of successful local land management.[21]
Some free market environmentalists have proposed recreation fees to generate revenue for national park management. In his testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in June 2013, Shawn Regan, a research fellow at Property and Environment Research Center and former park ranger, argued that federal agencies such as the National Park Service (NPS) should be allowed to retain park fees for park management projects. Regan said, "No one understands the maintenance and operational needs of parks better than park managers themselves. Congress should continue to allow federal land agencies to charge recreation fees and retain most of the revenue on site to reinvest in park infrastructure and enhanced recreation services as identified by local park managers."[22]
Climate change
- See also: Climate change and Opposing views of climate change theory
Free market environmentalists have argued that the theory of human-caused climate change involves scientific uncertainties. Terry Anderson of the Property and Environment Research Center cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations committee on the study of climate change, which argued that uncertainties exist in region-specific predictions about the potential effects of human-caused climate change. Some free market environmentalists have argued that models used to predict the Earth's future climate do not take into account the potential effects of solar activity and other phenomena affecting climate. Other free market environmentalists have argued that global temperatures did not rise over the 15-year period from 1998 to 2013 despite rising carbon dioxide emissions during the period. For some free market environmentalists, the uncertainty in modeling potential human-caused climate change do not justify policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from energy use, which they argue are costly and ineffective.[23]
Some free market environmentalists like Anderson have argued that some climate change is unavoidable given the existing concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "In other words, mitigation to slow or halt GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions will be costly today with little payout over the next 100, if not 1000 [sic], years, making it unlikely that large mitigation projects have a positive net present value," Anderson wrote.[23]
Some free market environmentalists have favored markets to adapt to potential changes in the climate. These environmentalists have argued that farmers, landowners, businesses, and individuals can adapt to climate change on their own. Anderson cited a vintner that moved his business to areas more suitable for viticulture given certain changes in the climate. Another example cited by Anderson involved the purchase of water rights and the creation of water markets for individuals dealing with water shortages brought on by climate change. "Whether you believe or deny the apocalyptic predictions of the National Climate Assessment, it is unlikely that most of them will come to pass—not because of government sponsored mitigation, but because of entrepreneurial adaption," Anderson wrote.[23]
Criticism
According to Walker Asserson, a former fellow at the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), early critics of free market environmentalism pointed to some of its proponents' backgrounds in economics rather than environmental science or ecology. These critics argued that free market environmentalists lack scientific credentials and thus are not as qualified to discuss environmental policy topics. Scott C. Matulich, a former associate professor of agricultural economics at Washington State University, published a response to a paper by free market environmentalist Terry Anderson, arguing that free market environmentalists' economic policies for addressing environmental problems were unworkable in practice.[24]
Other critiques have focused on what critics have called free market environmentalism's over-reliance on property rights to address environmental problems. Peter S. Menell, a law professor at the University of California Berkeley's School of Law, argued that while he was receptive to some free market environmentalist ideas in Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book Free Market Environmentalism, market-based policies and property rights were likely inadequate to address environmental issues. In addition, Menell argued that privatization of some environmental protections would be costly. Further, Menell argued that the public has a right to a healthy and safe environment, which he argued justifies government regulation. In a 2008 article critical of free market environmentalism, Mark Sagoff, a professor of environmental ethics at George Mason University, argued that free market environmentalists' market-based economic policies to address environmental problems were different from and less effective at conserving the environment than libertarian environmental policies.[24][25]
See also
- Property and Environment Research Center
- Conservation
- Environmental justice
- Glossary of environmental terms
- Environmental policy in the United States
- State environmental policy
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Property and Environment Research Center, "What is FME?" accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Library of Economics and Liberty, "Free-Market Environmentalism," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Hoover Institution, "Free Market Environmentalism," February 19, 2015
- ↑ Competitive Enterprise Institute, "The Market and Nature," September 1, 1993
- ↑ Economics Online, "Types of market failure," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Economics Online, "Negative externalities," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Hoover Institution, "Free Market Environmentalism Explained," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Florida Gulf Coast University, "About Free-Market Environmentalism," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Case Western Reserve University School of Law, "Jonathan H. Adler Faculty Page," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "Jonathan Adler," accessed March 23, 2015
- ↑ Competitive Enterprise Institute, "Fred L. Smith, Jr.," March 23, 2015
- ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "Terry Anderson," accessed March 24, 2015
- ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "About," accessed March 19, 2015
- ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "What We Do," accessed March 19, 2015
- ↑ Competitive Enterprise Institute, "About CEI," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Competitive Enterprise Institute, "Energy and Environment," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, "FREE's Mission," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Boston College Law Review, "Money or Nothing: The Adverse Environmental Consequences of Uncompensated Land Use Controls," accessed February 2, 2015
- ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "When the Endangered Species Act Threatens Wildlife," October 20, 2014
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Property and Environment Research Center, "Time to move beyond ESA to save species and economic interests," January 2, 2014
- ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "Local control is better management for federal lands," February 12, 2014
- ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "Funding the National Park System for the Next Century," July 25, 2013
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Hoover Institution, "Hot Air on Climate Change," June 12, 2014
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Indiana University Digital Library, "The Economists in the Garden: The Historical Roots of Free Market Environmentalism (by Walker Asserson)," October 21, 2007
- ↑ Taylor & Francis Online, "Free‐market versus libertarian environmentalism (by Mark Sagoff)," March 6, 2008
