Political Memes

Broader point stands, but I want to split some hairs around love canal because there's an important part of that story that's normally swept under the rug.

The offending company tried to keep the land from development. They knew the land wasn't safe, said as much, and when eminent domain was threatened sold it for $1, discharging their responsibility. But again they tried not to sell it all.

Now, the dumping was pretty crappy, but that was also the practice at the time. I'm not saying companies shouldn't carry liabilities to clean up their messes, intended and/or following best practices or not, they absolutely should. It's important, though, I think, to remember the company knew and communicated the risks, and tried to keep the land from being transferred. Ironically, part of what moved the domain threat along was that they intentionally stopped using the dump as housing developments expanded out closer to it.

When it became clear it was leaving their hands one way or the other, they sought to limit their liability, and to a certain extent that has to be understood: We said you don't want this land, you're taking it anyway, it's not on us.

My point in all this isn't to stump for Hooker Chemical, it's to point out most of these disasters have layers of problems to them. I'm all for strong regulation, there are things which just cannot be fixed after the damage has occurred, so it has to be avoided. But it's important to remember the regulations are only as good as we make them and their enforcement.

Ironically, there are very cherrypicked examples of voluntary regulation working well. A good example of that is Underwriters Lab certification for electronics. It's not required by law, but is required by a lot of insurance companies. I not using that as an example against governmental regulation, I just think it's an example where interests align pro-, rather than retro-actively: If you don't abide by the regulations, you are not selling any product. Same with how a bank won't issue a mortgage unless the home passes inspection: they're protecting themselves, you're just a happy side benefit.

Bit of a first coffee rant, but especially as all this stuff is getting gutted, the nuance needs to be appreciated. Trump would be a disaster for the little mechanisms we've managed to get put in place over the years to protect ourselves, but a Biden administration is going to have a tough road. I'm optimistic they'll have some wins, but they're going to lose ground in some areas as well as they're forced to make compromises and allocate focus and political capital. The net result is we're all going to need to become a lot smarter and more active.

The local government at love canal had all of the information they needed, and proceeded anyway. They were decided by local elections. It could have been stopped.