As Paul Gigot recently reported, the Bushies present their plan as the anti-Gray Davis approach. The California governor has tried to blame everybody but Californians for the mess there. The Bush administration has taken responsibility for the national mess that was left to it. There is a vision of environmental responsibility in the Bush approach as well. Under the traditional environmentalist model, the government assumes responsibility for keeping the air, land, and water clean.
Government agencies impose a series of minute and prescriptive regulations on industry.
These regulations emphasize process over performance. They mandate certain technologies and methods that industries must adopt to meet environmental goals. It is punitive and generates huge amounts of litigation and conflict. And the Bush energy and environmental proposals begin what one hopes will be a long process of shifting responsibility for pollution control away from the bureaucrats in the EPA and to the citizens who work at and manage American companies. Give them incentives to protect the environment, and let them devise the means.