ENVIRONMENT

Rhode Island has been doing fairly well in relation to the environment, but there is much that is left undone. We are committed to open space. We are doing more in terms of our recycling efforts. We have been consistently working to save our bay. We have been expanding our greenways.

Now, what is it that we haven’t done. We haven’t fully committed. We need to work to reduce our reliance on petroleum, thereby using more and more available local power sources such as those related to wind and ocean. To say that there is a problem here is to make an issue where one doesn’t exist.

What needs to be said is that we as a state are going to stand for a future that will continue to seek to maintain a quality of life that makes the state special. We need to proceed with vision and insight while not stagnating our growth potential.

Every time a municipality limits building, there is a trade off. There is an open space being created at the expense of a property owner. As a libertarian, this quite honestly offends my sensibilities. I am personally committed to the outcome, but I am somewhat offended by the method used to attain it.

Unlike most libertarians, I am not overly offended by the government holding large parcels of land in the public’s interest. But, as a libertarian, I am offended when a public body uses law to enforce a taking of a property by restriction instead of paying for the right to regulate the private property of the citizenry.

This does not mean that I favor a complete disregard for the environment, but it does indicate a particular balance that is needed between land use regulation and private property rights.

I do believe that people vote with their feet. If there is an over-regulation there is a shortage of available land, which results in higher taxation, which results in less opportunity for those without means. With all the government subsidizing of property there is little long term investment. This hurts Rhode Island.

In any artificially defined marketplace, there is a skewing of the real value of property and, as a result, of wages and other factors that make long term business investment attractive.

This is not to say that there should be a box store on every corner. In fact, it argues to the contrary. To have a reasoned plan that locates development rather than limits it is the optimum of any community to establish growth.

Environmentally friendly development, in addition to reasoned growth, makes a perfect compliment to any environment. The idea is to look to the future and encourage development of innovative concepts that are environmentally friendly. If it is inconvenient to utilize alternative transportation, people will continue to use fossil fueled autos.

The current trend of wind and solar power are a good start, but we must look to this with extreme scrutiny. To enter into the development of this type of technology without a sense of where it will eventually go and with factors that really pertain to the current marketplace will leave us with an expensive but somewhat obsolete effort.

Encouraging recycling is great. Having a market for the recycled products is better. The basics of supply and demand are often ignored when we consider our environment. This needs to be explained and understood by the population if we are ever to educate the people as to the value of environmentally friendly government.

Environmental concerns do not exist in a vacuum. They are holistically connected to the entire economic fabric of the state. To miss this fact is to miss the value of the reason to protect the environment.

Education in environmental matters is relatively inexpensive and effective. In thirty years there has been a major decrease in litter. People have been made to understand, through education and not through punishment, that a clean highway is an important part of the general well being of the state.

We cannot ignore the concerns of the environmentalists, but we must approach them with reason rather than emotion. Policies that are based on junk science are far more detrimental to the environment in that they create expenditures for unneeded protections while creating skepticism in the public when the science gets debunked.

In the future I will further discuss the relationship between economic development and planned growth. I will also better link the transportation issues to the environmental concerns. And I will attempt to define a policy that can bring us into a future that can be profitable, safe and logical.

Suffice it to say that the basis of any environmental plan is to make it part of a symbiotic approach to governance.