EPA Mandate Promises High Costs and Few Benefits

Posted on by Dan Grana

According to a Post-Dispatch article, the metropolitan St. Louis area can expect sharp increases in sewer bills during the next few years. Increases will be necessary to follow an EPA mandate that regulates how the metro area deals with sewage overflows regularly caused by inclement weather. The current practice of dumping excess waste in natural waterways will be replaced by an infrastructure project that could cost more than $4 billion.

Is it worth quadrupling the average household’s sewage tax to create an expensive system that offers help only sporadically? The EPA seemingly addressed potential problems with waste in rivers by requiring warning signs last year. Although this measure understandably wouldn’t satisfy conservationists, everyone should weigh benefits and costs, especially when replacing a system that has worked for a long time. The article also notes that current spillways include the Mississippi and the River Des Peres. Frankly, the current system poses no threat to anyone wise enough to stay out of already-polluted bodies.

Overly zealous environmental regulation should not be allowed to impose unnecessary costs on anyone, especially a targeted area with an sufficient policy already in place. Bullying like this only harms St. Louis’ economic condition, both in absolute and relative terms.

Court Reporting

Posted on by David Stokes

There are several articles out in today’s media that touch on the courts, which is particularly appropriate given the late-night, alcohol-fueled discussion I had about tort reform with a certain close friend / trial lawyer at Blueberry Hill after darts this past Wednesday. So this post goes out to you, P.

First of all, Missourinet has an audio story about our recently released study of judicial selection (link via Mr. Combest). Check it out if you can. Next, the Washington Examiner has an article about tort reform success across America that mentions Missouri as an example. According to the article:

Since the reforms became law, the number of medical insurance companies in Texas increased from four to more than 30. Malpractice insurance premiums fell by as much as 31 percent.

This dovetails nicely with last month’s Missouri articles discussing insurance premium reductions for doctors, which we blogged about here at SMI.

I think the facts are pretty clear. Our judicial selection system is a good one for our state, although I believe small improvements can still be made to it (our study focused on the big picture and admitted minor changes could be either helpful or harmful). Even more importantly, the tort system had gotten out of whack before the "Missouri Plan" — particularly the venue laws — and changes needed to be made. Those changes have benefited our economy and our health care system. Now, unless some Law & Order twist happens in the next few seconds (like St. Luke’s Hospital announcing they are moving to St. Clair County, Ill.), I declare this post closed.

This Law Is for the Birds … or Should I Say Pigs?

Posted on by Patrick Eckelkamp

While doing some research for one of my many bosses, David Stokes, I ran into a number of city ordinances that left me shaking my head. Now, don’t get me wrong, St. Louis is a great city, but some of these ordinances led to laughter in the office. For example, did you know that in the city of St. Louis you are only permitted one pot-bellied-pig per household? Sure, you may not think this is a bad ordinance, but I’m worried about my personal freedom, ladies and gentlemen. What about those people who have a collection of their favorite lawn gnomes? Are they just supposed to forget about them? If you start taking away people’s Vietmanese pot-bellied-pigs, you are going down a slippery slope of government regulation, my friend.

In the same city ordinance, it proclaims that individuals are not allowed to raise or keep rabbits, because it is deemed a public nuisance. That’s right, owning a rabbit in the privacy of your own home is somehow infringing on your neighbors. So, who is going tell this guy that his furry little friend is a "public nuisance" at the next town hall meeting? And, probably most importantly, who is going to uninvite  the Easter Bunny to the next family function? Although these ordinances are ridiculous and easy to poke fun at, they are also a perfect example of government over-regulation. It is not the role of the government to rule every aspect of our lives. I think George Will summarized the role of the ideal government best when he said the government should "deliver the mail, defend the shores, and get out of the way":

Two Posts With One Stone

Posted on by Justin Hauke

Here’s my opportunity to talk about both the “Village Law” and Creve Coeur’s recent tax vote.

A new Walgreens development in Creve Coeur has attempted to exploit a loophole in Creve Coeur building restrictions that stipulate a 25-foot buffer between commercial and residential properties. Because the new Walgreens development lies adjacent to parts of unincorporated West County, the council argues that the rule is irrelevant because the affected properties are outside the Creve Coeur city limits (so they can basically build on their front lawn).

Despite what some staff members might say, there is a difference between responsible zoning regulations and statist rule. Some libertarians would argue that zoning laws are unnecessary, and that any damage done to an individual’s property value by a neighbor’s property use decisions could be recovered in court.

As much of a lawyer’s paradise as that might be, I find it hard to believe that the court system could support (objectively) competing claims about the damage to property from aesthetic changes. In other words, if I build a life-size AT-AT walker on my front lawn (which, believe me, would be awesome), my neighbors might object. But who are they to claim that I’ve “damaged their property value?” It might be worth a whole lot more now to someone like this guy.

And surely there are third-party “owners” who are adversely affected by a lack of zoning protection. What about the bank that services the affected Creve Coeur home mortgages? Don’t they have a real interest in the value of the property? If Walgreens builds right next to a house whose value suddenly plummets and the owners fall into foreclosure, the bank holding the (now worthless) title takes a hit. Can they sue Walgreens? Who’s to decide whether or not it was the Walgreens development that affected the property value?

In fact, I would argue that zoning laws actually help clear the market, enabling people to invest resources in a property with some faith that their home won’t suddenly plummet in value because a neighbor begins to run a strip club out of their basement. I don’t pretend to believe that zoning laws are a “good thing” or even the best way to organize society, but my feeling is that even if a libertarian paradise is ideal, we should take baby steps in order to achieve it. Plummeting into anarchy is not going to make anyone “freer.” And if you don’t like the zoning laws in your area, move to somewhere where they don’t really exist.

So, no, I can’t support the Village Law. I agree with David Stokes.

Should the Attorney General Be Appointed?

Posted on by David Stokes

I don’t usually pay too much attention to letters to the editor, but there was a very interesting one in the Jefferson City News-Tribune, linked to on Combest today. The letter writer notes the political differences between the current governor and attorney general, and suggests that Missouri follow the federal system, whereby the attorney general is appointed by the president subject to confirmation by the Senate. The writer seems to think that this would lead to better government in Missouri. Would it?

I am not going to get into the partisan aspect of the question, but I think making the attorney general an appointed position would be a terrible idea. It is very important that the highest legal officials at the state and local levels be responsible directly to, and only to, the voters. Almost every state has an elected attorney general. I think they are appointed in Alaska and Hawaii, and maybe another western state or two, but they are elected everywhere else — and for good reason. Locally, even counties in Missouri that have eliminated most of their elected positions have retained the prosecuting attorney as an elected position (St. Louis and Jackson). This is for the exact same reason I listed earlier — independence from all other officials in enforcing the laws.

I actually think Missouri has just about the right amount of statewide elected officials. I can think of good reasons for maintaining all six as elected. I don’t think, though, that we should add any new ones, like commissioner of insurance or railroad commisioner — to give a couple of examples of offices that are subject to elections in other states. Missouri certainly has examples of positions that should be appointed instead of elected (county coroners jump to mind), but I think we have it correct statewide.

Creve Coeur Votes Down Tax Increase

Posted on by David Stokes

If you blinked you could have missed yesterday’s elections in St. Louis County. Countywide, there were three elections, two of which were for filling vacant alderman positions in small cities. One of the elections, though, was interesting, as Creve Coeur voters were deciding on a sales tax increase to fund economic deleopment. The tax was defeated soundly. I don’t have much to say about the vote, other than it is good to know the sales tax will remain low the next time my wife goes to Lewis of London to buy baby gifts. If you want some very good discussion of the vote, I suggest you visit CreveCoeurVoter.com for some insightful commentary on the vote and surrounding issues.

The Missouri Free Suburb Project

Posted on by David Stokes

Regular readers will recall the debates we have had over the recently repealed "Village Law," which made forming one’s own incorporated town much easier — too easy, in my opinion. To give a quick recap, I objected to the method used to pass the law in 2007, as well as the idea that anyone, whether well-intentioned or, more likely, a crackpot, could just go and form their own municipality to do whatever they wanted without regard to the previously existing laws established by the residents of that area. Supporters of the Village Law admitted to the problems with the process while whistling past it, and defended the rights of anyone who feels violated by their government to form a new government, in the proud tradition of prior Americans. I found those arguments to be either unrealistic or anachronistic, to put it mildly. Libertarians have many fine intellectual qualities, but respect for the hard work of democracy is not one of them (with the large exception of the Ron Paul movement).

Which gets me back to the point I was originally trying to make. Some of you may be aware of the Free State Project, in which dedicated Libertarians declared their intention to move en masse to New Hampshire in order to bound their voting power and principles together in one state. This would have been another exception to my above statement, if it had worked. Needless to say, far fewer people have actually followed through on their commitment to make the move to a new state than hoped. According to Wikipedia, 269 Libertarians have followed through on their promise to move to New Hampshire during the past two years, which was probably dwarfed over the same time period by the number of Massachusetts liberals who moved to southern New Hamphire for more standard reasons. Within New Hamphire itself, the Free Town Movement was born, with the idea of making Grafton, N.H., a libertarian paradise. This, too, has not succeeded yet, and was not helped by the involvement of lunatics who advocated legalizing cannibalism, among other things. (Third-party movements always have difficulty with extremism, almost by definition.)

OK, now I am finally at my original point. There is a perfectly legitimate and also viable compromise between the village law, respect for democracy, and libertarian principles. With that, I urge the libertarian community here in Missouri to consider the Missouri Free Suburb Project. (My family will happily remain in University City.) It would be EASY to take advantage of the number of small cities in Missouri, and in particular the smaller suburbs of our larger cities, to establish a voting bloc to create as much of a libertarian community as possible, via pure democracy. To do this, you need not convince tens of thousands of people from across the country to more to another state, you just need to convince 10 people in St. Louis County to move to Champ. Or 100 Ron Paul supporters to move to Mackenzie. In Jackson County, you just need to find 200 libertarians to move to Sibley. This isn’t quitting your job, picking up your entire life, and moving to a new state. This is staying within your own metro area.

Once a voting majority was established within an existing community, you could do a number of things to promote local libertarianism. You could get rid of planning and zoning laws, forbid the use of eminent domain, take the radical step of allowing pickup trucks to park overnight on the street (forbidden in many suburbs), completely privatize every service possible (such as trash collection), and contract with larger governments to provide other services (such as police protection, which probably would not be needed as you would be living in a utopia). If you kept your own police force, the elected officials could instruct the chief to de facto decriminalize certain things like drug possession, although legalization would probably not be valid.

This is really a great idea. All it takes is for one 1950s-style Irish-Catholic libertarian family of 13 to move to Champ (population 12), and you have control. You don’t need to convince yourself that someone in the Ozarks who just wants to build a casino is the next Daniel Boone in order to achieve true freedom. It’s right here for the taking.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Posted on by Patrick Eckelkamp

Last week, I posted about rising fuel prices and an unsuccessful bill aimed at combating the cost. One provision of that legislation was to cut the government red tape surrounding the building of refineries, to make them easier to build. Well, it appears one town in South Dakota has heeded his suggestions and given its OK to proceed with building a new refinery by allowing for the proposed site to be rezoned. I would like to think that the town’s decision was based solely on my prior post, but I guess I can’t take credit for everything. Supporters of the rezoning cited "the once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunities the $10 billion project would bring" as their reason for supporting the project. Whatever the reason, this is one step in the right direction.

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