In recent years, the San Jose City Hall has led the way in stupid environmental policies. Several years ago, they were among one of the first cities (along with San Francisco and Salt Lake City) to ban bottled water in government agencies based on questionable environmental claims. Now they are banning stores from giving away shopping bags of any kind. Plastic bags will be banned altogether and stores providing paper bags must charge a fee only provide bags made with 40 percent recycled material.
As detailed before, banning plastic bags won’t help the environment because they are more energy efficient than paper and do not pose any significant problems when properly disposed. However, this law also targets paper bags based on the assumption that people either don’t need bags or can bring canvas or other reusable bags. But there are problems with that approach as well: reusable bags can become riddled with dangerous bacteria.
Surely, every choice in life carries risks and benefits. The idea that government regulators–starting in crazy places like San Jose–should be granted the right to trump our freedoms and decide what risks are worth taking is frightening, particularly since they so often mess up. Unfortunately, lawmakers love copying bad ideas. After San Jose and San Francisco banned plastic bottles, many other places followed suit. This time, consumers in other cities would be wise to say “no way” to this silly San Jose nanny-state regulation.
Image attribution: San Jose City Hall taken from ktadeo’s photostream on Flickr.
Dana Milbank has a great piece in the Washington Post this week about recent congressional hearings on bottled water. He notes: “The nation is entangled in two wars, a deep recession and a flu pandemic, and the people’s representatives are hard at work investigating the menace of . . . bottled water?” Indeed. This is a silly issue for them to focus on, but unfortunately, their regulations may increase prices of a low-calorie, healthy beverage option.
The same day of the hearings, the congressional research arm, U.S. Government Accountability Office, also released a conveniently-timed, allegedly independent report on the topic, which buttresses lawmakers’ concerns. What a “surprise!”
The GAO report recommends increased labeling on bottled water indicating what trace elements it might hold in the parts per billion range. But GAO’s recommendation is a policy judgment. It is not a supported for data showing that bottled water poses significant risks under current regulatory practices or that more bureaucratic reporting of data would improve water quality. The study did not even assess bottled water’s safety. Instead it compared EPA regulations of tap water to FDA regulations of bottled water, which it found to be basically the same, except that FDA also applies food safety and packaging regulations. It suggested that FDA implementation was weaker than EPA, but it did not assess performance–the quality of bottled water verses tap.
Lawmakers used GAO value judgments to suggest that bottled water was no different than tap water, and that it might even be less safe. As well documented on enjoybottledwater.org and in my study, the facts do not support that contention. In terms of safety, both tap and bottled water are generally good, yet available data indicates that bottled water has a better safety record. If you compare health-related problems that have been connected to both bottled and tap water, tap water has more documented health-related incidents by factors in the tens of thousands. For details on the health and safety records, see here. For details on the regulations, see here.
As a result, not only won’t government-mandated information about trace level contaminants make water safer, it won’t educate consumers on the risks. These contaminants exist at such low levels that they pose negligible risks, which is why FDA does not fuss over them. The regulations will increase paperwork, bureaucracy, and waste money. But then Washington specializes in those things.
Welcome to Episode 49 of the LibertyWeek podcast, in which your host Richard Morrison is joined by recurring guest co-hosts Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman and special guest interviewee Hans Bader. We begin with discussion of the abominable Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the scandal of suppressed science at the EPA and some liberating technology news. We then move on to some heartening beer news, regime change in Honduras and up-to-the minute analysis of the Supreme Court’s verdict in Ricci v. DeStefano with CEI Senior Attorney Hans Bader. As always, we wrap the program up with a little forward-looking Olympic News.
Your host Richard Morrison is joined this week by returning guest co-hosts Jeremy Lott and Michelle Minton and not-so-secret special guest Ryan Radia for Episode 48 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with the top story of the week – the presidential election and resulting protests in Iran. We then move on to bad energy policy in Virginia, radio royalties for big music companies and the scandalous waste of bailout money. We finish with an interview with Ryan Radia on Internet privacy and some real estate-related Olympic News.
Cities around the nation are spending thousands in taxpayer dollars to promote tap water because of the alleged environmental problems with bottled water. But these campaigns just go to show how silly the issue has become. Minneapolis recently dropped $75,000 just to build a website encouraging people to drink only tap water. A college kid probably could have put up a site just as useful with a few hundred bucks. But governments are not that efficient! The site is part of a total $180,000 paid to a public relations firm to address this “pressing” issue. Why does Minneapolis need this campaign? Because their tap water stinks—literally! It comes from the Mississippi River and sometimes during the spring, purification techniques are not sufficient to clean out certain odors and flavors probably from algae that grow at that time of year. City officials say it’s not unsafe, but people surely can tell it doesn’t taste good. And no government taxpayer-dollar funded PR campaign can change that. Why not try a market solution? Let people drink bottled water, and don’t nag them for making that choice. After all, much of the information on government sites complaining about bottled water is simply self-serving propaganda anyway.
For some details watch this news report below.
Photo above: Mississippi River, drinking water source for Minneapolils; source is adamsfelt photostream on Flickr.
Your host Richard Morrison welcomes back guest co-host Jeremy Lott and special guest Greg Conko for Episode 47. We start with the new Obama-Geithner plan for expanding regulation of financial markets, the protests over the disputed presidential election in Iran and the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of telemarketing robocalls. We then move on to the “beer bikes” of Amsterdam and some potentially scandalous investment choices made by Sen. Dick Durban. Finally, we talk health care with CEI Senior Fellow Greg Conko, covering President Obama’s address to the American Medical Association and the recent Forbes article in which Greg and Dr. Henry I. Miller describe what an ObamaCare plan might actually look like (hint: it won’t be pretty).
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
Twitter 
Facebook 
CEI.org 
WorkPlaceChoice.org 
GlobalWarming.org 
CEI On Demand Video 
Liberty Week Podcast 