Dan Quayle on Environment

	Dan Quayle on Environment Vice President of the U.S., 1989-1993; Former Republican Senator (IN)

Supports marketable pollution credits for over-compliance

[Vice President Quayle’s] Competitiveness Council fought for more flexibility in meeting regulatory standards. One of our ideas was to allow firms who over-comply with pollution standards to sell credits to other polluters who had higher compliance costs. The proposal would have achieved the goals of the law right to the letter, but at a much lower cost and fewer jobs lost. Unfortunately, the proposal was rejected. Source: Speech to Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington DC , Apr 21, 1999

Against restricting property use under ESA

The Endangered Species Act is another example of using bad means to achieve good objectives. If you have endangered species on your property, chances are that the government will come in and stop you from using your property. Some landowners actually cut down trees and bushes on their property rather than risk making it hospitable to endangered species. That is wrong and indefensible. Citizens who put forth the effort to maintain habitats ought to be rewarded, not threatened with financial ruin. Source: Speech to Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington DC , Apr 21, 1999

Healthy economy best guarantees healthy ecology

The best guarantee of a healthy ecology is a healthy economy. Who’s got the best record on the environment? It’s the free-market economies. The record of the so-called “planned economies” - the former Soviet Union, China, and communist Eastern Europe - is a record of environmental destruction. To improve the environment, we should be exporting our free-market principles around the world, and we should be reinforcing them at home, through lower taxes, less regulation, and less litigation. Source: Speech to Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington DC , Apr 21, 1999

Supports full compensation for regulatory takings

Protecting property rights is critical for the environment. People always take better care of what they own. Respect for property rights means full compensation when property is taken for public purposes. This right has been undermined by “regulatory takings,” where government strips your land of its value, but avoids paying because your family still retains some percent of the value of the land. That’s like arguing that a free press means bureaucrats can censor 20% of The Wall Street Journal. Source: Speech to Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington DC , Apr 21, 1999

Define wetlands as land that is wet

Another initiative at the Competitiveness Council was to oversee the rewriting of the Federal Wetlands Manual. President Bush had promised “no net loss” of wetlands, and people in [environmental] agencies tried to widen the definition of wetland. This caused thousands of acres of dry land to be reclassified as wetland, including a lot of perfectly tillable Indiana farmland. We asked the bureaucracy to consider a revolutionary idea: if the land isn’t wet, maybe we shouldn’t call it a wetland. Source: Speech to Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington DC , Apr 21, 1999

Local, not federal, solutions for suburban sprawl

Last fall there were 240 ballot initiatives on suburban growth. 72% of these initiatives were passed by the voters. Americans and their local representatives are on top of the issue. Gore wants to get the federal government involved, telling us where we can live, where we can’t live, and how we should commute to our jobs. There is no basis in the Constitution for the federal government to exercise authority over the growth patterns of cities. The solutions to urban sprawl are entirely local. Source: Speech to Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington DC , Apr 21, 1999

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Page last updated: Feb 22, 2022