Mike, if you haven't miss out on banya yesterday, you would have meet my commie friend. You don't understand. They are not bunch of wackos who produce clean air as a side effect of their wackiness. They were put on this earth to redistribute wealth. Taxation, expropriation, environmental заламывание рук, all the methods are good to take from the haves and give to have nots. And they got you - moderate "independent" to think that all they care about is clean air in Central Park. The idea is to make a capitalist pay for the right to make money. They are not new to this struggle. They used anti-trust laws, Unions and now this environmental talk to put Big Business on its knees. We lost all of our heavy industry due to environmental laws. We lost Big Three due to Unions choke hold. They will not stop until the rich guy thinks twice before making a next million.

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EPA used to be a useful body in regulating toxic by-products of certain industries. I do not argue against regulating carbon monoxide in our air or dioxins in our water supply. No normal citizen would object to these needed measures because they protect all of us from real danger of poisoning. That's a very justified function of government -to protect us from real danger.
But they (enviro-statists) take it a lot farther now. They create junk and corrupted science to lie to us about non-existent dangers from which they want to "protect "us ( meaning they have to heavily tax us frist).
Enviro-statists must lie all the time to progress their agenda.

wow.. Oleg, you are not paranoid if "they" are really out to get you, huh?
what is wrong with anti-trust laws? If anything they are not strict enough, too many industries are shielded from them.
Have you ever been to Moscow, Buenas Aires, Beijing, etc? Those cities stick, why do you think NY does not?
Here, in Syracuse we have lake Onondaga.. which is one of the most polluted lakes in the country. You can't fish or swim it in now, people living around it had to fill their water wells. At some point this was one of the most beautiful and cleanest lakes. The water was light green and you could see the bottom at 200ft.
Allied ( which later became Honeywell) dumped tons of mercury into it, Solvey process dumped ammonia, a bunch of other businesses under protection of local politicians had their waste dumped into the lake.
In economics it's called "externality".. there were no costs to the companies to dump their waste into the lake vs properly dispose of it.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

the only way to fight it is to internalize the externality.
you dump poison into the water - CEO and board of directors should go to jail and the company must be forced to clean up.
This is where you introduce internal costs to the externality.
Unfortunately our lost are too soft, after decades of litigation (!!!!) they finally forced Honeywell to spend 450mil to clean up the lake and no, nobody went to jail.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

Oleg,
now, does the right to make money also mean you have a right to externalize all the costs as long as you can get away with it?

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

And why do you think the CEO did not go to jail for illegally dumping to the lake?

after decades of litigation (!!!!) they finally forced Honeywell tospend 450mil to clean up the lake and no, nobody went to jail.
So, this whole thing happened decades ago? Like, how many decades? Before the EPA was created by Nixon or after?

Майк, это называется "сказка про белого бычка". А я тебе могу рассказать о том как сотни тысяч машин стоят в пробках от светофора до светофора на West Side Highway, выкидывая в воздух газы засоряющие воздух и воду. Вместо того чтобы нестись по elevated highway, который не построили потому что вибрация могла повредить нересту stripe bass, которого в те времена в тех местах Гудзона и в помине не было. Environazis rejoyce!

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Oleg,
now, does the right to make money also mean you have a right to externalize all the costs as long as you can get away with it?
Mike, profit driven economy will cut all the trees in Central Park and will sell it to homeowners in Paramus, NJ as firewood if it will make $ sense.
The society's (gov't's) purpose is to protect people, land, air, etc. It's just once the left hears an example like you gave us they jump on any factory, producing any kind of waste. Even if it's fertilizer.

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Oleg, again everything is good "in the middle" and gets crazy "on the edges".. so what?
Does it mean we don't need EPA, or environmental laws, and allow anyone contaminate our land water and air?

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу