GUIDES TO GOOD PUBLIC POLICY

Risk-taking is part of everyday life, and the most serious risks people are exposed to are voluntarily chosen. A third of the population smokes. Most people are not monogamous, and thus accept some risk of AIDS. About three-fourths of all occupants of automobiles do not use seat belts. Almost everyone eats foods widely reported to be unhealthy. And most people allow their children to engage in risky activities, using items such as motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), skate boards, diving boards, boxing gloves, baseballs, and footballs.68

Aside from individual behavior and lifestyle choices, risk-taking is essential for health and safety from a social point of view. If our ancestors had been unwilling to take risks, we would not enjoy the level of safety, science, medicine, and technology created for us today. If we are unwilling to take similar risks, our legacy to future generations will be a world less safe than it is today.

Public policies must develop from a reasoned balancing of the risks we face, not in response to momentary panic. Policymakers who wish to apply the scientific principles summarized above, and generate policies more likely to increase than reduce public safety, should bear in mind the following general rules:

1. Private solutions usually are better than public solutions. Individual or private decision-making in the context of common law liability is giving us most of the considerable safety we enjoy with the most publicized pollutants of the day, toxic wastes. Even prior to Superfund and other environmental legislation, firms sufficiently solvent to be accountable for their torts generally did a responsible and competent job. In the case of Love Canal, for example, the protection built in by Hooker (presumably to avoid liability from potential damages from leaks) was judged decades later to be sufficient to meet even the tough EPA standards of the 1980s.

2. Where the problem is local, local regulation usually is better than national regulation. Most chemical risks are quite localized and when they are, state or local regulations are more appropriate than federal controls. This is especially true of hazardous waste disposal.69

3. Where the problem is national, federal regulation is better than local regulation. Environmental problems that are national or even global in scope are better dealt with at the national level. If CFCs are depleting the ozone, or if there is a threat from a global greenhouse effect, local regulations are unlikely to contribute in a positive way to a realistic solution.

4. Emergency legislation is seldom justified. Emergency legislation is seldom carefully considered and valid for the longer run. No emergency, and no need for emergency legislation, exists in the general area of chemical risks.

5. Richer is safer. Empirical data suggests that although richer societies face more risks -- from chemicals and other technological developments not available to people with simpler lifestyles -- rich and poor people in richer societies live longer, healthier lives.

6. Resilience is more reliable than anticipation. Unlike the turtle, which anticipates blows to its body and grows a shell to protect it, the human being reacts quickly to danger and repairs injuries to itself. In the public policy arena, anticipation means using up resources or forbidding options in order to avoid feared or forecasted dangers. Resilience means being adaptable and able to respond to danger when it is actually present. As already noted, wealth enables individuals and societies to react decisively when danger does appear.

At the same time, applying the centuries-old doctrine of common-law liability causes potential polluters to act as they did at Love Canal to avoid costly damages from the chemicals they manage. The most resilient society is often the best protected.70

7. Safety requires risks. Risk and safety are usually interconnected. A runner is more likely to die of a heart attack while he is running. But running also builds up resilience to help survive any future heart attack, and many other ills as well. In the United States, much risky activity, including the risky investment of venture capital, is controlled through the exercise of private property rights. In the case of chemical risks, however, the freedom to innovate is being severely curtailed by anticipatory regulations. New activities often are allowed only if shown to be almost "risk free." The economic costs of safety regulations often are explicitly ignored. More importantly, this approach is profoundly unsafe.

Just as people die waiting for drugs which could be used if less rigorous testing for safety and effectiveness were required, so too can the unintended side effects of "uncompromisingly tough" environmental standards be dangerous.