WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering brief opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks. This is the second of two wrap-ups for May 2, 2002.
National Center for Public Policy Research
(NCPPR is a communications and research foundation dedicated to providing free market solutions to today's public policy problems, based on the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility. NCPPR was founded to provide the conservative movement with a versatile and energetic organization capable of responding quickly and decisively to late-breaking issues, based on thorough research.)
Ten Second Response: Rep. John Doolittle introduces bill calling for release of 15-year-old wilderness study areas
By TOM RANDALL
CHICAGO -- Background: Rep. John T. Doolittle introduced the Wilderness Study Area Release Act, H.R. 4589 to prevent the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management from continuing to close of millions of acres of public land through improper use of Study Areas. Today these agencies avoid release of WSAs for multiple use (recreation, logging, grazing, etc.) simply by refusing to either conduct the necessary studies or report to Congress on whether they recommend such lands be made into permanent Wilderness Areas.
Ten Second Response: As Doolittle said, "These agencies must not be allowed to deny the American people access to public lands simply by ignoring Congress."
Thirty Second Response: More than 665 Wilderness Study Area Designations, covering nearly 23 million acres in 18 states are now over 15 years old. In that time, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have not attempted to bring to the Congress a recommendation as to whether or not any of these should named as permanent Wilderness Areas. The American people should not be deprived of the use of their land simply because these agencies cannot or will not do their jobs.
Discussion: In addition to releasing all 15-year old Wilderness Study Areas from that designation, areas so-named in the future will lose that designation after five years. Lands released from Wilderness Study Area designations, under Doolittle's bill would return to multiple-use status as defined by the 1960 Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act. H.R. 4589 can be found at thomas.loc.gov.
(Tom Randall is the director of the John P. McGovern, M.D. Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at the National Center for Public Policy Research.)
The Pacific Research Institute
(PRI promotes individual freedom and personal responsibility as the cornerstones of a civil society, best achieved through a free-market economy, limited government, and private initiative. PRI researches and analyzes critical issues facing California and the nation, and crafts strategies for policy reform.)
Capital ideas: Gasping at straws, Redux
By STEVEN HAYWARD
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Back in January the Foundation for Clean Air Progress conducted a poll that found that two-thirds of Americans believe that air quality in the U.S. has deteriorated over the last decade. This is a huge misperception.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the number of "exceedences" of the EPA threshold for "unhealthful air" in American cities fell by nearly 50 percent over the last decade, as reported in the most recent edition of PRI's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators.
But it's no wonder that many Americans misperceive the real trends and conditions when one sees the publicity accorded to the schlock science of the American Lung Association's (ALA) annual "State of the Air" report released yesterday. Once again, the news media has uncritically accepted the Lung Association's claim that 142 million Americans -- half the nation's population -- are breathing "unhealthy" air, even though the EPA puts the number at about 62 million.
The ALA goes through a number of contortions and contrivances to gin up its scary numbers. First, the report defines pollution only as ozone, ignoring the other pollutants such as carbon monoxide, lead, and particulates that are also health threats. Perhaps it ignores these other pollutants because most (though not all) areas of the country have lowered levels of these pollutants below the threshold for health risk.
Even by picking ozone as the sole measure for dirty air, the ALA still has to distort the picture. The report consistently inflates actual ozone exposure statistics by counting an entire region as "unhealthy" if only a single EPA monitor exceeds the ozone standard, which is the case in most cities. Also, the ALA assumes that all children and people over 65 are vulnerable to the most stringent ozone measurement; neither the EPA nor other serious health experts believe this. The ALA is deliberately misleading the public for the purpose of generating scary headlines.
The indispensable Joel Schwartz, senior scientist at the Reason Public Policy Institute, has produced a devastating analysis of the shoddiness of the ALA's report, which you can find at www.rppi.org. Schwartz's conclusion is better than we can put it ourselves:
"ALA's inaccurate and misleading air quality ratings could scare tens of millions of people who breathe clean air into incorrectly believing that their air is unsafe. Tens of millions more might believe that their air poses a major health threat, when in fact their real risk is minimal.
"Ironically, ALA's efforts could actually reduce Americans' overall health and safety. The ALA report will encourage the public to demand unnecessary additional expenditures to clean up air that is already clean. But in a world of limited resources, society can address only some of the many risks people face. When society wastes effort on small or non-existent risks, fewer real problems get the attention they deserve, reducing our health and safety."
Schwartz noted all these defects in the ALA's report last year, and yet the news media once again is trumpeting the ALA's report without a single qualification or skeptical question. So much for sound science and the environment.
(Steven Hayward is the director of the Center for Environmental Studies at the Pacific Research Institute.)
Reason Public Policy Institute
Post-Riot L.A.
By BRIAN DOHERTY
LOS ANGELES -- This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, which claimed 55 lives, caused around $1 billion in property damage, and helped cement the city's reputation as a hopelessly strife- and misery-ridden hellhole.
Things have gotten better since then, though not, as many claim, because the riots served as a wake-up call for massive public-sector spending. Whatever economic recovery there has been in the most riot-torn neighborhoods has been more a result of private entrepreneurship and loans than government action. Despite a lot of good news, of course, crime and murder rates are still higher around the epicenter of the riots than most people would be comfortable with.
The revival and renewal of L.A. since the riots -- and a natural tragedy, 1994's Northridge earthquake--shows the wonderfully dynamic qualities of arguably the most cosmopolitan American city (sorry, New York). The awful choices made by so many people on those nightmarish nights a decade ago don't mean Los Angeles was some existential or sociological trap whose only escape was through mayhem; it merely meant that those people did wrong things.
The most important lessons to learn from the riots and the decade after are that lives, and cities, are resilient; that people's choices matter; and that Los Angeles is still (and even more so) a great place to live. It's a city rich, diverse, exciting, with all the cultural, culinary, and economic resources of a dense urban metropolis combined with spread-out, suburban ease and almost always perfect weather (whose alternately soothing and energizing effects cannot be overestimated).
The chaos of 1992 was a momentary aberration; this grand experiment in multicultural urbanity succeeds every day.
(Brian Doherty is an associate editor of Reason magazine.)
Institute for Public Accuracy
(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)
Debating welfare: Interviews available
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
Columnist for The Progressive and the author of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America."
"In the 'job-readiness' programs routinely inflicted on welfare recipients since 1996, poor women have it drummed into them that by getting a job they will win 'self-esteem' and, at the same time, finally be able to provide a suitable 'role model' for their children. Stigmatizing unemployment, or, more accurately, unpaid, family-directed labor, obviously works to promote the kind of docility businesses crave in their employees. Any job, no matter how dangerous, abusive, or poorly paid, can be construed as better than no job at all. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, as 'reformed' welfare is called, does not of course rely on an intangible 'ethic' to promote work; it requires recipients to take whatever jobs are available, and usually the first job that comes along. Lose the job -- for example, because you have to stay home with a sick child -- and you may lose whatever supplementary benefits you were receiving. The message is clear: Do not complain or make trouble; accept employment on the bosses' terms or risk homelessness and hunger. From a rational, economic, point of view, welfare reform has been an effort to provide American business with disciplined -- and in most cases, desperate -- workers."
By NOEL A. CAZENAVE
Co-author of "Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor," and associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut.
"The public assistance system in the U.S. has been racialized since its inception. Initially racism took form in the administration of the programs -- African Americans were blocked from receiving benefits, or had benefits at a lower level. As AFDC was perceived as benefiting people of color, the attacks on it from politicians increased, culminating with the destruction of that program by Clinton in 1996. Now, Bush is using punitive work requirements that exploit stereotypes of lazy African American women, and this while they have to contend with an onerous bureaucracy as well as racial discrimination by both case workers and employers, and are penalized for engaging in childrearing that is not recognized as work."
By LIZ ACCLES
National coordinator of Welfare Made a Difference Campaign, which counts among its members people who used to be on welfare.
"Though welfare leaves people in poverty -- a mother with two children in New York City would typically get $577 a month (with $286 of that supposed to cover rent) and about $250 in food stamps -- it is still a crucial lifeline."
*Steven Shafarman, executive director of the Citizen Policies Institute and author of "We the People: Healing Our Democracy and Saving Our World."
"Every American should have enough income for food and shelter. We should do this through a guaranteed basic income rather than a cumbersome welfare system. Further, this should be combined with having everyone volunteer eight hours a month. These would be mutually enabling and mutually reinforcing programs. Compared with Bush's proposals on welfare and volunteerism, the Citizen Policies alternative would be both more compassionate and more conservative."
