Economy or Environment: Must the Health of One Come at the Expense of the Other?

We've all heard, seen and felt how the economy is struggling mightily and is in dire need of resuscitation.  We've also heard talk of how green jobs and a focus on the environment are key components of President Obama's plan for recovery and the future.  But the aim of providing immediate economic relief may not always -- or even often -- square with what is best for the environment, or even what is currently permitted by law.  This raises an interesting dilemma, one that budget-crunching states across the country are currently facing:  should environmental laws be relaxed or waived in order to expedite economic recovery?

If the central goal of the stimulus plan is to inject appropriated money back into the economy as fast as possible, it is easy to see how compliance with environmental laws (whether it mean obtaining permits through a complex time-consuming process, implementation of expensive control technology, or the use of less readily available energy sources and resources) could thwart or severely hinder such a mission.  These types of delays could prove incredibly costly, at a time where such costs simply may not be tolerable.  Already, states across the country are having to deal with the dilemma of trying to provide vital relief in the short term, possibly at the incalculable expense of the environment in the long term.

A bill in Montana proposes to exempt stimulus projects from environmental regulations, repealing the protections in the name of creating jobs.  A California standoff between environmentalists and the Governor eventually led to relaxed environmental laws for new road and construction projects.  Stricter regulations for septic tanks have been shot down in Idaho in part due to economic concerns in these pressing times.  The financial crisis has even prompted a Utah company to agree to dispose of Italian nuclear waste, with a federal judge set to decide if such an agreement is barred by environmental laws.

While these precedents possibly suggest that the immediacy of the wallet will ultimately carry the day, they also suggest the need for supreme caution in heading down the road of relaxed environmental protection to ensure it doesn't turn into lax environmental protection.  The risk of catastrophic climate change -- the hypothetical "point of no return" -- is steadily creeping upward, and with it extreme climatic events such as floods, droughts, hurricanes and severe winter storms.  It cannot be forgotton that these events have their own severe and cumulative economic effects, and they need to be taken into account as they arguably pose the biggest danger of all.  Thus, as these difficult decisions are made, they must be made with that ultimate balance firmly in mind.  The last thing anyone wants is to emerge from this economic crisis into an even greater environmental one.