Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Great Lakes Law

NYT

This is a law limiting the use of water from the great lakes beyond their immediate region. Of course I do not know the details of the bill, but this sounds like the worse sort of protectionism. I do know that in the last 20-30 years the American South and Southwest have undergone impressive economic and population expansion. These regions need water. This is the kind of bill no one wants to stop because its basic premise sounds like a good thing (like voting against "protect families" bills which ban gay marriage). My suspicion is that this is a democratic bill aimed at chocking off the growth of regions which support Republicans. But the broader point is that we should not be limiting our political vision.

1 comment:

  1. Well, I suppose you believe that people who build houses in flood plains, or on sand bars that have temporarily become islands, deserve (1) access to flood insurance, and (2) emergency government rebuilding aid if the insurance doesn't come through.

    Much of the American West is desert. Sad but true. Because of our ability to drain the water table, we have succeeded in putting millions of people in places where 100 years ago nothing but the odd lizard would have been able to survive. How much effort and money should we spend supporting golf courses in Phoenix? Enough to drop the level of Lake Superior to a level that will no longer support shipping?

    Is it "regions" that support Republicans, or people? If the former, rest assured, as the world gets progressively warmer, white shoes will creep ever northward, and our political vision, like the shoes, will drink deeply of the moist repositories of human comfort embedded in the American tradition of reaching for the other guy's resource because we need it more.

    ReplyDelete

Please post your comment(s) here. To reply to a specific comment, be sure to paste the appropriate @ displayed into the box below as the first line.