{"id":22935,"date":"2026-07-10T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=22935"},"modified":"2026-07-10T09:21:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:21:00","slug":"new-york-times-bankrupt-environmentalism-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/10\/new-york-times-bankrupt-environmentalism-1985\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Times: Bankrupt Environmentalism (1985)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this date in 1985<\/strong>, the New York Times<\/em> published my \u201cBankrupt Environmentalism<\/strong>\u201d op-ed. That piece raised a ruckus and was reprinted in the Times’ 20th Anniversary round-up of epic-or-memorabe-or-whatever Op-eds in 1990.\u00a0 The pervasive waste of the Superfund program foreshadowed the far more ruinous disasters of Biden\u2019s Green New Deal.<\/p>\n

Robert Semple<\/strong> <\/a>was a superb editor on that piece, and I greatly appreciated how he welcomed my pieces in the 1980s.\u00a0 The awesome artwork that could serve to illustrate about half the articles I have written since then.<\/p>\n

I first wrote about federal environmental debacles the prior year with a Wall Street Journal<\/em> piece headlined, \u201cUncle Sam, Super-Sodbuster\u201d<\/a> – explaining how farm subsidies encouraged the ravaging of the prairies.<\/p>\n

My views were shaped by conversations with the late Fred Smith<\/strong><\/a>, the founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute<\/a>, a relatively new think tank that has since established itself as one of the great debunkers of federal regulatory frauds. Fred was a former bureaucrat who had seen the light on the follies of command-and-control approaches to anything that moved. The “Bankrupt Environmentalism” headline mirrors CEI’s core message in its early years.<\/p>\n

At that time, I was a ride leader for the Potomac Pedalers<\/a>, one of the largest biking groups in the nation. Prior to writing that piece, I talked for many miles on multiple rides with a Justice Department attorney who was prosecuting Superfund cases. She was appalled at how ineffective and unjust the program had become. Talking with her gave me an intellectual grip on a hellishly tangled topic that defied common sense. I didn\u2019t quote her or betray any confidences in the piece.<\/p>\n

(article text reposted below the image)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The New York Times, July 10, 1985,<\/p>\n

Bankrupt Environmentalism<\/h1>\n

: By James Bovard; James Bovard writes frequently on agricultural issues.<\/p>\n

DATELINE: WASHINGTON<\/p>\n

BODY: The Superfund is a fiasco, and the debate over the terms of its renewal after its expiration Oct. 1 reveals the bankruptcy of the environmental movement.<\/p>\n

The environmental lobbies seem to have acquired many of the worst traits of the defense lobby: In the same way that being pro-defense is often an excuse to neglect cost overruns and badly built weapons, being pro-environmental is, increasingly, a license to disregard the failure of anti-pollution programs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency has cleaned up only six out of thousands of hazardous waste sites, and the five-year, $1.6 billion Superfund, designed to finance this cleanup, instead has primarily spawned bumper crops of planning, administering and litigating. The fund has done little or nothing to protect the public health.<\/p>\n

But the only solution to the fund’s failings that environmentalists seem to offer is to throw more money at the problem. Environmentalists seek a $10 billion to $13 billion program as against the Administration’s $5.3 billion proposal. Almost all the debate has been over the level and method of Superfund financing – as if the program’s effectiveness was irrelevant.<\/p>\n

The defense lobby and environmentalists often share an inability to focus on real issues. Many conservatives try to defend the MX missile not by refuting its alleged vulnerability but by talking about the Soviet threat. Likewise, environmentalists’ discussion of the Superfund usually dwells on the value of cleanliness, with little explanation of how the fund would ever solve the toxic waste problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Further, environmentalists have neglected the fund’s weaknesses. For instance, a company that places a single barrel of waste at a dump can be held legally responsible for the cleanup cost of the entire site.<\/strong> This is unfair and counterproductive, since companies fight vigorously to avoid admitting responsibility, and nothing gets done while lawyers get rich.<\/p>\n

Even as the defense lobby is often co-opted by defense contractors, the environmental movement is being co-opted by the public-works lobby and pork-barrel politics: At a recent Congressional hearing, a hot issue was whether states would continue receiving Superfund grants two years after their last hazardous waste site was sanitized.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Environmentalists have not provided leadership in focusing the Superfund’s resources. The gravest threat from hazardous waste dumps is that seepage will contaminate ground water and taint much of the nation’s water supply. But, as a result of the Superfund’s ”act now, understand later” mandate, we know little more about ground-water pollution today than in 1980.<\/strong> The General Accounting Office reports that little has been done to determine how dump sites contaminate the water supply and to measure the dangers that various pollutants pose; yet, environmentalists have hardly protested the lack of research that would eventually enable us to know what we are doing.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists seem incapabale of learning from their mistakes. Their great cause of the 1970’s – the Clean Water Act of 1972 – is a landmark of ineffectiveness. Government and private corporations spent $120 billion complying with it; yet, the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators reports that only 11 percent of surface water streams are cleaner now than in 1972. The act was characterized by a pork-barrel approach, infatuation with ”best-available technology” and utopian standards (zero discharge of pollutants). The Superfund program repeats almost all the mistakes of the Clean Water Act – and, so far, is equally unproductive.<\/p>\n

If we really want the ”biggest bang for the buck,” we should focus on the single largest source of broad-based pollution: the runoff of pesticides, fertilizers and eroded soil from farms. It makes no sense to scrub clean one pollution threat while totally ignoring another major problem.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists have become good Washingtonians, more concerned about spending money for a good cause than actually solving a problem. Hazardous waste sites are indeed dangerous, but it will take more than good intentions and lofty rhetoric to meet the challenge.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SIERRA CLUB RESPONSE:<\/p>\n

July 22, 1985, Monday, Late City Final Edition<\/p>\n

SECTION: Section A; Page 14, Column 4; Editorial Desk<\/p>\n

LENGTH: 399 words<\/p>\n

HEADLINE: Wise and Timely Use of Cleanup Funds Is Environmentalist Goal<\/p>\n

BODY: To the Editor:<\/p>\n

James Bovard completely misrepresents the environmentalist position on toxic-waste control by claiming (”Bankrupt Environmentalism,” Op-Ed, July 10) that we advocate nothing more than throwing money at the problem. To the contrary, since environmentalists began supporting Superfund legislation in the 1970’s, we have endorsed an approach that integrates an adequate Superfund budget with a sensible cleanup schedule and effective cleanup standards.<\/p>\n

That is why we object to passage by the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Transportation and Tourism of H.R. 2817, a bill that almost doubles the Reagan Administration’s fund request, but obliterates any Environmental Protection Agency responsibility for spending the money wisely or in a timely fashion. In fact, H.R. 2817 would allow the E.P.A. to authorize cleanups that violate the standards established under other Federal pollution-control laws. It would also prevent states from imposing more stringent standards than those set by the E.P.A. And H.R. 2817 would not require the agency to clean up sites any faster than the snail’s pace of the last five years.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bovard clearly has an ax to grind when it comes to pollution control. His claim that the Clean Water Act is ”a landmark of ineffectiveness” is without merit. According to the 1982 national water-quality inventory report to Congress, progress has been made in water-pollution control in 21 states, while no states reported trends in water-quality degradation. And the National Stream Quality Accounting Network, which is operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, reported that ”large-scale degradation of the nation’s streams has been stopped, even though both population and industrial activity have increased.” Pollution control is not only a dire necessity, but it also works.<\/p>\n

The Sierra Club and other conservation organizations accept responsibility for the development of cost-effective programs and policies that respond to increasingly complex environmental problems. This forward thrust has been demonstrated by the club’s own programs and by the recent release of ”An Environmental Agenda for the Future,” prepared jointly by the leaders of the environmental community. I commend this report to Mr. Bovard and all who share our concern for environmental quality.<\/p>\n

DOUGLAS P. WHEELER Executive Director, Sierra Club<\/strong> Washington, July 11, 1985<\/p>\n

TYPE: LETTER<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this date in 1985, the New York Times published my \u201cBankrupt Environmentalism\u201d op-ed. That piece raised a ruckus and was reprinted in the Times’ 20th Anniversary round-up of epic-or-memorabe-or-whatever Op-eds in 1990.\u00a0 The pervasive waste of the Superfund program foreshadowed the far more ruinous disasters of Biden\u2019s Green New Deal. Robert Semple was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[951,1864,4890,4891,1126,1863],"class_list":["post-22935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-competitive-enterprise-institute","tag-environmentalism","tag-fred-smith","tag-robert-semple","tag-sierra-club","tag-superfund"],"yoast_head":"\nNew York Times: Bankrupt Environmentalism (1985) - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My 1985 "Bankrupt Enviromentalism" op-ed in the New York Times foreshadowed far greater environmental debacles in subsequent decades\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/10\/new-york-times-bankrupt-environmentalism-1985\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New York Times: Bankrupt Environmentalism (1985) - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22935"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22958,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935\/revisions\/22958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}