1. Laws, Regulations and Wild Horses

2. The New Economist for August 13, 2016 devoted a special feature to analyzing the Wild Horse and Burro Program of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The BLM is a federal agency which manages more than 245 million acres of public land. On those 245 million acres are 67,000 horses roaming free, and there are another 40,000 horses in corrals (where they live longer in rented pastures).

3. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that nationwide the wild horse population grows by percent a year. A few of the animals can be traced back to horses brought to the America’s by the Spanish, but most are descended from ranch stock or unwanted animals set loose during the 20th Century. The wild-horse population is on course to double every four years.

4. The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 ordered the animals protected as living symbols of the historic and pioneering spirit of the West.

5. If you were a member of Congress, would you have voted for the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Abstain

6. Would you vote to open slaughter houses and sell horse meat to the French?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Abstain

7. If you were a member of Congress, would you have instructed the Bureau of Land Management to keep public rangelands open for cattle-grazing and other uses, leaving limited room for feral horses?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Abstain

8. 1) 160,000 animals would be added to BLM off-range
The annual budget of the Bureau of Land Management is $1.2 billion. Over $80 million is now spent managing wild horses—double the amount spent seven years ago.
The Bureau of Land Management was ask to come up with different scenarios:
1) 160,000 animals would be added to BLM off-range
corrals and pastures for a 40 year cost of $4.6 billion
2) Another involves adding 15,000 horse to corrals and
injecting up to 27,000 mares with the contraceptive
PZP.

9. In the past as many as 8,000 wild horses used to be adopted out of BLM herds each year. But there is an oversupply of domestic horses—in part because of closed slaughterhouses. The BLM struggles to find adoptive homes for 2,500 animals.

10. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming says the BLM is between a “rock and a hard place.” The Senator sees no solution which does not involve some culling (killing) of wild horses.
If you were a member of Congress, would you vote to amend the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Protection Program to require killing of some wild horses?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Abstain

11. The Economist is a very respected British weekly. The story was titled:
“Dollars in the Wind: Galloping Off in All Directions With Taxpayers’ Money.”
They offered both an assessment and a moral to the wild horses story

12. The assessment:
There is a more than one way to achieve dreadful public policies. Committees of bureaucrats have crafted real stinkers over the years. Other duff laws are the work of deep-pocketed special interests. But to create the worst government programs—schemes that combine brow-furrowing folly with gasp-inducing expense—few methods are as sure as inviting Congress to spend the money of future taxpayers, in order to pander to public sentiment today.

13. The moral of the Wild Horse tale:
Small wonder welfare for humans is beyond reform.

14. Cost of Regulation

15. Last week, a divided court of appeals upheld what may well be the most important environmental rule in the nation's history: the Environmental Protection Agency's mercury standards. The regulation is expected to prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks a year.

16. Critics of the mercury rule have focused on its expense
Critics of the mercury rule have focused on its expense. The EPA estimates it will cost $9.6 billion a year, with most of the burden falling on electric utilities. Indeed, the issue of cost is what split the court.

17. The Clean Air Act allows the EPA to regulate electric utilities under its hazardous air pollutants program only if it finds that such regulation "is appropriate and necessary." Focusing solely on mercury's effect on public health, the EPA made that finding.

18. That troubled Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh
That troubled Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. In his dissenting opinion, he asked, quite reasonably, how the EPA could possibly conclude that regulation is "appropriate" without considering costs. He argued that it's "just common sense and sound government practice" to take account of costs as well as benefits.

19. But the court's majority had an answer
But the court's majority had an answer. It noted the EPA had considered costs — not in its initial decision on whether to regulate mercury emissions but in its second and crucial decision about how stringent the regulation should be. The court's majority also emphasized the benefits of the rule, which have been estimated to be worth from $37 billion to $90 billion, outweighing the costs by a factor of between 3 to 1 and 9 to 1.

20. For the future, the mercury controversy offers two lessons
For the future, the mercury controversy offers two lessons. The first is that no approach to environmental protection can afford to be indifferent to costs. In situations where Congress allows the EPA to take account of costs, the agency should do so, at least in considering the appropriate level of stringency.

21. The second lesson is more subtle
The second lesson is more subtle. Calculations of the costs and benefits of a regulation should use the best available science. In the case of mercury, for example, the substance itself is a neurotoxicant, potentially affecting memory, language, attention and cognition. But it is not easy to quantify mercury's adverse effects, and the EPA did not try.

22. Do you support the EPA regulation of mercury?
Yes No
C. In general yes, but not at a cost of $9 billion to the economy.

23. Did the Supreme Court take the case?
Yes No

24. Did the Supreme Court uphold the EPA?
Yes No

25. Key elements of the ruling
The Supreme Court actually delivered a ruling Monday that wasn’t in the Obama administration’s favor. The justices halted further implementation of the 2011 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule after determining that the Environmental Protection Agency did not fully consider its financial burden on companies.
Washington Post, 6/20/15

26. For one thing, the court didn’t strike down the regulation itself and it could be reinstated after changes are made. What’s more, many utilities have already moved to comply with the rule ahead of next year’s deadline.

27. …the impact of the Supreme Court’s EPA ruling could extend to Obama’s broader regulatory agenda. Several legal scholars interpret the court’s decision as applying to more than just one environmental regulation. Instead, agencies may need to more carefully consider the costs of any regulations they choose to impose.” This is a groundbreaking administrative-law case. It essentially says that when a statute is ambiguous an agency must consider costs,” said Justin Savage, a partner at Hogan Lovells who previously served as a Justice Department lawyer under the Bush and Obama administrations.

28. Do you agree with
the Appeals Court
the Supreme Court