One of the biggest problems with government intervention and regulation is that they usually operate with a large amount of inefficiencies and ineffectiveness. In spite of the good intentions of the Environmental Protection Agency, billions of dollars are spent every year to enforce laws that don’t serve their purpose. According to Business Insider a recent study conducted at ASU reveals just how flawed the EPA’s policies are:
The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 and was supposed to keep pollution out of America’s lakes through EPA monitoring.
But 40 years later, nothing has changed, according to a study by V. Kerry Smith and Carlos Valcarcel Wolloh at Arizona State University.
According to the study:
With data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Information System (NWIS) we find average water quality in U.S. lakes is at about the same level in 2011 as it was in 1975 with over eighty percent of the lakes in the NWIS database consistent with fishable conditions based on measures of the levels of dissolved oxygen present in them. Thus, for freshwater lakes one could conclude nothing has changed.
The ineffectiveness calls into question why the federal government has spent billions of dollars enforcing the Clean Water Act with the EPA.
