THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 27, 1995 TAG: 9505250010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Our citizen's group read with interest your recent editorial commending the Republicans in Congress who have shown the political courage to recommend abolishing federal cash subsidies for American agribusiness. With the federal budget in a decadeslong debt crisis, the annual handing of billions of dollars of taxpayer money mostly to large companies and to already wealthy people cannot be justified.
But before lionizing Republicans too much for goring one of their own budget oxen, one needs to look at other changes in the law Republicans are pushing for that will cost the public even more than federal agricultural subsidies do; changes aimed at the benefit of big business.
For instance, Gov. George Allen has advanced the dangerous idea that Virginia no longer needs the protection of state environmental laws. His Department of Environmental Quality strongly feels that polluting industries should be allowed to police themselves. When this self-policing does not prevent pollution spills, the governor's amnesty law for polluters passed in February allows even the worst offenders to escape any punishment for damaging the health and property of others. Most Republicans in Congress agree with Governor Allen in his willingness to sacrifice the life-sustaining natural environment in exchange for big money now for the Republicans' main political constituency.
In the field of agriculture, big business in Virginia enjoys the arbitrary protections of the so-called ``Right to Farm Bill.'' That law as it presently stands abolishes the historic rights of adjoining landowners to abate public nuisances that are ruining the use of their land. This has allowed new, huge hog and chicken facilities to devastate the use of surrounding properties due to overpowering stench and groundwater pollution with no compensation at all owing to the affected people nearby.
The Right to Farm Bill was amended last year by the General Assembly in large part to prohibit the public regulation of intensive livestock facilities through zoning ordinances. Local governments can no longer refuse zoning for these pollution factories.
These twin legal immunities purchased in Richmond allow big livestock operators in Virginia to impose their pollution at will on other people. These special legal privileges are also central to agribusiness's effort to drive the family farmers into the pages of history. Agribusiness's competitive disadvantages, the creation of massive pollution, have been conveniently legislated away.
There are many ways to use the coercive power of government to the financial advantage of a favored group. Cash subsidies are just one. Eliminating the public and private protection of the environment has to be the most costly way to repay one's political supporters.
So until Republicans in Congress and the statehouses stop helping polluters avoid paying the true costs of their business, we can all safely hold the applause for Republican efforts to help the average taxpayer.
JEAN AMON, president
Isle of Wight Defense League
Carrollton, May 8, 1995 by CNB