EPA to the rescue

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

As is often argued in many matters, look deep enough and you will most likely find existing laws covering any possible human excursion from the norm.

Lately, I have been thinking about the erudite Vice President Biden and his gun control task force.

Sunday, Jan. 6 was Epiphany for Christians around the world and I had one on this subject. The EPA can, without further legislation, take on the gun control "problem."

After all, it is settled law over four decades old that the EPA is charged with controlling lead in the atmosphere and soil.

Look at unleaded gasoline, catalytic converters and so forth on automobiles, dating from the early 1970s. Likewise, the EPA controls lead and other heavy metals emitted from industrial stacks.

The EPA controls lead shot in the ground at trap-shooting ranges and in lakes where ducks have been hunted (they use steel shot to hunt ducks now).

Again, all of this has been law on the books for decades. I don't think anyone would disagree with my conclusion that a bullet flying through the air is lead pollution of the first order and hence clearly within the purview of the EPA.

With it established that the EPA is charged with controlling lead pollution in the atmosphere and soil, let's delve briefly into how they administer such laws.

First, in certain cases, they grandfather the equipment that produces the lead pollution. For instance, if you own a 1964 candy apple red 409 Chevy Impala Super Sport (don't I wish), they are not going to make you turn it in. In fact, you can even drive it and in most states they will provide you a discounted license plate for antique cars to operate such a beauty.

Likewise, if a corporation owns an obsolete boiler that would spew heavy metals in abundance if operated, the only time that corporation can get in trouble is if they attempt to operate that illegal and unlicensed boiler. They are not required to dismantle it.

It is quite clear from these examples, as the laws are defined and enforced, the EPA never limits the owning of devices capable of pollution and in only certain cases does the EPA limit using these old devices.

The EPA has another concept. It is called a "non-attainment" region.

In a "non-attainment" region, the pollution limits on legally operated devices are much tighter than they are in "attainment" regions. It works like this: If a large number of "smokestack" industries are clustered in a small area, it is logical that the overall level of undesirables in the air would be much greater than say, where one major "smokestack" industry is the only one within 50 miles. Such a cluster thus has much tighter controls on each smokestack than similar industries widely spaced.

How does the EPA put teeth in enforcement?

In the early days, they thought fines would do it, but this turned out to not be effective. Some unscrupulous companies would simply pay the fines, for the fines were far cheaper than the millions in pollution controls required to achieve compliance.

So, sometime in the 1980s, the EPA's enforcement ability was changed to allow them to actually jail the top executive on site if the site was not in compliance within a certain period of time.

So where does this leave us with lead pollution control as administered by the EPA?

1. Owning any of the pollution equipment (guns) is perfectly permissible. And in certain cases ('64 Chevy, an old Winchester Model 12 shotgun), using it is just fine, too.

2. Non-attainment areas are important. This could be done by ZIP code. Those areas with the highest levels of lead pollution caused by firearms, such as Chicago (over 500 gun deaths in 2012), would have the tightest controls. By contrast, Tucumcari, New Mexico may have the least controls.

3. The top executives go to jail if the lead pollution levels are exceeded. Who are the top executives? One might think they are the police chiefs, but that would be incorrect. The top executives are mayors – such as Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and Michael Bloomberg of New York. Put them in jail for excessive lead pollution.

Problem solved.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.