WASHINGTON, DC - If you belong to the Anointed Class, the coming of a Republican administration is akin to the barbarians sacking Rome in the 5th century. Think I exaggerate? Try on this statement from Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which, as the name suggests, is an advocacy group for bureaucrats. "The election of George W. Bush," Ruch writes, "heralds the advent of a new environmental Dark Age."

From such fevered prose you'd think we had elected Ronald Reagan again. We all remember how badly the environment was degraded during the Reagan years-the constant oil spills, the nuclear power plant meltdowns, the massive species extinctions, the spontaneous combustion of the Great Lakes, the increasingly foul air in our cities. What? You don't remember all that? Maybe that's because it didn't happen.

To the contrary, environmental quality improved steadily during the Reagan years, just as it will during the George W. years. Some of the largest gains in air quality came during the Reagan years, especially the reduction in airborne lead, which the Reagan administration achieved through a market-based system of tradeable credits that dramatically lowered the cost of lead reduction, below what the EPA would have done had the PEER gang been in charge.

PEER is also alarmed at Bush's selection of Gov. Christie Todd Whitman to run the EPA, because, as governor of New Jersey, Whitman (gasp!) cut the budget of the New Jersey EPA, (horror!) reduced the number of fines, and (dismay!) lowered the number of enforcement actions against polluters. And what happened to environmental quality in New Jersey during this time? PEER neglects to mention that it got better. Most New Jersey cities, for example, have experienced a 20-percent decline in ozone levels over the last decade. PEER's hysteria is a great example of the divide between process-oriented policy, which measures environmental protection according to the size of an agenc's budget, fines, and lawsuits, and results-oriented policy, which measures environmental protection by the conditions achieved. The public is starting to notice. The chart below shows the number of people telling the Gallup Poll that they think the U.S. has made a "great deal of progress" on the environment since 1970. This number is sure to grow as things get better in the decade ahead-so long as PEER doesn't stand in the way. Perhaps its time for a PEER review.

- Steven Hayward

Percentage of Americans Who Say the U.S. Has Achieved "A Great Deal of Progress" on the Environment since
1970.

1990 14%
1991 18%
1995 24%
1999 36%
(Source: Gallup Poll)