A New Resource

Via Chris Mooney, I’ve been introduced to the Center for Progressive Regulation, a non-profit research and educational organization that “supports regulatory action to protect health, safety, and the environment, and rejects the conservative view that government’s only function is to increase the economic efficiency of private markets.”

CPR recently published a book presenting a new progressive agenda for public health and the environment. CPR argues that the need for such an initiative is plain – since 9-11, environmental problems have largely faded from public view, and in the shadows, regulated industries and their allies on the political right have been systematically dismantling the occupational and environmental health and safety regulatory framework that has grown up over the past 30 years. In arguing for creating a sense of urgency in addressing health and safety problems, CPR states that:

[t]he warning signs are in plain evidence: an epidemic of asthma among children, unacceptably high levels of mercury in the blood of women of childbearing age, lead in household water supplies, outbreaks of cryptosporidium and other pathogens in drinking water, bizarre weather changes, mounting levels of pesticides in the natural environment, smog in all our major cities, and cars and workplaces that are still unsafe.

A brief introduction to the principles articulated by CPR can be found in a white paper available from their web site. It issues a needed rallying cry, and a series of key recommendations for re-energizing environmental protection at a time when it is not politically sexy. I don’t agree with all of the points that they have made (a topic for another day), but overall, CPR is a resource well worth checking in to.