Rodriguez for Congress campaign
Environmental Protection
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[October 17, 2016]
Rodriguez Believes Data-Driven
Decisions Are Key to Wise Environmental Policy - Recently, while
attending a county fair, I had a conversation with a gentleman who
tried to convince me that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
needed to be abolished. I listened politely to his argument but then
countered with an explanation of why such a position was unsound.
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 For those who are ideological conservatives, it is
patently absurd to believe that they would be opposed to the idea of
conservation—it is the very root of the modern environmental
movement. Two Republican presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Richard
Nixon, were the greatest champions of the conservation movement, and
each signed into law signature legislation that advanced the cause
of environmental protection in the U.S. This topic is not one that
should have a partisan divide between the left and the right; if
anything, it should be one of the points of common sense agreement
between people of different political stripes.
Regardless of political affiliation, we all appreciate the benefits
of clean air and clean water, both on a personal and a societal
level. Although a cost may be involved to achieve this, it is clear
that the benefits far outweigh the shared burden to attain these
goals. Although some might claim that the free market, if left to
its own devices, would make wise choices and thereby protect the
environment, we know from experience that markets do not have a
reputation for making moral choices. It is through deliberate
decisions, like removing lead from paint and from gasoline, that we
see legislative solutions to societal problems that can be
addressed. Were we to ignore such remedies that serve the public
good simply to satisfy ideological purity, we would find ourselves
in a dangerous world. For instance, would you freely choose to work
in an asbestos-laden workplace, or to put it more bluntly, how much
mercury do you like with your fish?
 Common sense regulation that is rooted in the public interest is
beneficial to society, but we must be careful to avoid the excesses
of over-regulation that an increasingly bureaucratic state can
create. Federal courts have recently blocked the Waters of the
United States (WOTUS) rule that the EPA was hoping to enact as part
of an expansion of the Clean Water Act. Under this proposed rule,
the EPA would have redefined what constitutes “navigable waterways”
and thereby extended federal control onto private property. I
believe that the courts acted properly in this regard. [to
top of second column] |
 The key to enacting common sense policy with regard
to environmental protection is that decisions must be data-driven
and not rooted in ideological talking points of either party.
Failure to make data-driven decisions will only lead to more
man-made disasters like the water crisis in Flint, MI. We can, and
must, do better than this as a society, because today’s policy
failures will have serious ramifications for generations to come. We
cannot be science deniers. We need effective leadership and good
stewardship to be our guiding principles as we move forward on
matters of environmental policy.
My opponent has recently joined with other political ideologues to
try to prevent several attorneys general in various states from
moving forward with an investigation of ExxonMobil to see if the
company misled its own shareholders and the general public from
knowledge linking emission of greenhouse gases and environmental
degradation. Key to this matter is the place of data-driven
decisions that are based upon scientific assessments. The political
class should not give shelter to special interests like
multi-national corporations that withhold evidence because they wish
to protect the company’s bottom line. Clean politics may be
difficult to attain, but if clean air and clean water measures are
any indication, it is possible to reduce the toxic irritants that we
currently face. [Text from file received] Past related
articles
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