RSH > Documents > ANS National Meetings/Sessions > June 1999 >Theodore Rockwell

2. Paradoxical Perils of the Precautionary Principle

                "F. B. Cross, professor of business regulation at the University of Texas at Austin, coauthored a book entitled Liability for Toxic Radon Gas in Residential Home Sales, a home buyer’s guide on how to sue contractors 'for breach of the implied warranty of habitability.' He also wrote a very interesting 79-page article for the Washington & Lee Law Review,¹whose title I have purloined. Cross explains, 'Theprecautionary principle simply reflects the classic adage: Better safe than sorry.' It has been applied to national defense and to the environment, where, the argumentgoes,one simply cannot afford to be wrong, regardless of cost or anything else. But, he goes on to state the thesis of his article, namely, 'the precautionary principle is deeply perverse in its implications for the environment and human welfare.'

                "The article makes the point that environmentalists, among others, have made it seem axiomatic that any situation that threatens the environment should be remedied without waiting for proof that the threat is real or the costs of remedy tolerable.

                "This argument presumes,he writes, 'that the consequences of scientific false positives, which ultimately cost society money, are less than the consequences of false negatives, which cost society lives. Therefore, scientific uncertainty should become a basis for environmental protection regulation.' Or, more bluntly, the value of preventing environmental damage is almost beyond price, and the cost of remediation or prevention is generally 'just dollars,' usually from corporations, taxpayers, or others with presumed deep pockets. This argument is examined by Cross with admirable specificity. He notes the illogic of evaluating in detail the consequences of inaction while generally giving little consideration to the harmful, unintended consequences of the remedial action. He illustrates this with the case of asbestos, where prior to remediation the concentration of asbestos fibers in the air in many schools was at the same harmless level as the outdoor ambient. After pipe lagging had been ripped off and removed, the asbestos in the classroom air was considerably higher and stayed that way for a long time because students were tracking in bits of the material on the ground andresuspendingthem in the air. Similarly, when a contaminant is stabilized in the soil, digging it up and trucking it around may create a greater health hazard than doing nothing. Aggressive cleanup efforts after oil spills have often proved more destructive than the oil itself. For example, beaches contaminated with oil from the Exxon Valdez suffered greater and more permanent damage from steam cleaning than from the spilled oil.

                "Cross notes that regulation that restricts the availability of a resource through increased cost or other reasons may have negative public health effects overall. Similarly, the cost of a regulatory program itself is a societal burden that must be balanced against some demonstrable benefit. Any money spent for regulation is money that could have been spent on other more critical health needs. Regulatory costs that end up pricing lifesaving medicines or medical procedures off the market should be justified by lives saved by the regulation. Excessive delay in approving newradiomedicaltechniques should be similarly judged, in terms of lives imperiled or lost by the delay.

                "It is refreshing to see this question discussed by someone like Cross with no technical or political agenda. The points raised are worthy of serious consideration. It would be beneficial to see them given weight in future policy decisions regarding radiation protection and the many important technologies affected by it. Lives lost by diseased food not irradiated, mammograms fearfully avoided, nuclear medical facilities shut down, and respiratory illness caused by fossil fuel plants that could have been nuclear—such costs should be taken into account when deciding that 'you can’t be too safe where radiation is concerned.'"

 

1. F. B. CROSS, 'Paradoxical Perils of the Precautionary Principle,' Washington & Lee Law Review, 53, 851 (1996).