ENVIRONMENTAL COST CONCERNS IN MISSOURI LEAD TO KINDER BILL

JEFFERSON CITY -- Concerns over the high costs of implementing some environmental regulations has prompted Sen. Peter Kinder to introduce legislation requiring that financial impact be determined before regulations take effect.

Senate Bill 809, as sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Republican, would require the Department of Natural Resources to calculate how much new environmental regulations will cost to implement. Such a requirement will enable officials to determine whether the environmental benefit is worthwhile in light of the cost to implement the regulation, Kinder said.

"Missouri business owners can tell you that whenever DNR issues a regulation, it passes along a compliance cost," said Kinder.

DNR is the state equivalent of the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency, which drafts and monitors the implementation of environmental legislation, some of which are mandates from the EPA.

"We just think it is high time the costs of enforcement regulations be weighed against the good they are likely to do," said Kinder. "We all want to protect the environment. Everyone up here has that goal. But I think we have gone overboard in some cases."

Kinder pointed out that there are many examples of regulations being excessive, including two in Cape Girardeau which he says amounts to "gross overreaching" of regulations.

One example is the Kem Pest site in Cape, where Kinder said ultimately United States District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. stepped in to bring EPA under control.

Another example is Missouri Electric Works, which was determined several years ago to have PCBs, a substance which Kinder said has never been proven to have killed anyone or to have made anyone sick.

Kinder pointed out that EPA has hounded the company and Dick Giles, its late owner, in an attempt "to protect people against something not proven to hurt anybody."

Said Kinder: "EPA is a government within a government. There is not much I can do with the EPA, but we can with our version of it -- the Department of Natural Resources."

Under his bill, the senator explained that DNR will have to assess the risks of individual environmental threats and analyze the costs and benefits of imposing a regulation to alleviate those threats. The process of measuring the relationship between environmental risks and clean-up costs is called risk assessment, which he said can be accomplished without more taxes or increased personnel.

Kinder said his bill would also require that the analysis contain a certification that new regulations will substantially advance the purpose of protecting public health, safety and the environment.

He cited a recent survey of 1,000 Americans by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis where 93 percent agreed that: "when adopting an environmental regulation, the government should inform the public of the benefits and costs that are expected to result from the regulation."

Kinder said his bill is similar to a federal amendment which passed the U.S. Senate last year.

"My bill is a very practical way to inject a measure of common sense into new environmental regulations," observed the senator.

"We assess the risks, weighed against the benefits of everything else we do. Why should we approach environmental regulations from a different approach that says the more you do the better off we are. I don't agree with that."