Water Pollution, Conservation Bills Clear Senate Committee

Water conservation passes senate

James Petkovski

Jonathan Jackson

Joey Chadwick

A number of bills passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on June 18^th. These bills were put forth to clean up and report overflow of sewage in the Great Lakes. The bills rose funding for these effort by close to doubling the cost put in. They were passed in hope of preserving these lakes and keeping them as a good tourism destination, where the social benefits will hopefully become greater than the cost.

This positive eternality is being used to greatly enhance the tourist industry. With the S.479 in act, “the bill helps fund a network of parks, refuges, museums, historic sites and water trails spanning the Chesapeake Bay watershed” (www.wwdmag.com). With cleaner lakes, the Committee is hoping that people will venture more towards these lakes, helping stimulate economy in these Great Lake states. They are hoping for a larger demand for visiting these tourist attractions, and with an increase in the demand for these attractions price can be increased, helping the industry grow, which in turn can be put to help keep the waters even cleaner.

Also another bill put forth was one to cleanup all “navigable waters” within “the waters of the United States” (www.wwdmag.com). Democrats claim that the word “navigable waters” should be removed from the bill, while Republicans disagree. By removing the word, the bill would be opening “the door for undue regulations on farmers, developers and other industry stakeholders” (www.wwdmag.com). Thus by helping out one industry, the bill will put restrictions and may hurt other industries. So this positive externality is now going to turn into a negative externality for other industries that would be affected by this bill having the word navigable removed.

These regulations put forth in these bills have both positive and negative externalities to offer. With some of these bills, a positive externality will help increase the tourism industry with the cleaning up and preservation of the Great Lake region. With the bill dealing with the waters of the United States, the removal of the word navigable may have some negative effects to other industries. In the end all these bills are put forth to help clean the water around the United States.

http://www.wwdmag.com/Water-Pollution-Conservation-Bills-Clear-Senate-Committee--NewsPiece18555