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Trump’s Economic Era

Minimize Pollution

A weakness of the free market system is that it
cannot guarantee safe working conditions and a clean
environment. Unsafe working conditions and pollution
are examples of negative externalities, which are the
unpleasant byproducts of the industrial process.
The only solution to pollution is for the federal
government to impose regulations on all corporations,
which puts every company on a level playing field. The
challenge is to promote a clean environment without
sabotaging growth. All economists choose to have an
active government to foster a clean environment, but
they disagree on the specifics.
Although we cannot minimize pollution without
government intervention, government overreach can be
a problem when a single person is in charge of an
agency. The debate has long existed over the
effectiveness and fairness of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. Traditionally, the EPA first
considered regulations from a scientific perspective,
economics comes in second, legal considerations third
and politics a distant fourth. In the Obama
Administration politics was the most crucial
consideration, legalities were considered second,
technical third and economics a distant fourth.

As part of President Trump’s economic agenda,
he has resurrected the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota
Access Pipeline, two projects halted by President
Obama. He also signed an executive order to expedite
environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects,
where he lamented the “incredibly cumbersome, long,
and horrible permitting process.” He has also stated,

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