Colin McNickle At Large

Around the Public Policy Horn

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Pittsburgh reportedly is considering a policy to formalize its now-informal policy of being a “sanctuary city.” That is, it does not investigate anyone solely for possible immigration violations.

But that public policy would thumb its nose at the rule of law and jeopardize, in the forthcoming Trump administration, the flow of federal dollars to the city.

Thus, that’s not a public policy but a public disservice.

John Quigley could use a lesson in what free markets are. And are not.
It was on Nov. 16 that Quigley, former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, spoke to the Philadelphia law firm Drinker Biddle. His presentation: “What can lawyers do to solve climate change?”

The presentation was made under the auspices of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Quigley serves as a consultant for and senior fellow at the center, based at the University of Pennsylvania.

Its stated “vision” — “Transition from a fossil-fueled energy system with uncompensated external costs to one that optimizes energy productivity through smart demand, internalized carbon impacts and sustainable supply.”

Translation: Its goal is to kill fossil fuel use.

And in an amazing spate of intellectual perversion, Quigley turns Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the markeplace theory on its head.

“(E)conomics rule, even in our new, foreign America,” he told the lawyers. “A new administration can attempt to distort markets and pick fossil fuel winners for a while but Adam Smith will get the last laugh.

“The question is how much damage will be done until Smith gains the upper ‘invisible hand,” Quigley said.

Well.

Indeed, the abundance of natural gas, fueled by the fracking revolution, has tamped down demand for coal and oil. But increasing government regulation also has played a major role.

So, too, has government attempting to pick winners and losers — subsidizing unsustainalbe “renewables” over ever-more abundant fossil fuels like shale gas and oil.

In fact, Quigley, as state DEP head, appeared to do everything he could to dismiss the shale gas and oil industry.

So, it’s quite rich to hear Quigley talk about the folly of government picking winners and losers when, in word and in deed, he advocates the very same thing.

The Government Accountability Office says a lack of incentives is stifling biofuels production. That is, market forces — relatively low gasoline prices and a ready supply of natural gas — are making already cost-ineffective biofuels even less so.

And while envirocrats are lamenting the fact that the government-dictated goal of steadily increasing the amount of ethanol and other biofuels blended into the nation’s gasoline supply is falling short, it’s a plus for common sense and the economy.

How’s that? Well, to the latter point, scarce resources are being allocated more efficiently. And, to the former point, it’s the latest exposed example of the folly of government-commanded “markets.”

(And we haven’t even addressed the growing damage that increased levels of ethanol have been causing to gasoline-powered engines across the board.)

Now, thinking bureaucrats would lick their wounds and allow the marketplace to work. But bureaucrats being bureaucrats, expect government energy overlords to offer new and even more onerous regulations on fossil fuels to make biofuels more “competitive.”

It’s another market perversion to cover up the lie of past market perversions. But at its base, it’s intellectual dishonesty at its worst.

Here’s a powerful sentence as succinct as it is eloquent, from a Tuesday editorial in The Wall Street Journal: “Projects make economic sense only to the extent they clear rigorous cost-benefit tests.”

That was in reference to President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to make upgrading public infrastructure a priority. But, as we all know, government — at all levels — has this odd habit of thinking “cost-benefit tests” don’t apply to it. After all, it has a nearly limitless supply of money — taxpayers’ money.

Whether a Trump administration can slay this paradigm remains to be seen. But, locally, in Greater Pittsburgh, that mindset is so ingrained that it long has been considered “normal” to eschew anything resembling good business practices when considering public works projects.

Think of the Port Authority’s North Shore Connector. We are forced to wonder that if connector rides were not “free,” what would ridership be?

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistic are pliable,” famously quipped Mark Twain. Which brings us to Mt. Lebanon, the South Hills enclave that has taken much-needed steps to address its out-of-control deer population.

As reported in the Post-Gazette, the board of commissioners has approved yet another contract to cull the deer population. The community has been using a combination of archery and gun sharpshooting — and with much success. More than 200 deer were taken last season.

But an odd thing appears to have happened as the deer census has been whittled. Commissioner Kelly Fraasch says vehicle-deer crashes increased by at least 22 percent this year over last. Reducing such crashes, of course, was the stated goal of the deer cull.

So, what’s up? There are a number of variables that could be coming into play. Among the most likely is that the cull forced the deer to become more mobile, crossing roads and streets, and more likely to be struck.

That said, as the cull numbers mount, there should be fewer and fewer deer making such pilgrimages.

The simple fact remains that culling deer in urbanized areas is a matter of public safety. Allowing them to flourish for years without a cull, as Mt. Lebanon did, also created a disease threat to the deer themselves.

No one seeks to eradicate deer from Mt. Lebanon. But managing such a herd is an essential and sound public policy.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

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Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

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