Environmental policymaking systematically discounts distant-future and foreign benefits against present domestic costs

Evidence

The short-term political price of alienating the business community was simply too great to warrant advocating environmental benefits that would be realized only in the distant future and sometimes in distant places. … Here, too, Bush was unwilling to have the U.S. economy absorb what seemed to be potentially high costs in the short term for uncertain benefits to be enjoyed in the distant future and by the peoples of other nations. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 562

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 3 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Historic emitters must bear climate burdens regardless of current emissions — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 974; Precautionary ozone policy succeeded precisely by distrusting risk-assessment tools — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 135; Cost-benefit analysis narrows the questions environmental law can ask — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 317 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Environmental protection structurally requires present sacrifice for unverifiable future gain #corroborates (0.85) — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 983
• Cost-benefit analysis’s appearance of rationality masks its insensitivity to systemic, long-term context #expands (0.82) — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 16
• Short-term profit incentives override distant and slowly accumulating environmental harms #expands (0.80)
• Immediate rewards override distant slowly accumulating environmental harms #corroborates (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2546