Dan Farber at Legal Planet has an interesting post titled "The Long, Losing War Against Government Regulation." He lays out the various pro-environment/public health regulation that has been passed since the Reagan Administration and shows that Congress slowly has been expanding federal environmental regulation. I take no issue with any of his facts. He does however take an optimistic tone in the line with Obama’s quote of MLK, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." To this end, I only take issue and perhaps disagree with Farber’s final two sentences of his post: "The expansion of federal regulatory authority has been very slow — but the gains have been permanent, so anti-regulatory forces are losing the game a few feet at a time. This must be profoundly depressing for those who have never accepted the role of government regulation in protecting the public’s health and safety." Even the Washington Generals score some points, or, as my father would say, "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once an a while." Yes, it’s true that along the way American slows moves towards justice, equality, and preserving our natural landscape. But the damage inflicted in this time is permanent and severe. The delay is part of the victory for anti-regulatory forces. Anti-regulatory forces may be the ones winning the game, just not as strongly as they would like.

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