Lehrer: Don't Build in Nature's Path
In the Providence Journal, Eli Lehrer of the Heartland Institute and Ed Hopkins of the Sierra Club call for the government to stop encouraging development where natural disasters are common:
Half a decade after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the United States remains unprepared for nature’s worst. Given that future mega-disasters are inevitable, this presents a major problem. The challenge doesn’t stem from a lack of financial commitment (Congress has spent around $19 billion to help restore the Gulf Coast) or poor local efforts, but from policies that continue to focus development in harm’s way. If it wants to avoid disasters, the United States should take a simple step: Revise national policies that encourage development in dangerous areas. Instead, it should adopt a national mitigation strategy to get people out of harm’s way.
Nobody can really doubt that other major natural disasters will hit the U.S. Even if this hurricane season remains relatively placid—far from a sure thing—meteorologists agree that we’re in the middle of a 30-year period of heavy hurricane activity. Widespread destruction of coastal wetlands, badly conceived levee systems, inadequate home-building standards, and a National Flood Insurance Program that effectively subsidizes construction in flood-prone areas have made things even more dangerous. And plenty of signs point to a worsening situation.
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