Environmental Policy Recommendations

Prohibit the application of for profit manufactured fertilizers containing more than 2.5 percent nitrogen and phosphorus to non-agricultural lands and impervious surfaces. Create a 170 percent worldwide negative externalities and sharing with distant generations sales tax on phosphorus ores. Prohibit the importation of phosphorus ore using products failing to pay the phosphorus tax.

Improve the annual mean PM2.5 air quality standard from 12 to 11 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

Implement a 100 percent excise tax on plantation raised cocoa products.

Add a 20 percent excise tax on the sale of non-synthetic diamonds, palm oil containing items, and organic products obtained from biological hot spots declared by Congress.

Increase the number of FDA inspectors and inspections by at least 35 percent.

Require one-year-old children residing for more than 90 days in buildings built before 1978 to have lead blood levels assessed within 190 days after their first birthdays. Create a web available national database of housing likely to have lead levels above EPA standards. Require for sale or for rent housing built before 1978 to have a laminated lead paint hazards notice posted on the indoor side of at least one door.

Create a $0.25 per pound negative externalities tax on imported motor vehicles from nations not having environmental laws at least as strict and fossil fuel taxes at least as large as the ones described herein, reducing the tax in proportion to domestically produced vehicle value.

Ban the burning of plastics, including trash containing more than 1.2 percent plastics by weight, except plastics burned during metal and battery recycling.

Require annual, federal, universal emissions inspections of diesel motor vehicles. Require diesel vehicles with faulty or missing emissions devices to have emissions devices repaired or reinstalled within 30 days of failed inspections. Revoke registrations of vehicles failing to fix emissions devices within 30 days.

Fine individuals knowingly tampering with vehicle emissions devices to increase pollution $1.50 per pound of vehicle tampered with.

Pass the Free Flow of Information Act.

Require catalytic converters on new fossil fuel driven lawn and garden engines. Ban the sale and use of internal combustion leaf blowers.

Create a 85 cents per pound of petroplastic tax on imported and domestically manufactured petroplastic materials. Ban petroplastics in teethers and cosmetics.

Ban the sale and possession of all species of caulerpa.

Require environmental laws to be in a language of overall benefit-harm rather than do no harm.

Ban logging on federally owned old-growth rain forests, except for overall ethical benefit. Ban clear cut logging on public lands, except beneficial ecosystems requiring catastrophic disturbances. Create a $0.25 per kilogram of wood tax on products derived from wood, made by corporations.

Require government entities to pay market value for new private lands declared wetlands or placed under endangered species restrictions.

Repeal the Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and it replace with better laws.

Enact legislation similar to the EU REACH initiative to test potentially dangerous substances.

Implement locally optimal water taxes in areas prone to water shortages.

Ban pet importation. Create and federally fund free clinics that sterilize and vaccinate pets. Ban alone chaining of pets.

Ban for profit entities from owning water utilities.

Ban forced molting, beak trimming, ear cropping, tail-docking, bass pair trawling, and all bottom trawling. Ban total confinement factories, the feeding of foods containing more than 1.1 percent animal protein to livestock, including farmed fish. Ban gestation crates and long-term crating or caging of livestock. Ban the sale of fish oil supplements and the extraction of fish for fish oil supplements.

Eliminate sales, excise, and value added taxes on synthetic stone jewelry containing neither gold nor other stones.

Ban appeals to nature, aesthetics, and tradition based laws, regulations, and lawsuits restricting the use of hydroelectric dams, nuclear plants, wind turbines, solar panels, solar plants, and geothermal plants.

Ban the sale and production of plastic microbeads.

Double the marginal value-added tax on clothing items costing more than $200.

Require livestock to be dead before skinning or carving. Punish violators with a $6,000 fine for each violation. Hire an adequate number of inspectors to enforce the law. Repeal the law that bans slaughtering of horses. Ban ownership of livestock by any entities other than domestic nonprofits, partnerships, private citizens, and sole proprietorships. 

Institute a federal ban on cockfighting, along with the sale and interstate transport of cockfighting equipment.

Ban the sale of veal, civitone, castoreum, and foie gras. Prohibit fur farming. Prohibit the importation of mammal furs. Prohibit the sale, export, import, and harvesting of fish, bird, reptile, and mammal parts for folk remedies not approved by the FDA.

Pass the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act. Ban catch and release sport fishing.

Require states, local governments,  homeowner associations, and other construction regulators to approve physically safe cob, earthbag, straw bale, and other earthen or recycled materials in construction, waiving other code requirements (except safety, plumbing, garbage removal, and speed of construction requirements) for such construction when at least 70 percent of exterior wall square footage is built with such materials.

Eliminate codes limiting the use of 12 volt DC systems that are at least as safe as 120 volt systems.

Disallow all patents on seeds. Prohibit any company from controlling more than 20 percent of seed sales for any species having more than $30 million dollars in annual global seed sales.

Require all for sale packaged foods to list their countries of origin.

Ban sending bulk mail items containing more than 1.2 mg of plastics.

Ban mining and logging on public lands by any entities other than domestic non-profits, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. Eliminate government funds for the construction and maintenance of logging roads. Charge market rates for grazing on federal lands.

Prohibit vacation travel and lodging entities from advertising themselves as environmentally beneficial.

Sell the national gold reserves. Reasons: holding gold is a terrible investment. Government ownership creates incentives for more gold mining and resulting environmental destruction.

Permit the killing of harmful plants and wildlife up until the point where those species no longer cause overall harms.

Ban advertising for precious metals mined using sufficiently harmful methods.

Ban mountain top removal.

Increase the Heavy Highway Vehicle Use Tax by 60 percent.

Ban antibiotics in animal feed. Ban anti-microbial hand soaps, except in medical facilities. Require the Dutch search and destroy MRSA strategy. Require medical facilities to achieve at least 95 percent hand washing compliance. Create incentives for nations to stop selling antibiotics over the counter. Require food and health workers to keep their fingernails short. Prohibit ersatz fingernails on food and health workers. Ban the use of antibiotics in animals, except those with bacterial illnesses.

Prohibit corporations and foreign entities from having direct or indirect hunting, seafood, and freshwater food harvesting rights on and under government lands and waters, limiting such harvesting rights to recreation and sole proprietor businesses operating no more than one non-leased boat and one non-leased truck.

Pass the ACHE Act, banning mountain top destruction.

Require commercial buildings having central air conditioning in areas with mean summer temperatures above 69 degrees Fahrenheit, but not having a white or light metallic color roof, to pay a $1.05 per square foot of roof federal negative externalities fee once every nine years.

Prohibit the deliberate use of threatened and near threatened species in animal feed.

Ban restaurants from giving food to customers in single-use mostly plastic containers.

Prohibit plastics recycling until proven to produce more benefits than harms.

Create a $3.10 per kilogram negative externalities excise tax on coal tar based sealants.

Ban government entities from enacting size requirements on tiny houses larger than 60 square feet.

Prohibit local government entities from collecting leaves, except those deemed hazards to health or drainage.

Require each purchaser of each unfixed dog or cat to pay a $700 government deposit, to be returned if the purchaser provides proof of sterilization and recommended vaccinations within eight months.

Prohibit the sale, deliberate transfer, and deliberate breeding of buckthorn, Bradford pear, and Callery pear trees, along with other harmful non-food species. Prohibit the export and import of seeds and plants for ornamental reasons.

Prohibit celery added meats from being labeled uncured and or unprocessed.

Prohibit non-toilet paper products from being labeled flushable.

Combine carbon import taxes with export rebates.

Prohibit the application of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers to non-edible landscaping, except to protect endangered species and ecosystems.

Replace the National Environmental Policy Act and Toxic Substances Control Act with well-reasoned legislation.

Prohibit states, lawsuits, and local governments from blocking energy pipeline construction.

Eliminate grandfather loopholes in pollution laws that permit older facilities to have worse pollution standards than newer facilities.

Prohibit the retail sale of unpasteurized milk.

Ban government entities from outsourcing reservations and appointments to fee charging private entities.

Prohibit the deliberate feeding of wild and feral animals, except state approved feeding and baiting practices by nuisance animal removers, licensed sports persons, and government wildlife management entities.

Require all new, non-military federal office building construction to be in areas having below the US median real estate prices and having air quality better than 60 percent of existing cities having populations above 50,000.

Create a 30 percent excise tax on candles and incense.

Implement a 20 percent excise tax for the next six years on diesel vans, SUVs, and pickups produced by manufacturers, who submitted fraudulent diesel emissions data to the federal government.

Ban states and local governments from restricting the sale, purchase, possession, and manufacture of lab grown meat and meat substitutes.

Make a $50 fine the maximum punishment for hunting or fishing designated harmful species without a license.

Ban retailers from selling pet rabbits.

Close the Halliburton loophole.

Prohibit the deliberate application of commercially produced herbicides and pesticides to non-food lawns, except to kill fire ants and other species listed by the federal government as sufficiently harmful.

Ban watering of government property grass lawns.

Ban the sale of new tires containing 6PPD-quinone four years from now.

JT Fournier, last updated March 12, 2024