Page 4-Thursday, May 24, 1979-The Michigan Daily HMichigan Daily Eighty-nine Years of Editorial Freedom 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI. 48109 Vol. LXXXIX, No. 17-S News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Toxi waste fight led by Michigan mHE PERPETUAL nightmares caused by haz- j ardous waste disposal will not end soon despite increasing numbers of public officials waking up to the consequences and initiating legislation. Michigan is leading the parade to the courts now, in attempts to prove liability of the perpetrators of toxic catastrophe. They seek to redress damage grievances and to divert the costs of clean-up away from taxpayers. A pending lawsuit against Hooker Chemical Company, brought by Attorney General Frank Kelley for an unnamed dollar figure, seeks full reparations. Complete clean-up of the more than 100 toxic chemicals, penalty charges (if negligen- ce is proven), and reimbursement of state expen- ditures for investigation and future monitoring costs are sought in this landmark case. If Hooker loses, the scene will be set for a nationwide crack- down on toxic waste disposal. Even more commendable than Kelley and his assistants litigative leadership is the influence they have directed at federal environmental of- ficials. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) performance took a beating on Capitol Hill when Kelley appeared before a House committee. Representatives echoed Kelley's furor over lax enforcement. Monday EPA and Justice Department officials announced that Hooker will also be sued for fouling several New York sites. The EPA is apparently trying to adopt an aggressive posture, while playing catch- up to Michigan. It is hoped that the precedents these cases establish will discourage further defiling of the environment. Obviously these firms have no qualms about endangering public safety or destroying environmental aesthetics. The courts must then instill a conscience in them through their pocketbooks. The complexities of judication may unfor- tunately delay prompt action from being taken to cease further pollution. Currently, an estimated 1,200 pounds of poisons are leeching into White Lake near Muskegon each day, which in turn fouls Lake Michigan. It is hoped that either through an injunction or by mutual agreement Hooker begins pumping out the poisons from groundwater im- mediately. Michigan has a three-year head start on almost every other state in the enforcement of environ- mental laws, because the consequences of prior pollution were noticed here before they were ap- parent in most other states. New York now awaits the results of Michigan's endeavors, and will probably model its program after ours. We sincerely hope the courts permit Michigan to carve an exemplary path. The $5 million in fines and damages collected in Michigan since 1976 from environmental lawsuits is a promising signal. And the deterrent effect of enforcing the law is incalculable. The only positive outcome of the PBB debacle is finally apparent. Rickshaw remedy for economic ills NEW YORK-In Washington, Jimmy Carter-elected with in- ner city and black votes-proposes slashing social programs for the poor, while in- flating the Pentagon's budget. . In California, Jerry Brown-erstwhile "liberal" alternative to Carter-has con- verted from Zen to the new fiscal conservatism. - EVEN IN NEW YORK City, Mayor Ed Koch shuts down hospitals for the poor while givingttax breaks to therbig cor- porations, and increases tuition at City University while giving deductions to the affluent who send their children to provate schools. From Sacramento to Queens, Howard Jarvis is a prophet with honor in his own country, Proposition 13 is the new political est. But is it enough merely to deny the poor education, medical care, jobs, social services, housing and unemployment benefits? THE RIGHTS OF affluent America will not be fully secured until thepreaent political cam- paign against the poor is carried to its logical conclusion. What America needs is CURE-The Comprehensive Ur- ban Rickshaw Experiment. A national strategy based on the rickshaw will retore the proper relationship in our society bet- ween corporate vice-presidents and unemployed ghetto youths, between the homeowning class and the welfare class, between real honest-to-goodness Americans and ungrateful, illegal aliens. This program, singlehandedly, also will eliminate unem- ployment, pollution, dependence on foreign oil and the balance of payments deficit. It will ter- minate inflation, restore the value of the dollar, cut crime, turn the federal deficit into sur- plus, improve health and bring jobs to rural areas. It will slash government payrolls and make the tax cuts from Proposition 13 seem trivial in comparison. BECAUSE AFTER PED- DLING their betters around all day in a rickshlaw, the poor will be too tired to indulge themselves in those baser instincts that so lamentably proliferate among welfare mothers and welfare chiselers. In short, this is a program that Jerry Brown and Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Jerry Ford, the House and Senate all can unite tosupport, because it would achieve all their current social objectives in a single, low-cost program. CURE is deceptively simple, and totally effective. All motorized cabs are banned from central cities and those unemployed or on welfare, as well as the aged and pregnant, along with all blacks and Puerto Ricans with incomes of less than $10,000 a year, are provided with federal government rickshaws. The rickshaw replaces the cab, By Roger Vaughan rickshaw fares replace income transfers, and the "rickshaw class" replaces the welfare class. THE BENEFITS OF the program would be immediate and enormous. The rickshaws would be made in depressed rural areas by the thousands of carpen- try graduates of past government training programs, augmented by unemployed autoworkers and cabbies. A rickshaw capable of providing gainful employment to three daily shifts could be built for less than $500-a pittance compared to the billions now spegt on welfare, unemployment insurance and social security. The rickshaw operators-who would all be given special second- class driving licenses-would require no special skills, allowing the dismantling of all those im- mense and cumbersome job training programs. Since there is no need to read or write in order to peddle a rickshaw, all that money now wasted on public education-and busing-could be plowed back into even bigger tax breaks for corporations and those with incomes of more than $30,000 a year. The urban environment would improve immeasurably, In fact the urban crisis would disappear entirely as cities once again became the kinds of places where real Americans like to live. No more would the air turn blue with exhaust fumes and drivers' epithets. Through the clean air, we could again enjoy the vistas that, long ago, inspired poets, planners, and mediocre architec- ts. The rhythmic padding of sneakers would replace the cacophony of horns and brakes. The energy crisis would become a memory. With its best customer buying less, OPEC would return to the obscurity it richly deserves. Service stations would offer cut price gasoline to those who can afford cars, give away roadmaps, and wash win- dshields again. Those Americans with the money to travel abroad would find their dollars earning more respect and foreign curren- cy. CRIME WOULD DIMINISH. How many muggers and other social misfits would have the energy to ply their trade after eight hours in the harness? The birthrate among the poor would plummet as primal forces are diverted elsewhere. Medicaid and Medicare payments would wither away as the benefits of jogging all day while pulling a heavy load improve the nation's cardiovascular system. The benefits of the program do not end here. Taxes would be cut to a fraction of their present level as expensive government programs are abolished. The Departments of Energy, Tran- sportation, Commerce and Urban Devbelopment would be phased out, and the Environmental Protection Agency disbanded. The hulking, marble-lined buildings that housed these ac- tivities could be converted into indoor tennis facilities for those who ride rickshaws, and to repair shops for those who pedal them. Or they could be preserved as sombre reminders of the con- sequences of a bloated bureaucracy. Corresponding cuts could be made at the local level. Not only that. Rickshaw riding would be fun. No more would we be shut in a noisy vehicle whose driver delivers ill-informed monologues on uninteresting topics. We would ride quietly and provately behind the hard- working back of the operative, secure in the knowledge that he or she is not swelling the welfare rolls, mugging our mothers-in- law, or getting free, all expense- paid abortions from funds better spent on neutron bombs and Cruise missiles. Above all, the rickshaw would give the honest, hardworking, tax-paying middle class people of this country the real satisfaction of putting themselves on top again. It's time to abandon socialistic half-measures like Proposition 13 and really give all those welfare chiselers, illegal aliens and lazy ghetto poor the shaft, along with the pedals, spokes and handle bars of course. Roger Vaughan is an urban econo- mist who wrote this piece for Pacific News Service.