The hyper-capitalist interests of public policymakers have taken precedence over the environmental safety of the general public and have manifested in two recent examples.
In 1998, Senator Trent Lott aided casino developers in circumventing the environmental permitting process in order to ensure that casinos in Mississippi would be built. This example helps to demonstrate how the principles of hyper-capitalism, specifically the pursuit of economic gain with disregard for the hidden costs of development such as environmental degradation, have been embraced when addressing our developmental choices in the Gulf Coast region. Developmental and regulatory policy decisions based upon hyper-capitalist ideals greatly reduces the long-term sustainability of coastal development by infringing on the natural buffers and ecosystems that help to protect the Gulf Coast from the effects of catastrophic weather events.
The second example demonstrates how the Bush administration blocked and nearly eradicated funding that would begin to restore much of the natural buffer that the Gulf Coast region has been losing to development practices that respond directly to the hyper-capitalist paradigm. The Gulf Coast has been protected from storm surges by the large expanse of wetland areas that buffer the shore from the inland portions of the region. “Louisiana’s coastal wetlands act as vast sponges, absorbing billions of gallons of rainfall and shielding people and property from storms. The effect is impressive…every two miles of wetlands south of New Orleans reduces tropical storm surges there by half a foot.”(Center for Progressive Reform, 2005.) It is estimated that the Louisiana coastal wetlands are being lost at a rate of 6,600 acres per year, greatly reducing the ability of the ecosystem to effectively protect inland settlements from storm surges and subsequent flooding.
In 1998, state and federal agencies developed a plan to restore and repair much of the coastal wetlands that had been destroyed in the name of hyper-capitalism. The plan, “Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana”, called for numerous ecological restorative measures that would cost around $14 billion. The Bush budget for 2005 allocated approximately $540 million for the program, which pales in comparison to the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast region. The state requested more assistance from the federal government in the form of grants that are related to the income generated through the petroleum industry in the state, but the President denied the funding. This demonstrates that the maintenance of the hyper-capitalist system far outweighed the safety of Gulf Coast residents for the federal government.
"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life." -Theodore Roosevelt
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