but if this is the stuff that you obsess over i might have to have you go with that other cnbc guy. [laughter] game over and goodnight. ♪ >> people are sick of this. >> we need to take action now. john: i want action to, but what exactly is pollution and why does government go too far? >> another big situation with the epa. >> they have become an the green monster. and that is our show tonight. ♪ ♪ >> now it is time for john stossel. john: the green monster.

the epa, the th creating rules that make the environment cleaner. the air and water were filthy and people forget how d it was. and let me remind you, here is the star anchorman of my day reporting on the state of america. >> hydrocarbons, organic matter, each and every day. john: some of that was media hype it in all of this media types. but in truth much of america was still pristine. but it's also absolutely true than in many cities near industrial plants the air was filthy. it's much cleaner now and so is the water. even here within sight of the empire state building within a short distance of millions of people, i am willing to do this. and thank you, epa.

catalytic converters on cars, the international world, the epa would now say let's take a for it and stick it in it because it's done. the drop raise and bureaucracies never say that this is done. politicians keep adding new rules and then they applaud themselves for doing that. >> i'm really proud of president obama for these epa regulations and for the strong stand that he has taken on climate change at home. >> another person happy with the new rules once more is daniel weiss from the league of conservation voters. and shuttle jonathan, why not? do you not want a clean environment? >> of course i do, but we make the mistake of assuming that the way that we do this is just adding another regulation.

>> isn't enough enough already? >> welcome i don't hear anyone complaining that things are too clean. millions of americans live in the metropolitan areas where the air can cause respiratory wellness. second, we have a lot of water that needs to be cleaned up and we really need to deal with climate change which is a global problem, but we have to start here at home by reducing carbon pollution responsible for climate change. john: you can use a lot of things there. pollution and climate change are different. there's confusion about what carbon pollution and regular police and really mean. when i think of that, i think of other stuff like coal. you burness and you get sowed in the air and this is real pollution. if you touchless, it's filthy on her your fingers. the new rules against carbon dioxide, that is something else. we exhale carbon dioxide. plants needed to go.

but the protesters mix everything together. >> carbon pollution is yuck. >> clean energy, that is our way. [cheers] and here we go together. carbon pollution yuck. john: and i am fair saying that they are confused? >> it's fair to say that a lot of people assume that when we talk about climate change were talking about pollution. it's also fair to say that nothing that the epa put on the table for climate change will actually do anything to affect the global warming that we are concerned about. john: they admit at this point that it would have no effect. >> if we are serious about reducing this, we need to reduce per capita levels of carbon dioxide as the levels they were during reconstruction. >> how is that going to make a difference?

>> well, first of all you cannot address the problem instantaneously. instead we have to have the united states but the most carbon pollution into the atmosphere reducing its carbon. once we've done that, then we need to get other countries to get them to reduce their carbon pollution as well. and in fact, one of the things that has happened since the admin is ration made it green power plant proposal a month ago, other countries are now starting to indicate that they, too, are going to do more to reduce their pollution. john: i will believe it when i see it. but here is a commercial that your group runs that criticisms criticizes people with new epa rules. >> fear mongering is false, bogus, and flunked a truth test to pollute the airwaves with lies. blowing smoke to protect their profits. john: you are polluting the airwaves with lies. >> i certainly don't know what i can do to be accused of that.

but the reality is i think it's a problem. but it's not one that justifies regulating the entire economy. it sort of has to result out of innovation and entrepreneurship. >> let's talk about the pollution. >> not a single cleanup has occurred of any major pollutants due to voluntary measures. innovation is driven by regulation. right now putting pollution in the air is free. so why would you ever develop something more expensive to address that when this is free. john: he is certainly right. the epa environment is one area where the beloved free-market will just solve things and we have had great success including this chart as to how air pollution is down. and you provided this chart which shows how was falling even before the epa.

so what happened? >> there was a lot of technological change and improvement driven by the desire to be efficient. and there were also state and local rules that some cases regulated the omissions. john: it was dropping faster before the epa regulated at. >> yes, as everyone has acknowledged, sulfur dioxide concentrations in the air were declining before the epa. john: wide? >> local communities cared about their aldie and in some cases companies talked about lawsuits. in some cases we realized the more stuff that is going on, that's material that you're wasting. john: out of selfish reasons they were cleaning up? >> in some cases selfish reasons, and other that they have to do better for their local communities. john: completely revisionist

made of history, let me just read your note. and i have a question for you. you have every trans to address this here. he says that many people say that the stuff we are doing now to try to address climate change is going to make note difference in cost us a fortune. what is the point? >> first of all, it doesn't cost a fortune but second of all, it will drive innovation. jonathan was completely telling fairytales when he described how state and local governments on their own, with companies led to a decline in pollution. >> it happen with the clean air act that set the standard and let the states implement it. that is what drives innovation. john: people run it in the tank and they won't get it done without the big feds? >> that's right.

remember what the epa is doing now is implementing a law passed by the congress and interpreted by the john roberts supreme court that saturday all the epa is doing that. if congress doesn't like it, they can change it. but the epa is doing this on their own and can i finish? i mean, it is hard to let you finish. john: they are regulating carbon dioxide and we exhale that. >> has come and if i put you in a room with nothing but carbon dioxide he wouldn't live very long. but johnson does made a very scurrilous charge which bed efforts to reduce pollution and up hurting people. but in 1997 he said the same

thing. >> they have repeatedly pointed out that our effort to appeal pollution increases some local pollution and the epa has acknowledged that. we have seen regulation trying to encourage the use of biofuels. john: but it's done great things, acid rain, the ozone hole, right? >> the epa was more focused on those areas where the federal government has a unique ability to deal with as, such as what they did with gasolin it wouldn't be so many complaints about it. >> where do you fit in this debate? i assume you want clean air and i am certain that i do. is that something that we may need to address?

and in watching tv, you think even that would be easy. we are told that we can change the world for the better by buying the right car. >> this is the only car you'll ever need. it might just change the world. this is the chevy volt. >> it can't change everything. but secondly if people actually know what a chevy volt costa made, it would probably be about $200,000. so without government cronyism and all kinds of subsidies, it wouldn't exist and even if you use it, you are probably using electricity run on coal anyway so you're nnot opening the environment very much. john: they are still and losing $49,000 on everyone they built a map. >> on some estimate. john: and my concern regarding

these we call this a scam. >> it's happening with all kinds of alternative energies, companies that rely on government subsidies are actually hurting companies that have innovation that might work better. john: but the government decides that we will give you a special break two especially if you lobby them a lot. those who have the closest ties to government are typically the ones that benefit from the subsidies from the government gives. >> much as solar subsidies? >> it's hard to tell, but every administration does. the closer you are, you control the purse strings. john: a lot of these went to companies with ties to hear he read, though richardson, one former republican is now in the senate. >> absolutely, it's unhealthy for government to act that way

because it leads to corruption quite often. and it also hurts those who don't have the benefit of lobbyist in washington, andhen they have to suffer. john: there are 19 companies that have government money, taxpayer money, and they are bankrupt if you look at this list and the government would say that these are experiments, we have to subsidize these newcomers. >> isn't it funny that in every other industry, we don't have subsidies, and we zoom ahead. in the industry where we are moving forward with progressive ideas like windmills and solar panels that have been around for many decades, consumers are not winning, it's just more expensive. >> it's been 20 or 30 years that the subsidies are going on. >> it's been around since the middle ages, actually.

john: thank you, david. to keep this conversation going, use the hash tag epa and let us know what you think. coming up the epa bosses spending two to six hours per day watching dirty videos ended defecating in the hallway. your tax dollars at work.

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john: in wyoming, a farmer had the nerve to put a stream in his property so he uld have a pond. the wildlife like it. it worked out. >> now you can see bald eagles here. we have moose come down. four and 5-pound round trout live there and it's been a tremendous benefit. john: maybe you want to do something like that, but you better not because even if you think your property is your property, in america today it is not. the fact that you own it doesn't matter. for us, the bureaucrats smashed through your wall. better hope that the monster doesn't take notice and take out

his wrath on you. another monster is focused on johnson. he is the wyoming man that owned a small farm and he built upon. why? >> we wanted to provide stock water for our horses and cows and improve our property and it provided an environmental benefit as well. john: it means that you are diverting water that might've gone to someone else amax. >> actually our pond is designed where if we hve a spillway and it comes out to a certain level, it automatically comes over and we don't regulated at all. so were not actually blocking the water. john: you go to your state environmental official and you get permission? >> that's right, i went there and we sent off a permit through the state of wyoming to the

cheyenne office. when we got back, we began to start our project. john: we check in the engineer's office says the bed everything is in good standing and its exercise exactly as permitted. and then the feds come in suddenly and what you say? >> they say you may or may not be in violation, but you need to prove to us you're not. john: in violation of why? >> the clean water act. the funny part is that my water that leaves my property is actually 41 times cleaner than the alleged water that is affected. john: bep atb 30 days to do mantle upon. >> yes. i'm not sure how you do that. it's physically impossible. john: they said that there could be fines of thousands of dollars per day. >> it's extortion. i don't know any other way to say it.

john: most people cave and they say you can't fight the government, you can't afford the lawyers. >> we are going to fight them all the way, i have legal foundations that are backing me up. john: he says construction was done in violation of a well-known and well-established clean water act permitting process. >> the state never informed me of any other federal permit that i needed and i went through al of the hoops that the ate required to build this. i asked all of the neighbors and the locals and it turns out that i am one of the few that have a state permit. john: we got a note from the governor. he said he constructed his pond appropriately and the actions of the eta have been heavy-handed. they want to expand their authority, he said. >> yes, they want to take over all jurisdiction on private

property throughout the united states and i think that they're using me as a test case. john: the epa says they may increase the amount of land over which they have jurisdiction. that has upset some farming people, including one that says that ditches have dried up, wetlands must be preserved, it made this protest video to this oscar-winning song let it go ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ john: so we should have some company outlast fighting them. >> absolutely. and this idea, they show the canoe in a dried ditch. they want to be in charge of every drop of water that hits

the earth, let it be off your roof or a rain barrel. who knows where the end is on that. john: you are not alone, i wish you the best as you fight this. coming up, myths, lies, and complete stupidity of about america's lies. >> today is only ♪ music

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♪ ♪ ♪ a. >> genetic mutation of our children. john: my goodness. the process of fracking.

but those who do the fracking want much more and they also want the epa to step in. one federal instead of these state regulations, steve eberly says putting the epa in charge would be a threat to all of our future. >> the boom that we are having is largely on state and private land. when the federal government is in control, we see delays. >> but this has been great. >> it's been great for workers and consumers, energy bills are going down, great for the environment by using more natural gas, co2 is at its lowest level, new york city has the cleanest air in years. but if you put the federal government in control, there's an extra hoop that producers have to jump through in order to produce an energy.

john: right now we have states like vermont, that are just as stupid as my state of new york. both have banned, for now fracking. new york has a moratorium that goes on forever. >> there is no fracking going on there. but two months after they get it, the governors did in front of the facility and touted how this was going to deliver affordable and clean energy to the reident. john: where you get the gas from? >> it will come in imported from canada or from other states. if you look at some of the other state, however, deep blue states like california and illinois, they rejected this activism that is out there because they know that there are huge economic benefit and they know that a lot of the accusations miss and actually fall into those

categories. john: there's a case in texas where the epa inserted itself and they said that fracking was to blame for bad water quality. it turned out that the official was colluding with an environmental group? >> what had happened is the epa stepped in and said that the house was at risk of exploding because of methane in the water. but the methane had nothing to do with this. the water did catch fire. but it turned out that the land owner had hooked it up to a gassman amax. >> yes, some of the neighbors had drilled water wells into a geologic formation that produced it and they had nothing to do the drilling activity. the gentleman in question who made that order later had to resign from epa. john: that we have a clip after this video came out, he was caught saying that he would regulate the gas industry the way to the romans once conquered

villains. [inauble] john: he said crucify them. >> just completed. after it came out, he resigned and then now he works for it the sierra club which opposes tracking. with the what the obama administration said about this. the epa said that there's nothing dangerous that engineering principles can't fix. john: it won't convince the protesters, here is what say america shoululd do instead of . >> there is more energy in algae than anything else. john: there's more energy but you guys just don't want to let the algae people sell their fuel? >> if you don't want to take

this from the oil and gas industry, taken from the renewables and their association. the wind industry has said that natural gas is a complement to their growth. the point is that if the renewables really want renewables and they were not just interested in shutting down oi and gas, they would say, let's prodce more gas because that is what we will allow for renewables to move forward and grow into the future. john: finally, here is the latest antifur fracking scare. >> a lot of people are demanding answers about a huge spike in the number of earthquakes. >> today is only monday. oklahoma has had a lot of earthquakes. john: they are saying earthquakes. that that it's causing that. john: it's easy to blame it on them because 70 out of 77 counties actually have oil and gas production. this is one area where the media is doing it just wrong. they keep saying it's one area.

john: we get it wrong all the time. [laughter] >> this has nothing to do with fracking. the national academy of sciences says that we do not have a risk at all. this is wastewater disposal. blaming this on them would be like blaming it on chevrolet. john: what it is is that much. only 400 were felt in any way, shape, or form, what the survey says is that we barely feel it. if you're walking, you won't feel it, if you're sitting, you might. john: >> it's always better to look at a simple context because someone put the word in her. john: the word earthquake also gets your attention. coming up next, the eta today is a monster that takes people's freedom. but a man who helped form the

agency said that he had no regrs and he is here to tell regrs and he is here to tell us why coming up next.e the wor♪

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♪ ♪ john: do you ever see one of the incredible hulk movies? experiments with radiation, turning into someone that becomes a monster when angry. the epa is kind of like that. and here in our studio is one of the real creators of this monster. of the heartland institute. making no apologies. >> none at all between 1968 in 1971, at half a dozen heads of society helped with the water hygiene create the u.s. usda to write six very important laws that created a safety net for

the environment. john: things like the water pollution control act. okay, i'm with you on this. that stuff was good. >> it was definitely good. the government had no clue. people threw garbage into the water, no one was looking out for the way that we mind the chemicals. we needed rules and we passed them in the 70s from the 80s on. we actually hadn't done anything of value. >> let's go back to the 70s. even some people often forget how polluted these waterways were. here is a special that aired the first yea that i was a reporter. >> birthday, a question of survival. >> the clear days are fewer now. instead of forever, the view of

often stops with hayes. the air is threatened. >> ♪ ♪ >> not just in the air come in the city's rivers offer a whole new dimension of pollution. >> it was bad. maybe not that bad. but the air was filthy. and sometimes people wouldn't open windows because so would pour in. we forget how bad it was. >> on june 21, 1968, the colorado river caught fire when a spark came off a railroad car onto the polluted waterway and it was terrible. >> nothing useful after 1980, they have done nothing? >> nothing whatsoever. the epa. >> just looking over the shoulder at the 50 that do all of their bidding, and this dates is where the action is, we

should phase out the epa over a five-year time frame and put all the responsibility in the hands of the 50 state agency, from washington dc to topeka, kansas, $6.2 billion and improve environmental protection. >> previous guest talked about how there's still air pollution in many places in this ditties, people getting lung cancer, having asthma. when you look at a magazine in this city, try not to breathe too much air today. >> that is absurd, but when i started an environmentalist dances in the 60s, we could only measure parts per million. and the concentrations that we measure are so small that it will soon measure a molecule and then we will know that it's a little bit of everything. >> the epa says that even these tiny amounts are killing people enact. >> they are not. that is fraudulent. that's of no importance, none of the amendments have improved

either our environment or human health and all they do is run the economy. john: today people equate the threat of climate change with pollution. here is senator barbara boxer from this number. >> we need to take action to protect families from the mounting impacts of climate change and 3700 cases of bronchitis in children, 150,000 asthma attacks, 300,000 heart attacks. john: may be climate change is real, but it has nothing to do with heart attacks. >> he said early on in the show that talking about carbon pollution, they should be talking about carbon dioxide and there's nothing in the atmosphere that allows them to be broken up into carbon and oxygen. they are trying to scare people. john: wouldn't it be good to reduce carbon dioxide in the

air? >> absolutely not, we are only on this planet because we have carbon dioxide, we breathe it. it's absurd to consider it a pollutant. but it has given the epa the opportunity to run our lives. john: thank you, from the heartland institute. a think tank in the midwest. coming up, my next guest is that we can clean america's lakes and rivers without the epa. a better way to manage pollut

john: i am critical of the green monster that the epa has become. but what else do we have courage without e, wouldn't polluters pollute away? lakes and rivers would be filled the and there would be trash everywhere, that is how most of us think and it's only because we really don't understand the power of private ownership. anderson is with a group in montana called the property and environmental research center. so what is this have to do with the environment? >> no one washes a rental car. when people own things, they take care of it. and they have private property rights, other people can't dumb

things onto the property and so long before the epa was a glint in anyone's eye, property rights were dealing with pollution issues. john: you have a new book called environmental market. but how does it work reign flip him home and someone pollutes my drinking water, what's going to happen? >> what you can do about it is knock on the door of the people who did it and say cease and desist or i will get the courts to enforce my property rights. in montana we had a company called the anaconda mining company and yet when it was discovered that it was causing pollution on the ranches that neighbor them, they were taken to court. they had to these and desist and they quickly took care of that problem. john: they not only paid, but they were stored some of the

land? >> absolutely. the burden is on them for the damage that they caused. john: i can see how you can sue an individual polluter like that. but i can't see how this works for most air pollution. if my air is polluted here in new york city, the pollution probably comes from the west from new jersey, but i don't know which power plant or factory. >> is property rights argument works well for more local issues on across thestate boundaries it gets more difficult. the amendments to the clean air act in 1990 took on the problem of acid rain. it was all for being emitted from midwestern power plants creating acid rain in the northeast. that's a place where it made sense to put restrictions on it. even there the epa understood the power of the marketplace using a system where people could reduce the emissions of author and sell the credits for

that two other companies that couldn't reduce. we have much less sulfur emissions than standard epa regulations do it. john: but your market remedies are easier to do with water pollution and are pollution. >> absolutely,t is why we were cleaning up our water even before 1972 with the clean water act and now we have gone way overboard with the restrictions here in montana. they are forcing small towns to clean up arsenic. when you think of the novelist talking about this at the dinner table. but it is coming out of yellowstone park and it's in such small amounts of it doesn't have any health effects, but cities are having to put the plans in place to clean this up trade there are cities that would be much better off getting a new ambulance. john: how would this wor for the oceans? people say it is the tragedy.

no individual person cares about the fish in their area. and you can't have private property making it better. >> the arguments have it backwards. what's happened in fishery after fishery, starting in places like new zealand and iceland and places it in central america, we have created individual fishing quotas which are treatable, bankable, which give people an incentive to invest in these work so very well where we have fisheries that are controlled by 200-mile limit, for example. the open oceans are like the air that we just talked about. john: in the areas where they have legalized ownership, we now have more fish? >> oh, absolutely. it is just the nominal. when the fisheries did what the epa did, when they said they were going to regulate the season and the number and the size of votes and the list went

on and on, people figured out ways around it because, as you said, it was a tragedy. john: it seems like a very dangerous cadge. >> it makes a very good tv show called the deadliest catch. now that we have created these individuals, we haven't done it everywhere. what has happened is that the fishing season has increased, numbers have decreased, efficiency has improved, price efficiency has gone down. instead of eating fish sticks we get it halla bet. if the situation goes well, we get fresh halibut fish. john: coming up next, how the green monster should be restrained. restrained. we should shrinking

when folks think about what they get from alaska, restrained. we should shrinking they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that's not a coincidence. it's one more part of our commitment to america.

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john: the epa is a monster. but you could argue that it's less of a monster than other government bureaucracies because they have not constantly grown. they spend about a billion of your tax dollars every year, that actually less than they spent under president bush. will good. the epa is still a monster because the old rules never go away, but they keep passing new

rules. the epa officials point out that their budget is only $8 billion and that is washington talk. but even that is misleading because when they say clean that up, the cost is on you. last year they decreed that every fuel seller must use more biomass like diesel fuel. costing the epa little to comply. and consumers are paying the extra cost when they buy fuel. aside from cost is, why when the air and water are cleaner than they have been in years, and they keep getting cleaner because of improvements in technology every time someone buys a new car or chunks an old one, with why must they keep passing more rules? well, because that's what government regulators do. if you're bureaucratic, you think you're not doing your job

and so it's always more as thomas jefferson says. it's the natural progress for government to grow and liberty to yield. but it's worse for the epa because think about who is likely to become an epa bureaucrat. there is a revolving door between the epa and environmental crews. remember that regulator was caught bragging about how he treated the o industry the way that the romans once crucified people. john: he resigned, but quickly found work at the sierra club. and now works at the epa. bureaucrats are not dispassionate regulators but environmental people. when they are in government, they have power over you. 16,000 people work for the epa. some are religious fanatics and their religion is command and

control of the earth is pure. others are just jerks. one dividual sent a memo to employees saying don't defecate in the hallway. the u.s. inspector general found one spent two to six hours of his workday watching porn, he down loaded 7000 files. they paid him $125,000 per year and gave him bonuses and performance awards. your government at work. i'm thanks for the epa. our lives are better because ey forced power plants to put scrubbers and smokestacks, making cars that prevent pollution. but now the epa work is largely done. stick a fork in it. the pollution control already exist. america needs a few inspectors to enforce the rules that we have, but we don't need more

rules or 16,000 environmental regulators constantly trying to control more of our lives. the epa should stand for enough protection already. protection already. that is our show and the following is a paid advertisement from starvista entertainment and time life. ♪ somewhere beyond the sea ♪ bobby darin, frank sinatra, dean martin... ♪ volare ♪ whoa-oh... tony bennett, nat king cole, johnny mathis... ♪ it's not for me to say you love... ♪ bing crosby, patsy cline, elvis presley... ♪ but i can't help falling in love with you ♪