Today I had to go get my car smog checked. It’s an annual requirement here in Nevada before you can get your license plates renewed, and considering the temperature inversions that can keep a lot of choking pollution at ground level here in the Truckee Meadows, I think it’s not a bad one. Your individual right to drive a crappy, ill-maintained car stops at my right not to get asthma.
So off I went to the local Jiffy Lube, since I needed an oil change anyway. And as I sat in the waiting room, I contemplated the wonders of living in a state that still respects the free market.
In Washington State, where my car was last registered, you were also required to get your car emissions tested, but the requirement was only every two years. But the kicker is this – the testing facilities are all state owned and operated. They are few and far between, and so when you go, you’re forced to sit and wait in line for a long time. And there is no incentive to be efficient or customer service oriented – and it shows.
Think of the additional expense to the citizens of the State of Washington because they don’t trust private shops or lube joints from setting up the emissions sensors and charging people. They have to hire the workers, spending tax dollars on salaries and state benefits. They have to pay to maintain the facilities. For the citizens of the state, it’s inconvenient, time consuming, and expensive. And they only are able to process each car in the state half as often.
Now compare it to Nevada. There are dozens and dozens of private businesses that do smog testing, and because they have to compete for my business, they have to keep their prices low. My tax dollars don’t have to pay yet another employee and his lifetime benefits package, nor do they have to pay for the maintenance of any facilities. In fact, instead of spending money, the state actually gets revenue because of the sales and business taxes associated with my transactional relationship with Jiffy Lube. Garages are busier, can do more business, and can hire more people, all of which helps the economy. Nevada vehicles can be tested twice as often. And I can get my oil changed and fluids switched out at the same time, saving me time, and reducing the amount of time I have to drive my car around town, spewing more pollutants. DMV was updated instantly, because Jiffy Lube sent them the results electronically. My individual liberties (my freedom to choose, as some might put it), and those of my fellow Nevadans, are less impacted than those of Washingtonians, and my environment is that much better protected.
And yet Washington thinks they’re more “progressive” on the environment. Suckers.
Leftists cling to the environment because it seems like such and obvious moral call for state intervention in the lives of the people. But as this small example so perfectly illustrates, even environmental regulation is better served by allowing the mechanisms of the free market to do the heavy lifting.
But most importantly, it shows clearly that respecting the sovereignty of the individual is not in conflict with a better environment. It is, in fact, the best hope for living in a cleaner world.
