Like the neutrons generated in a chain reaction, federal regulations are increasing exponentially, with a doubling time of about 10 years. Since 1954, the number of federal regulations has increased from 16,502 to 200,000. The explosion is devastating the economy, costing the average American household $4,300 per year. In some markets, regulations may increase the cost of a house by $10,000 to $30,000. Compliance with just the environmental regulations proposed this year is estimated to cost $70.5 billion, or nearly $300 per person. The Clean Air Act costs about $25 billion annually.

Over the next decade, Americans will spend nearly $1.6 trillion on environmental programs─$25,000 per family of four. This estimate, based on Environmental Protection Agency figures, does not include any new initiatives such as an anti-global warming campaign. If CO₂ emissions had to be reduced by 20% by 2000, the cost would be about $95 billion per year. The price of gas, heating oil, and electricity would approximately double (Science 1/10/92).

Beneficiaries of the regulatory bonanza include large garbage companies. New federal rules will require the closing of most community garbage dumps and raise the cost of opening a landfill to $10 million or more, up to five times as much as a 1975 landfill. Revenues of large garbage companies are expected to double, while small companies fold. Adding to the problem are the mountains of ``recyclables'' that cannot be sold in a glutted market. New York City suspended its recycling program due to the high cost ($300 per ton compared with the average current landfill fee of $28 per ton).

Other beneficiaries of environmentalist efforts include 222 sea otters rehabilitated after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill at a cost of more than $80,000 per animal. The Stevens kangaroo rat recently received exclusive rights to land worth $100 million. And of course the Planet benefits. The first $1.4 trillion spent since 1970 only cleaned up 90% of industrial pollution; the next $1.6 trillion will remove another 5%.

Some costs are not measurable in dollars. About 300,000 Peruvians suffered from cholera (and 3,516 died) when government authorities decided to stop chlorinating the water supply. US Environmental Protection Agency studies showed that chlorine might cause a slight increase in cancer. Because of Peru's experience, the EPA will delay issuing new standards for permissible chlorine levels (Nature 11/28/91). [Have you stockpiled enough chlorine bleach?]

Unemployment, crime, divorce, suicide, and drunk driving rates are rising dramatically in Northwestern logging towns: the price of restrictions designed to benefit the spotted owl (Wall St J 1/6/92).

Regulations enable the government to wage the Crusade to Save the Planet, even without placing an undue burden on the IRS. Corporations collect the regulatory taxes by the simple mechanism of passing them on to the customer. Although these funds are diverted from other uses, only experts like Dr. Victor Sidel of Physicians for Social Responsibility can really determine which dollars came from where. (Nuclear weapons were built with dollars that would have bought measles vaccine for children in the Bronx, he stated.) But the Department of Defense is undertaking economy measures that could make funds available for rescuing sea otters.

The Department of Defense could make a one-time savings of $300 million by reducing its $824 million inventory of medical supplies stored at 443 US warehouses, according to the waste-watchers at the General Accounting Office. The Department of Veterans' Affairs has already begun a test that reduces storage of certain pharmaceuticals at 32 of its hospitals. According to Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate's Government Management Oversight Subcommittee, the Pentagon wastes $18 million per year by having to destroy drugs kept past their expiration date (Health Legislation 12/11/91).

The National Disaster Medical System does not waste funds by stockpiling supplies. If casualties arrive in a host city, the plan is to obtain intravenous fluids, drugs, and other supplies from local hospitals. The plan has a blank line for writing in the source of back-up materials.

Economizing on preparedness for real disasters has not begun to pay the costs of protecting endangered species, or even the $3 billion cost of protecting housewives from labels that proclaim canned spaghetti sauce to be ``fresh.'' The Reregulation President, who appointed aggressive regulators and lobbied hard for the Clean Air Act, is thinking about how to jump-start an overloaded engine.

In a 1979 book called The Sinking Ark, naturalist Norman Myers predicted that the world could ``lose a quarter of all species by the year 2000.'' In the 1981 book Extinction, Anne and Paul Ehrlich predict a near-total loss of species by 2025.

Such assertions are based on the theory of island biogeography, summarized by the rule that the number of species is proportional to A^0.27, where A is the area. To calculate the extinction rate requires three key assumptions: the rate of habitat loss, the shape of the species-area curve, and the absolute number of species.

For pointing out that cutting a virgin forest does not necessarily constitute a habitat loss─because the result is likely to be a secondary forest rather than a wasteland or an ocean─Ariel Lugo of the Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico said ``I almost got eaten alive.''

Puerto Rico was stripped of virgin forest at the turn of the century, did not suffer massive extinctions (seven of 60 species of birds were lost), and is now thickly covered with trees. (Puerto Rican birds also survive frequent hurricanes.)

Another problem in calculating the percentage of extinctions is that nobody knows how many species there are to begin with. Some estimate there are 100 million, but only 1.4 million have been catalogued. The doomsayers are predicting the imminent demise of species that nobody has ever seen. For the sake of these hypothetical species, Latin American countries are being asked for real economic sacrifices (Science 8/16/91).

DDP has entered the Arizona mobile shelter display in the state's two largest county fairs this spring. The Maricopa County Fair is March 20-20, and the Pima County Fair is April 10-19. Call DDP at 602-325-2680 if you'd like to volunteer your help.

The tenth annual meeting will be held July 11-12, overlapping the time of the Orange County Fair, at the Country Side Inn in Costa Mesa, California. Call the Reservations Department at 800-322-9992 and ask for the ``National Convention of DDP room rate'' of $64 per night. Reservations must be made prior to June 19. The room rate includes a full breakfast buffet and a free cruise of the harbor. The Inn is two miles from the fairgrounds, 15 miles from Disneyland, and close to John Wayne Airport.