Devotees of the One God Gaia, or of One World, or simply of one big federal government, are running scared. ``Watch out, the Republicans are deregulating again!'' cry the Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs), warning of tainted meat, filthy water, cancer, vanishing species, and (of course) endangered children.

The U.S. has been through several cycles of regulation and deregulation in the past 25 years. The Federal Register dropped from 87,000 pages in 1980 to about 53,000 in 1988, and grew back to 69,684 pages by 1993.

Some results of past deregulation: the cost of air travel fell by more than 20% from 1978 to 1991, and accident rates declined by 48%. Deregulation of railroads in 1980 saves shippers from $3 billion to $5 billion annually, and accidents have declined 70% (NCPA's Executive Alert (May/June 1995).

Today's attempts at governmental downsizing are more serious than Reagan's because they threaten the potential for regulatory regeneration as soon as Congress or the Administration changes. The GAGs know this; the Greenwire reported that 125 news stories were printed about the ``Unholy Trinity'' in the course of just a few weeks.

The Unholy Trinity is property rights, unfunded mandates, and risk assessment/cost benefit analysis: in other words, Constitutional protections of individual rights and the authority of local governments, along with sound science and common sense. These ideas have a number of supporters on the Democratic side, such as Bennett Johnston, Billy Tauzin, Jimmy Hayes, and Patrick Moynihan.

There is also substantial support from the 40,000 communities in the United States, 86% of which have populations under 10,000. Barely able to pay for police and fire protection, and faced with an eroding tax base due to environmental restrictions, they are forced to pay the bill for Congressional do-good mandates. Between 1980 and 1990, municipal debt more than doubled (from $300 billion to $600 billion), and between 1984 and 1990, state taxes increased 58% and local taxes 60.4% (Paula Easley, Director of Govt Affairs, Municipality of Anchorage, PO Box 196650, ZIP 99519-6650, speaking at a 1994 Wise Use Conference).

One catalyst was the ``sand thing,'' stated Ms. Easley. The EPA proclaimed that beach sand, which contains silica, is a ``probable carcinogen'' when placed in containers, and OSHA requires that it be so labeled. ``At the very time our police department was assigning stakeouts to catch people harboring illicit sandboxes,...the Army Corps...[was] delivering 33 million 50-pound bags of this known hazardous substance all over the midwest during the floods─at government expense─and not one was labeled.'' After the floods (when the bags weighed 300 pounds), the PRPs (potentially responsible persons) did not pick them up. ``Who should be fined for creating these Superfund sites?'' Ms. Easley asked. ``The flooded communities or the Army Corps?''

Now that the two-by-four of increasing taxation has gotten people's attention, the intellectual assault against environmentalist assumptions is gaining ground. Major bookstores offer a Competitive Enterprise Institute work, The True State of the Planet: Ten of the World's Premier Environmental Researchers in a Major Challenge to the Environmental Movement, edited by Ronald Bailey, Free Press, 1995. Unfortunately, much of the coverage of this book was cancelled. (GAGged? or just bombed out by Oklahoma City?) CNN cancelled an interview, and MacNeil Lehrer axed a debate between CEI President Fred Smith and EPA Administrators Bill Reilly and Carol Browner. (You can meet Fred Smith in person at the DDP meeting.)

[The Dole-Johnston Regulatory Reform bill, S. 343, is on the agenda as we go to press. This act would require agencies to conduct cost-benefit analysis and select options for which benefits exceed costs; would provide for judicial review under ``arbitrary and capricious'' or ``abuse of discretion'' standards; would establish scientific procedures with public participation and peer review; and would provide an affirmative defense for not complying with a regulation that conflicts with another regulation. It would amend the Delaney Clause, which forbids the sale of processed foods that contain any detectable amount of chemicals demonstrated to cause cancer in animals, to state that federal agencies may not refuse to approve a product on the basis of safety if ``the substance or produce presents a negligible or insignificant foreseeable risk to human health resulting from its intended use.'' For further information, contact Project Relief, (202)496-0791.]

The 13th annual meeting, August 4-6, at the Riverside Inn in Grants Pass, Oregon, already has the largest registration ever. If you'd like to come and have not yet registered, call us at (602)325-2680 ─ we may have to turn late registrants away. And if you haven't made a hotel reservation, do so immediately! Call (800)334-4567. Be sure to let us know if you want to take a sawmill tour or a jet boat ride with our group at 1:45, Friday, August 4. The events will occur simultaneously. If you want to go on the jet boat at a different time, perhaps for a dinner tour, call Hellgate Excursions at (800)648-4874.

For shuttle-bus transportation from the Medford airport to Grants Pass, call Rogue Transportation at (503)479-3217. The charge is $8 one way, if reservations are made at least 24 hours in advance.

The 50th anniversary of victory over fascism occurs in the same year as the 30th anniversary of the birth of Medicare. Ironically, fear of government ─ the United States government ─ will prevent many physicians from participating in the July 31 commemoration of the signing of the Medicare law. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) will contrast the original statute, which promises that the government would never interfere with the practice of medicine, with increasingly oppressive Medicare regulations.

More than 250 physicians nationwide have signed a Pledge to refuse to file Medicare claims for services performed on that day. They will contract privately with Medicare-eligible patients and see them for a charge of $1.

Medicare carriers and some HCFA bureaucrats have contended that this action is a federal crime. However, they have been unable or unwilling to point to a statute or regulation that clearly forbids Medicare-eligible patients to seek (and pay privately for) the treatment of their choice, without governmental knowledge or regulation, unless they first disenroll from Medicare Part B.

By some interpretations of current law, physicians could be fined $2,000 for each service provided to a Medicare-eligible patient without filing a HCFA 1500 form, even if no payment is accepted. Additionally, some physicians worry that participation in a protest event could trigger an invasive federal audit. Such audits have led to demands for payment of enormous sums because of alleged noncompliance with complex, ambiguous, ever-changing policies.

AAPS believes that it is the government, not privately contracting physicians, that is in violation of both the Medicare statute and the U.S. Constitution. The event is designed to clarify confusing federal policy, and to call attention to the freedoms that patients and doctors have already lost. For information, call (800)635-1196.