It's really easy to sit and demand evidence before regulating something. But consider that if we waited for hard evidence to accumulate before banning lead in gasoline, we likely never would have banned it because the hard evidence wouldn't exist.

I also don't agree on the principle that regulations are "harmful" or "helpful." Rather, you have to define who the regulation harms, and who it helps. For example antitrust enforcement harms shareholders and some employees of very large firms, but it helps many employees and arguably improves the landscape for competition between many smaller firms. So whether a regulation is preferable comes down to values.

In the case of leaded gas, it harms basically everybody, but it helps fuel companies, so it was an easy thing to change.

Note that the current administration closed its research and science office.

https://www.science.org/content/article/blow-environment-epa...

Basically everybody agrees with what you're saying which is what makes this an insidious comment.

In general the pressure against regulation comes from narrow winners (oil industry for instance) whereas the pressure for regulations generally comes from people focused on the greater good (even if they are misled by other narrow winners, for instance compliance firms).

It should be uncontroversial that introducing shit into an environment where it doesn't belong is a bad idea, yet many people remain unconvinced that dumping tons of carbon dioxide a year into the atmosphere or tons of fertilizer by-products into the oceans is a bad idea.

Lead is a textbook example of a good regulation. It’s something where the industry was doing something very harmful-aerosolizing lead and pumping it into the air—which had quite small economic benefits and was relatively easily replaced.

Some regulation achieves this kind of improvement, and we’re probably under regulated in those areas. Particulate matter, for example, is extremely harmful. But many regulations do not have such clear cut costs and benefits.

Who is proposing for environment regulation without proper scientific evidence? You both sided the argument without giving any claims about environment regulation that turned out to be not helpful.

give me an example of EPA regulation that needs to be eliminated

Your tone suggests you think they are generally not based on science and given cost benefit analysis. Probably a reflection of your media intake.

In 1981 Reagan made cost benefit analysis a requirement for EPA.

For example in 1984: the EPA " estimates that the benefits of reducing lead in gasoline would exceed the costs by more than 300 percent.... These benefits include improved health of children and others"

Trump has just scrapped the requirement to cost in human health.

I wonder if removing lead would meet the new standard.

> some environmental regulations work [...] while other [..] do more harm than good

You are (deliberately?) overlooking the elephant in the room: lobbies with money can distort the discussion.

Big tobacco knew for decades that smoking was bad but still managed to block restrictions in smoking. Oil companies knew lead was poisoning. Purdue knew Oxycontin was addicting. Facebook knows their product is toxic.

In Louisana there’s a stretch around all the refineries nicknamed Cancer Alley. The locals work the plants. Everyone gets sick. And they vote for expansion because it brings in more jobs. You need the regulations.

> I bet cities like this would be cleaner than ones with stricter regulations.

I would almost always take the opposite side of this bet. Once responsibility becomes diffuse enough, people would actively poison themselves as they see no alternative.

Did you intend to write "stroad" (street + road used to decry car-centric city design) ?

> Environmental regulations are a win. Unfortunately there is a large segment of the population that doesn't believe something ...

You aren't wrong, but let's be honest that a lot of that is manufacturing just moved to China and moved the pollution. Specific to lead in gas, yes it's great we no longer do this.

Coal is mostly sticking around in the US because of federal overreach to keep unprofitable and ancient coal generators going long after anybody wants to pay for the high maintenance.

Last week, a Colorado utility was "respectfully" asking to be able to close a plant:

> TTri-State Generation and partner Platte River Power Authority had a “respectful” but emphatic response late Thursday to the Trump administration ordering them to keep Craig’s Unit 1 coal-fired plant open past the New Year:

> They don’t need it, they don’t want it, and their inflation-strapped consumers can’t afford the higher bills. Plus, the federal order is unconstitutional.

https://coloradosun.com/2026/01/30/craig-tri-state-petition-...

TVA has also been begging to close a money losing coal plant for a while now, writing letters to FERC about it, but I can't find the link now.

New coal is far too expensive to build anymore too. Handling big amounts of solid material is expensive, and big old unresponsive baseload is undesirable for achieving economic efficiency.

Even China, which is still building new coal plants, is lessening their coal usage. Personally I think they'll keep some around to continue economic influence on Australia, which is one their primary countries for experimenting with methods to increase their soft power.

There is no technical or economic reason to want coal power today.

We could have and should have replaced all coal with nuclear but no, we couldn't do that.

Not with Captain Planet tier cartoon villains in power.

Burning coal is a huge and easy win. Artisinal and small scale gold mining should be high on the list too, even though it's a much harder problem:

https://www.unep.org/globalmercurypartnership/what-we-do/art...

We live in opposite-world where the way it is, is the exact opposite of how it should be

You can buy it online from Sunoco

https://petroleumservicecompany.com/sunoco-supreme-112-octan...

I think they only sell the unleaded race gas at the pumps now but I may be wrong.

AFAIK that's why leaded paint is bad for children: it tastes sweet so they continue licking it/eating the chips of paint that fall off the wall

I remember people with various "tunes" at the racetrack would run this stuff. It definitely smelled like candy!

Wait 'til you learn about avgas!

I completely agree. I do everything I can to avoid leaded ammunition. I do not want lead touching the meat I harvest. It can be really tricky to find lead-free ammo of certain sizes. I mostly use waterfowl ammo for upland bird and rabbit - and it works fine. But even ordering ammo online it is quite hard to get .270 solid copper. And in a store? Forget about it

Why would lead be in the gunsmoke? Everything leaded should be coming out the business end of the firearm, and it should be coming out with some gusto.

like what? are there more intelligent people? I've anecdotally heard this is a cause for crime reduction as people are less impulsive than they were, in conflict resolution? overall?

don't really know what takeaway I'm supposed to know about