I don't argue against some EPA efforts, such as regulations that force coal burning plants to have scrubbers. Pollutants are dangerous. It may very well be that, had a common law approach to pollutants been adopted in America in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, we wouldn't need a government department like the EPA at all.

But such a system was not allowed to develop. Property rights and tort law were not allowed properly to respond to massive polluters, and so organizations like the EPA became necessary.

I wouldn't want to live in a world without coal plant scrubbers universally in place.

And scrubber technology has become so good, I'm told, that soon plants will be burning low-grade coal again.

Invest in low-grade coal. Invest in scrubbers. Support the EPA!

I was walking down the street in Kelso, Washington, yesterday afternoon, and I came upon a man and a woman in the back of their truck, pumping on some sort of a siphon next to a gas station.

I wasn't sure what, precisely, they were doing, so I asked them if they were pumping something in or pumping it out.

"Out," the man said. "Oil. This is how we heat our home!"

"Free is a good price," said the woman, smiling.

I asked a few questions. They gladly answered, though they continued the hand pump.

It turns out that this is what happens to the recylced oil from restaurants and gas stations these days. It's left up to those who can filter it and burn it!

The man said he had the only EPA-approved furnace for burning such oils in the area.

He said he also preferred burning vegetable oils. "It burns hotter. And it smells like French Fries," he said.