Ed Rutledge for Lieutenant Governor

By Ed Rutledge

“Every person has the right to a healthful environment. Each person may enforce this right against any party, governmental or private, through appropriate legal proceedings subject to reasonable limitation and regulation as the General Assembly may provide by law."

So says the Illinois Constitution. But what happens in reality? Those companies (and governmental agencies) which are the most prominent polluters are able to use their armies of lobbyists to convince the legislature to draft large loopholes into the law, i.e., “reasonable” limitations and regulations, allowing those groups to operate legally while still defiling our environment.

Those companies which do not have the resources to buy their own loopholes face fines and are driven out of the state or out of business. At the same time, our bureaucratic politicians grant subsidies to those companies which profess to be green, taking money from our pockets and putting it into the pockets of private enterprises that you and I may or may not have supported ourselves.

All of this is done at the taxpayer expense, and with the sole result of expanded government bureaucracy. Polluters still pollute, and taxpayers foot the bill. The land belongs to people, sometimes to individuals and sometimes through common ownership. It is our water. It is our air. It is our land. Government is only the trustee.

It is time for our government to protect our property, and defend our rights as owners when we can prove that our property has been vandalized.

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