Cross-posted from Faith in Public Action blog
Rick Santorum has drawn scrutiny for attacking what he describes as President Obama's "phony theology," a line that has been widely lambasted along with some older comments now receiving fresh attention.
The initial attack came in the context of an attack on President Obama's environmental record, with Santorum alleging that the President has a “theology not based on the Bible” and a “worldview that puts the earth above man.” But Santorum should probably rethink this religious critique given that the environmental positions he dismisses find support in the teachings of his own Catholic faith.
Most clearly, Catholic leaders acknowledge the reality that human-caused climate change is a real and growing danger to our planet. For the Catholic Church, this is a profound moral challenge that trumps partisan ideology. In contrast, Rick Santorum ignores the scientific consensus on climate change, calling it "patently absurd," "junk science," and a conspiratorial "scheme" by the left to justify more government regulation.
Santorum elaborated on his views at a campaign stop in Ohio last week, where he told a story about anti-pollution efforts in Pittsburgh to emphasize his point that local environmental regulations (not federal or state) are adequate to take care of problems:
[Someone came to Pittsburgh] during the heyday of the steel industry when we didn’t have any environmental regulations in Allegheny County. And someone looked at it and saw — it was night all the time in Pittsburgh, and it was black. And they said to Pittsburgh, “Abandon it.”
And what did we do? Well, we here locally, not the federal government, not the state government, came forward and said, “Well we’ve got to do something about this.” And eventually the community gathered together and passed clean air regulations, and was able to begin to change things. There’s obviously a role for government to play in making sure we have responsible environmental stewardship.
First, a little fact-check is in order. Pittsburgh's worst visible smog problems have ended, but you can't ignore
the role the federal Clean Air Act legislationhad in helping achieve those gains.
What's more, Pittsburgh's air quality is still one of the worstin the country. And one of the primary causes is the pollution that blows in from factories outside the city (and thus outside city ordinance laws). The new emission standards that are spurring change from these factories? You guessed it, federal requirements.
As Bill Peduto, the Pittsburgh councilman who sponsored the city's Clean Air Act explained. "Action is required from the federal level, but action is also required at the local [level]," he said.
The reason for this is obvious. Pollution is literally the textbook example of a negative externality (a social cost from an economic activity that spills over to a third party). As Pittsburgh knows, contaminated rivers and air currents flow freely across geographic borders. And states or cities desperate to attract businesses face significant economic incentives to engage in a race to the bottom with their neighbors, jeopardizing public health on a massive scale.
As Santorum should know, the Catholic idea of subsidiarity addresses this exact issue. The principle teaches that civic challenges are best addressed by the least centralized entity that is capable of handling the scope of the issue. Santorum’s suggestion that local regulation is sufficient continues his consistent mistake of appropriating the first part of this teaching in service of a "small government" agenda while ignoring the issue of capability.
For a better application of subsidiarity to the issue of environmental regulation, Santorum again needs only look to his own Church, which actively supports international talks to develop a global agreement that addresses climate change. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI and other Catholic leaders are particularly concerned that pollution disproportionately caused by emissions from developed countries is hurting poor nations least able to respond.
I'm not sure what part of the Church's concerns Santorum thinks is based on "phony theology," but maybe he should have the consistency to criticize his own Church as strongly as he does the President if he thinks they're so misguided.
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, Flickr