There's a large middle ground between "Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone" and letting blatant polluters turn your neighborhood into a Superfund site. California solved the latter problem by going too far in the other direction.
You're asking for an example of an environmental disaster of the type the regulation is intended to prevent that happened since the regulation came into effect, with the implication that there aren't any is evidence that the regulation is bad? I'd argue there's no way to differentiate between perfectly calibrated regulation and regulation that's too onerous by the metric you're giving, so your conclusion isn't supported without more evidence.
A sibling comment a few levels up provided it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160514
Got anything from the last 50 years?
There's a large middle ground between "Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone" and letting blatant polluters turn your neighborhood into a Superfund site. California solved the latter problem by going too far in the other direction.
You're asking for an example of an environmental disaster of the type the regulation is intended to prevent that happened since the regulation came into effect, with the implication that there aren't any is evidence that the regulation is bad? I'd argue there's no way to differentiate between perfectly calibrated regulation and regulation that's too onerous by the metric you're giving, so your conclusion isn't supported without more evidence.