While he's a disaster in most ways, I'm glad he's willing to acknowledge the importance of rationing health care. Right now, our health care system simply rewards doctors and hospitals for unlimited tests and procedures - we pretend like we must provide every procedure and test without regard to expense. The prioritization of health care spending is critical to solving the exploding health care costs.

As Huffman wrote:

There are only two ways to avoid rationing of government benefits: more tax dollars or less demand. We will never fund every beneficial medical procedure or drug for every American, even with continued unrestrained growth of the national debt.

Advice to Portland and Metro: “Build a 12-lane bridge”

Also, the gem: "If aspiring to zero pollution could ever make sense in a world of complex tradeoffs, it might be fair to describe a goal of less than zero pollution as antienvironmental, but that is not a world we will ever live in. The only defensible goal is to achieve optimal pollution."

I don't know, but simply stated, optimal pollution is the "only defensible goal", so "get over it!"

Optimal pollution is where diminishing returns get to biting too hard. He's lampooning the folly of attempting to achieve "zero pollution."

Also, NEDC, on its Facebook page, suggested starting up a new group titled, "Oregonians for Optimal Pollution Spilling and Spewing" (OOPS).

This guy is Ron Paul with a bowtie!

That bow-tied law professor seems to be scaring a lot of folks around the Democrat's water cooler. I never would have guessed that Wyden's seat was that much at risk.

Every seat is at risk, Garage Wine, but Wyden will beat your right-wing professor by a healthy margin, bad year or no. Sorry bub.

The problem is that optimal pollution for many is, "none around my community" but they're happy to dump the problem on someone else. Huffman has spent his career defending the right of polluters to dump their waste wherever the market will bear, of course that's usually in and around poorer or more rural communities then the ones he and his limo liberal pals on the Lewis and Clark faculty tend to live in. Elitism is elitism whatever label it tries to wear.

There isn't an anti-pollution law, or proposal, in this country that aims for "zero pollution" ALL of them aim for safe, or environmentally sound, levels of pollution. "Zero pollution" is the sort of dishonest straw man that Huffman has been trotting out for years to pimp for his corporate sponsors. How do you get to be dean of a law school? Money, and plenty of it. He's more tainted than a 40 year Chicago Alderman

November will be a blood bath for the dems. It is going to be 1994 all over again. Will Huffman beat Wyden? It's a long shot, but it's possible.

Optimal pollution is defined by the example of what has happened in Venezuela where Chevron/Texaco deliberately dumped eighteen times the Valdez spill into the jungle.

The predictable harm to people and the rest of the environment is being dealt with by a lawsuit.

The optimal point is reached when the twelve public relations firms hired by the offending parties convince everyone that oil comes from nature and ultimately can return safely without harm regardless of the way that it happens.

Everyone is happy. End of story.

"When the Wall Street and bank executives who caused the financial meltdown started taking billions in taxpayer-funded bonuses, Huffman defended them in an April 2009 Oregonian essay titled "Outraged at Those Bonuses? Get Over It."

Did this professor really think no one would read those idiotic columns?

See ya, professor.

The Clean Water Act, passed by Congress in 1972, set forth the national goal that all waters be fishable and swimmable by 1983, and that the discharge of pollutants be completely eliminated by 1985. This was an era in American history where big ideas still seemed possible.

Edmund Muskie urged his colleagues on in overriding President Nixon's veto by saying:

"Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make life possible on this planet? Can we afford life itself? These questions answer themselves."

Sure, we can compromise away these ideals, and pretend there is an imaginary "optimal pollution" level, and that the invisible hand of the free market will, in its infinite wisdom, guide us to it, but aren't we better than that?

We've learned our lesson on voting for people because they would be good to hang around and have a drink with, haven't we?!?

I'd love to have drinks with Timber Jim and Mike Rice. I'm not voting for them, either

Bradley, Jim Huffman is way closer politically to Jim Bunning than Ron Paul.

I guess you're right. I need to learn my right-wing whackos.

My name is Bronson James. Like many attorneys in this town, I went to L&C, and I know Jim Huffman from academic circles. And, like many attorneys in this town (I suspect) I don't agree with much of his philosophy. Being a life long Democrat, despite the fact that I like and respect Jim, I probably will not vote for him.

I write most to comment on the last sentence of your post, wherein you state "I just don't think he belongs anywhere near the U.S. Senate." I disagree. While I do not agree with Jim's philosophy, I believe he is motivated by that philosophy, not political whim. And while I do not agree with many of his conclusions, I would never question that he actually thinks long and hard before reaching those conclusions. Our political process is benefited greatly by participation by people like Jim, people who think deeply about political and philosophical matters, and who develop, over a lifetime of contemplation and study, a belief of how the democratic state should function.

With the Republican isle of the US Senate containing the likes of Johnny Isakson and James Inhofe, can we seriously say Jim Huffman has no business being there? In short, you can disagree with his positions, but he has a brain, which is sadly a step up for many of our current political candidates. So I think he would be a welcome addition to the Senate, just not from Oregon.

Posted by: bradley | Mar 4, 2010 4:56:26 PM

This guy is Ron Paul with a bowtie!

I know Ron Paul and he is no Ron Paul. "Never trust a man with a bowtie. Think about it." - Mark Russell

Posted by: Garage Wine | Mar 4, 2010 5:28:22 PM

That bow-tied law professor seems to be scaring a lot of folks around the Democrat's water cooler.

And the cat getting into a serious game of toss the toy parrot must mean the cat is hungry?

The "optimal pollution" thing is an attempt to see the environment's health as a commodity to be managed. We're going to use up the environment's health, but we're not going to piss it away. That's what passes for progressive on the right and that is why it is not possible to confine Mr. Paul to right or left, imho. It is why Huffman can be confined to the right, and I don't accept pure righties as libertarians.

Yes, attorney Bronson, we can say that we need no more senators like Oklahoma's. From any state.

I erred in saying the deliberate dumping took place in Venezuela. It was Ecuador.

It just seems like all the republicans are counting their 2010 electoral chickens before they are hatched. November is still a long way off in voting terms and events can break for or against either side several times before the election.

The political pundit conventional wisdom says that Democrats are going to suffer big losses this fall Since the CW is famous and also famously wrong; I suspect the Democrats will lose far fewer seats than imagined at this time.

Mr. Huffman may not be an unpleasant person but his political beliefs are the same ones that got our country into the mess that we currently find ourselves. Thanks, but no thanks. That goes for Chris Dudley too.

""Never trust a man with a bowtie. Think about it." - Mark Russell"

"Why not?" Earl Blue-manure

Kari posts: My favorite one? If you're irritated that Wall Street gave bonuses to the executives that drove their firms into the ground, and used taxpayer money to do it, Jim Huffman thinks you should, and I quote, "GET OVER IT."

Actually a closer reading determines that you're NOT 'quoting' Huffman... you're quoting that noted thinker 'Galen Barnett' and his opinion of what Huffman writes. If you read Huffman's essay rather than just the title or the tag line applied by Barnett and mindlessly parroted by dpo.org's little website here, you'll find that Huffman never literally says 'get over it'... and indeed does bring up some valid points. Whether you or Barnett like or agree with his points is immaterial.