I'd like to see environmental protection dollars intelligently spent, and all other government funding as well of course, but obviously there are flaws in the system. And there will always be politicians who will find ways to defeat intelligent ideas. However, the efforts made to protect the environment in the US have produced a lot of positive results in the last 30 years, as you have pointed out. In that same time our economy has, what, quadrupled(?) Sextupled(?) in size. This makes a myth of all who claim real environmental protection will lead to economic collapse. Think about that, and thinbk about how far we could go from here.