[3] Manfred Max-Neef, Chilean economist, explains that politicians feel that it is irrelevant whether the spending is productive, unproductive, or destructive.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, scientists and economists have warned of an inflection point for the United States economy where expansion is inevitably limited by the steadily decreasing availability of natural resources.
Herman Daly stated that the key flaw of the traditional GNP was that it ignored core accounting principles of business where all revenues and expenses are allocated to income.
In 1992, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated intensive work to create an environmental accounting system.
[11] The initial results were quite significant, and showed how GNP was overestimating the impact of mining industries in respect to the nations economic wealth.
[6] Mining companies didn't care for the initial publications, for obvious reasons, and soon Alan Mollohan, a Democratic House Representative from West Virginia's coal country, sponsored an amendment to the 1995 Appropriation Bill.