Protecting the Earth: Are Our Institutions Up to It?

s the 1980s draw to a "Environmental Protection addressed in a piece by th at legislative body may A close, environmental Act" developed as a working James M. Lents, Executive need to take as it faces the problems are taking on new draft by the Foundation in Officer with the South Coast crowded agenda of dimensions. Stratospheric order to stimulate discussion Air Quality Management environmental problems. ozone depletion and the on ways to stream Ii ne, District in Los Angeles. And Thomas E. Lovejoy, Greenhouse Effect, for integrate, and simplify the Two long-time figures on Assistant Secretary fo r example, transcend national current mass of the environmental External Affairs at the boundaries and threaten the environmental laws. scene-former U.S. Senator Smithsonian Institution, long-term health of our Ideas for enhancing EPA 's Gaylord elson and fo rmer focuses on changes needed in planet. /\re existing role as a lead environmental Deputy EPA Administrator the thinking of well-off institutions up to the task of institution on the world john Quarles- speak out on nations toward the Third dealing with the scene are presented in a the question: Is it possible to Worl d if the global cha ll enge unprecedented chnll enges piece by James Gustave apply the crisis-oriented of a decent environment !s to that confront us? This issue Speth, President of the World approach of the past in be m et. of EPA journal explores this Resources Institute. dealing with the Michael Gruber, an EPA question. An industry view of some environmental problems of staffer detailed to An article surveying the necessary environmental today a nd tomorrow? the state of Washington's condition of environmental actions is discussed by john The need for consumers to Department of Natural clean-up efforts nationally W. Rowe, head of the New make some basic changes in Resources. writes about the and around the worlc.I sets England Electric System. lifestyles and m indsets is most fundamental the sta!-!P. for this issue. It is Steps the states can take are argued by jay 0. Hair. question- now that there is by Gladl'lin Hil l, former suggested in nn artic le by President of the ational growing agreement that major environmenta l correspondent Robert Bendick, Rhode Wildlife Federati on. Retired steps need to be taken if the for The New York Times. !\ Island's Director of Senator Robert T. Stafford, a planet is lo be saved, how do piece by William K. Reilly, Environment Management. long-time environmentalist in we get the r e ·~ EP/\'s Administrator, follows, And the question whether a key institution, the U.S. This issue of the m agazine suggesting changes to help pollution clenn-up agencies Congress, write about concludes with a regular the Agency perform more must be a Big Brother is changes in approach which featu re- J\ppointm nts. o effectively. A fenture by jessicn Tuchmnn Mathews, Vice President of the World Resources Institute, specifies Parnck Mamn. Topeka Capital Journal how some institutional, social, and political burriers ' . . to global e nvironmental Vlf P\Sf; I MMHEI< NATVY(£ .. . protection might be JU~T O~f MO~ Cl1M.lCf .. . overcome. The piece is WE PROMISE, 10 TAk't &.1rtr< adapted from a recent Mathews a rticle in foreign tf:IR€ OF '<'Dt.1. . .. P~£AS€ ... Affairs magazine. Environmentalist Barry Commoner spells out how pollution prevention- a widely acknowledged need- m ight really be accomplished. Arthur Kaines of EPA's Regulatory Integration Division depicts the di lemma of the average person trying to be a good citizen in the face of the increasing layers of environmental regulation at various government levels. Frnnces H. Irwin of The Conservation Foundation explains a model United States Office of Vol u me 15 Environmental Protec tio n Pub lic Affairs (A-107) Number 4 Agency W ashington DC 20460 July1August 1989 &EPA JOURNAL

William K. Reilly, Administrator John Heritage, Editor Karen Flagstad, Assistant Editor Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor Ruth Barker, Assistant Editor Marilyn-Rogers, Circulation Manager

EPA is charged by Congress to protect the nation's land, air. and A Management Job for Could There Be Changing from "Consumers" water systems. Under a mandate of the Human Race national environmental laws, the a Better Law? to Citizens agency strives to formulate and by Gladwin Hill 2 by Frances H. Irwin by Jay D. Hair implement actions which lead to a compatible balance between The Greening of EPA EPA and the World Lessons about human activities and the ability of natural systems to support and by William K. Reilly f1 Clean-up Puzzle Environmentalism nurture life. by James Gustave Speth in Congress EPA journal is published by the Tackling the by Robert T. Stafford U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Administrator of EPA Institutional Barriers From a "Polluter's" View has determined that the by Jessica Tuchman by John W. Rowe The Third World's publication of this periodical is Mathews 11 Environment: necessary in the transaction of the Next Steps the States public business required by law of A Global Dilemma this agency. Use of funds for Let's Get Serious Could Take by Thomas E. Lovejoy printing this periodical has been about Pollution Prevention by Robert Bendick approved by the Director of the by Barry Commoner 15 How Do We Get There? Office of Management and Budget. Views expressed by authors do not Making the Smog Cleanup by Michael Gruber necessarily reflect EPA policy. Under the Environmental Happen in L.A. Contributions and inquiries should Regulation Layer Cake by James M. Lents Appointments be addressed to thP. Editor (A-1 07) . Waterside Mall, 401 M St .. S.W., by Arthur Kaines 18 Washington, DC 20460. No Can We Win with the permission necessary to reproduce Crisis-Oriented Approach? contents except copyrighted photos Two Observers Speak and other materi als.

Front Cover: Earth as seen f ram Design Credit s: The next EP1\ journal 11"il/ forns on the moon. Photo taken on the Ron Farrah: coostal issues. voyage of Apollo l 0. From th e fumes R. /ngrnm; photo files of th e Notionol Robert Flanagan. Aeronautics and Space Administration. The text of EPA journa l is printed on recycled paper.

EPA Journal Subscriptions The annual rate for subscribers in the U.S. for EPA journal is $8. The charge to subscribers in fo reign I Name - First. Last PLEASE PRI NT countries is $10 a year. The price of a single copy of EPA journal is I I I I I L l l J ll__l_iJ $2.25 in this country and $2.81 if Company Name or Addnronal Address Lrne sent to a foreign county. Prices include mail costs. Subscriptions to EPA Journal as well as to other federa l government magazines are Street Address handled only by the U.S. Government Printing Office. I I I I I I I Anyone wishing to subscribe to I EPA journal should fill in the form I Zrp Code at right and enclose a check or money order payable to the IL__j_ Citl____J____.l_-'----.l___L____L___L__..L__l.._-!-----'----"--"---'- 1 ~ I I Superintendent of Documents. The requests should be mailed to: Payment e nclosed (Make checks payable 10 Super1111 e nde n1 of Docurnenls) Superintendent of Documents. D GPO, Washington, DC 20402. 0 C harge to my Deposit Account No . A Management Job for the Human Race by Gladwin Hill

fter a century, the message first Aenunciated by John Muir is sinking in: "When you dip your hand into nature, you find that everything is connected to everything else." But until recently, few comprehended the implications of the naturalist's words. Muir's message was graphically illustrated just 20 years ago, when the astronauts landed on the moon and pointed their television camera back at earth. There it was: a patheticall y small ball of rock, spinning solitarily i.n vast space, with 5 billion people clinging to its surface- 5 billion people completely dependent for survival on the planet's thin veneer of fragile, interdependent resources. It was three years more before the message first found instituti onal expression on a global scale in the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm. There 130 nations solemnly acknowledged a mutual obligation in mainta ining a li vable global environment. They promulgated a host of recommendations for steps that should be taken. But they created no comprehensive mechanism or procedure for realizing the measures recommended. Some important measures have been implemented. But meanwhile new environmental problems with global ramifications have surfaced fa ster than problems have been resolved. It has taken an ominously accelerating succession of calamities, accidents, and incipient crises- the diminishing stratospheric ozone layer and the Greenhouse Effect, Chernobyl and Bhopal, desertification and deforestation, famines and oil spill s- lo remind us forcefull y that the implications of Muir's words as reinforced by the astronauts' television camera and the good intentions of Stockholm have not been effectively heeded.

2 EPA JOURNAL M uir Woods National Monument 1s graced by 200-foot tall • Through the use of pesticides and year-$340 per capita-on pollution redwoods. antibiotics, we have engendered score controls, we are far short of our goals of of resistant species whose potential for clean air and water. Disposal of spreading disease and blight remains everyday solid waste has become a An outer-space observer with unassessed. nightmare. Raw sewage and worse wondrous vision, scrutinizing the earth despoil our shores. in environmental terms, might see • And .we have maintained a cavalier, Meanwhile new problems have something like the scattered p ieces of a there's-no-tomorrow outlook regarding continued to erupt-acid rain, the jigsaw puzzle: myriad clusters of people the depletion of minerals and other discovery of thousands of toxic dumps, of assorted races, creeds, and colors, natural resources. radon, pesticide scares .... frantically scrambling-in slow These are just a few of the more Even while harboring pretensions to motion-to put out environmental leadership in international brushfires (and, in the confusion, obvious facets of the environmental iceberg. They point to a scarcely environmental progress, the United igniting others). States has been contributing heavily to We flatter ourselves on having arguable need for concerted international steps to envision, and environmental problems. For instance, recognized, if belatedly, the we exceed most nations in production stratospheric ozone danger and having of chlorofluorocarbons. in per-capita taken collective steps to mitigate it; and energy consumption, and in consequent on having at least awakened to the A global organization to emissions of carbon dioxide (five tons greenhouse threat. But we are still in a coordinate international action per capita compared to a worldwide reactive mode, avoiding collective average of less than one ton). action until it is forced upon us. Despite against global threats would seem to be an imperative .... The United States exemplifies the the repeated eruption of problems we worldwide conflict of interests standing didn't anticipate, there is a palpable in the way of environmental reforms: chronic complacency-a delusion that the conflict between professed desires each exigency will be the last one, a avert, major global environmental for environmental quality versus an tacit assumption that there are no more perturbations. addiction to lifestyles that are environmental shoes to drop. Increasingly, one h ears advanced the environmentally destructive in every A little refl ection will suggest how view that environmental imperati ves are aspect from industrial activity to forest wrong this may be, for there is much rapidly transcending armaments as the destruction and the reckless use of evidence that so far we have seen only pivotal element in security among chemicals. the tip of the iceberg of possible globa l nations. The recent controversy over the environmental problems: pesticide Alar was a poor testimonial • Before us li e large areas of ignorance. Looking in the Mirror concerning our regulation of chemicals. We have no certainty of the degree of Although Americans tend lo bask in the Not only did the dispute raise ongoing contamination of the planet's notion that we are environmentally problematic questions about chemi cal oceans; if ignored, it could suddenl y progressive, in truth the United Slates is testing and risk assessment, but as develop that their function of in many ways a mirror of global regulations presently are entangled, it revitalizing the air and supporting vital environmental problems-a story of too seems that a chemical that might be food chains had been critically little and too late, of disarray and summarily banned if newly developed impaired. confusion, of human welfare treated as a may be well-nigh impossible to dislodge once it gets on the market. • We have no precise knowledge of the shuttlecock or left to the problematical mercies of "the marketplace." While we are chiding other nations impacts of the constant discharge of for destroying forests, in the United hundreds of industrial and agricultural The United States did move quickly, as the Environmental Revolution States we are stripping large ex panses of chemicals on the earth's air, land, and federal land for wood to sell to japan. water. dawned in the late 1960s, to enact constructive measures: the epochal Mining on publi c lands is governed by • or do we know just how far we have National Environmental Policy Act, the diaphanous provisions of a gone in upsetting, through extinctions. laws to abate air and water poll ution 117-year-old law-an exercise in the earth's primal balance of animal and and even noise, laws to deal with solid antiquity it would be hard to match in plant species. waste, to protect wildlife, to save coasts Europe. from degradation, and more. But the . Lack of a coherent national energy ensuing years have painfully policy has contributed to problems demonstrated that environmental quality is much easier sought than achieved. Although we have been spending roughly $85 billion a

JULY/AUGUST 1989 3 extending from the Alaska oil spill to warming. Other Action Plan items set in as an information clearing-house; Detroit auto manufacturing, and from motion unprecedented scientific instigated progressive environmental acid rain in the Adirondacks to a collaboration, such as the teamwork programs in selected areas; organized stymied nuclear power industry from between American and Russian multi-national collaboration on specific coast to coast. specialists, which has grown steadily problems; and strived to elicit For 20 years, ever since the Santa without regard to diplomatic cooperation from the array of U.N. Barbara oil spill, the oil industry and vicissitudes. A "heritage" program was affiliates such as the World Health federal authorities have been trumpeting initiated for preserving-on behalf of all Organization and the Food and about technological and strategic nations-sites and areas of unique Agriculture Organization that have progress in oil spill control measures environmental significance. The environmental overlaps. and mechanisms. Yet when the crunch conference laid the groundwork for a Yet UNEP comes nowhere near came in Alaska, we didn't even have the number of regional pacts for encompassing the collective concerns proverbial seven maids with seven ameliorating pollution of the and aims embodied in the Stockholm mops. conference ·itself. In addition, UNEP is Last November a group of leading not in a position to achieve vigorous organizations presented then implementation of the Action Plan. President-elect Bush with a list of no fewer than 700 environmental matters With environmental populism What Next? they said needed Executive attention. gathering such momentum, it seems only a matter of time, A global organization to coordinate One observer asked if such a list would international action against global be any longer in Zaire. and not too long a time, until threats would seem to be an it brings significant changes in imperative-an idea whose time has The Nations Act national lifestyles .... long since come, albeit whose To date, the 1972 Stockholm conference realization has so far eluded us. has been the world's closest approach to On the eve of the Stockholm collective action in dealing with conference, the eminent Indiana environmental problems. The 10-day Mediterranean, Baltic, and Caribbean University environmental scholar, Dr. assemblage far exceeded the seas and other ocean areas. Lynton Caldwell, foresaw a need for a expectations of many, while The conference stopped short of compact international council of no disappointing the wistful hopes of creating a permanent international more than 25 members, empowered to some. organization with authority to oversee delineate global environmental priorities Under the masterful helmsmanship of global environmental developments, and policies. He suggested that such an Canada's Maurice Strong, the 130 formulate collective policies, and exert agency might well be under the aegis of participating nations formally assumed telling influence on implementation of, the United Nations. But Stockholm and responsibility for the earth's and adherence to, such policies. the ensuing years have indicated that environmental welfare and endorsed an Yet conference organizers considered such an arrangement would simply "Action Plan" of some 109 items to be it a signal achievement that subject international environmental pursued. The Action Plan was long on delegates-and later the United Nations initiatives to another layer of politicking scope, but short on commitments. In General Assembly-were persuaded to and to the United Nations' procedural deference to national sovereignties, the create an ongoing agency to be some ponderousness. 109 items largely were couched in terms sort of focus of international Apart from the United Nations, it of "recommendations to governments," environmental activities: the United seems most unlikely that the world's and many called simply for "studies" or Nations Environment Programme nations will be disposed to cede research. (UNEP). sovereignties to the degree necessary to Yet the concrete results were many. Conspicuously deprived of muscle, create any sort of global environmental They included programs for worldwide UNEP was placed under a 58-member "super-agency" with definitive monitoring of critical environmental governing board bound to reflect the authority. factors-the impetus for the current tensions and schisms within the United But such a quantum leap may not be apprehensions concerning the Nations itself. It was situated necessary. stratospheric ozone layer and global inaccessibly in Nairobi, Kenya, and The problem of galvanizing, given minuscule financing. (Its budget coordinating, and integrating recently has been around $30 million a international activities to cope with year-amounting to less than one cent global environmental threats suggests, in for each of the world's citizens whose interests the agency is expected to further.) Given these limitations, UNEP has functioned impressively. It has served 4 EPA JOURNAL About half of the earth's rainforests, which provide habitat for ocelots and ma'1y other species, have been destroyed by cutting and burning. Such habitat losses. together with illegal poaching for fur, threaten the oce ot w·th extinction.

Carl Hansen photo, SITES. Smithsonian lnst1tur1on m assiveness an d complexity, nothing as The Green Light "The environment has been rising much s the international effort pretty steadily as one of the most In the last decade, a wave of mounted in prosecu ting World War II. important issues facing Britain today,'' a environmental populism has swept It may seem the height of irrelevance leading English pollster, Robert across western Europe. Under the loose or impracticality to suggest that the war Worcester. com mented recently. generic appellation , "the Greens," the effort offers guidelines fo r the And Raymond Von Ermen, Secretarv movement has become an important environmental realm. But th ere are General of the European Environmental common elements. Bureau in Brussels. has said: "In every The wa r was pursued by the free one of the European Communitv w or ld in a classic autocratic pattern, The Green Wave that is countries. the environment is a -major with policies d ictated by nationa l changing the face of politics in issue, and in every one it is growing." leaders- principally Roosevelt, Despite the long prevalence in Churchill, and Sta lin-and the reins of Europe has the potential to do America of old-line organizations like implem entati on extending mainly from the same thing in other parts the Sierra Club and the Audubon the desk of Gen eral George C. Marshall of the world .... Society, the Green movement is getting in the Pentagon. That hardly is a model a portentous foothold in the Un ited that can be emulated in peacetime States. Its original spawning groun d in affairs. New England is report ed to hove But let us look a little deeper. The political force in a score of nations. expanded to 200 chapters throughout essential task in World War II was drawing support from both the left and the countr . There is even a chapter in harnessing and coord inating the efforts the right. the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, of a w ide assortment of A llied nations Greens have been elected to often considered a bastion of bourgeois and peoples, with widely disparate legislative bodies in West Germany, materialism. parochial interests and capabilities. France, Italy, Austri a, Luxembourg, Currently the American movement is There was no way these part icipants Switzerland, Belgi um. Finland, and eschewing the hard-ball political cou ld be geared into a united fo rce Portugal. Some 3,000 Greens have been activism of Europe in favor of simply by m ilitary ed ict. It required counted in the federal, state, and local educational activities, promoting many fo rms of suasion , and the most legislati ve bodies in West Germany "grass-roots consciousness." But important ingredient of all: consensus alone. "Environmentalists have become meanwh ile some of the Green ideals are on the common goal of defeating the Europe's most formidable and being furthered in this country by Axis. best-organized pressure group," a organizations s uch as the Los Angeles A consensus regarding environmental correspondent wrote in June. area's "Tree People," recently honored protection and progress survived a test In recent months both Prime Minister by U EP fo r its overseas forestation fli ght at Stockholm. Since th en, that Margaret Thatcher in Britain and program, and Kansas Ci ty's "Trees for consen sus has been gathering mass and France's President Francois Mitterand Life," which has been planting fruit momentum at the grass-roots level have been impelled to make trees in India. virtually every day. conspicuous leaps onto the "The nation once again is undergoing environmental bandvvagon, convoking the national soul-searching that confe rences on·global problems and making other genuflecti ons to the cause.

JULY/AUGUST 1989 5 accompanied the first Earth Day in 1970," Russell Train said recently. Train, former head of EPA and the Council on Environmental Quality, is chairman of the Conservation Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund. "Public concern," he continued, "is so strong that we can be said to be experiencing a fresh wave of environmentalism. There is a sense that pollution is inadequately controlled, that natural systems are being degraded, that we are generating more waste than

In the United States, we have the machinery for implementing the mounting sentiment for environmental progression. But some of it is creaky, some Obsolescent, and some rusty.

we can handle, that chemicals are creating dangers we can hardly imagine." Jn recent public opinion surveys, two Americans out of three said they believed that "protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high, and continued environmental U.S. Army phoco. improvements must be made regardless of cost. " potential to do the same thing in other and dealing with wastes which seemed With environmental populism parts of the world-knitting the political so logical in the 1970s is now widely gathering such momentum, it seems muscle and consolidating the recognized as technically and only a matter of time, and not too long a all-important consensus. administratively a blind alley. Radical time, until it brings significant changes The pollster Louis Harris has revisions are needed to permit an in national lifestyles that are ventured, on the basis of his evolving integrated attack on these problems. conspicuously inimical to opinion-sounding over the years, that by In addition to its fragmented environmental quality. Such 1992 or 1996 the United States may legislative mandate, EPA is conspicuous habits include demands for have a president "chosen and elected handicapped by its implicitly gas-guzzling cars, a voracious pattern of with a pro-environment stance as h is subordinate status in the fe deral energy consumption, throwaway primary identification." structure. The scope of its consumerism. recreational vehicles responsibilities and concerns has designed to ravage deserts, the equation Meanwhile, Squeaky Wheels inexorably broadened to involve critica l dealings with all the principal federal of growth with good, and all the rest. In the United States, we have the departments, and it needs equal, The Green Wave that is changing the machinery for implementing the face of politics in Europe has the mounting sentiment for environmental cabinet-level rank with them. progress. But some of it is creaky, Congress- the source of some obsolescent, and some rusty. environmental statutes and The compartmentalized approach to financing- is a patchwork of dealing with air and water pollution contradictions. In the mold of such figures as Gaylord Nelson, Ed mund

6 EPA JOURNAL The Normandy invasion During Vv W II, Allied nations mounted a mas v coordinated effort to w111 against a s threat. An international mob liiat O" of another kind may be reqt 1red to pr t world environment.

Muskie, and the late Scoop Jackson, National Audubon Society, said environment "is now an issue of its membership includes paragons of recently. "But these are only words. We consequence that has risen to the top of environmental enlightenment. Two need action. What needs to be done the international agenda." decades ago, Congress acted with worldwide is already known- use And Tennessee's Senator Albert Gore, dispatch to meet perceived energy more efficiently, develop Jr., told a recent Washington conference: environmental imperatives. But since alternate sources of energy, plant trees, "In the not-too-distant future, there wi ll then, in terms of collective action, recycle materials, further family be a new 'sacred agenda' in Congress has lapsed into a 19th-century planning, practice more sustainable international affairs: policies that enable pace, dawdling for years in agriculture, establish and support more rescue of the global environment. The unproductive v.rrangling over updating restrictive environment laws, presume task will one day join with, and even environmental legislation, seemingly new chemicals guilty until proven supplant, preventing the world 's having lost its sense of the pace of innocent. The resources to do the job incineration through nuclear war as the national and international developments principal test of statecraft." and the pitch of public sentiment. An encouraging sense of urgency is A legislative body that has reflected in the United Nations' decision foot-dragged for seven years amending If life on earth survives its not to wait for a traditional 25th the Clean Air Act will not recover its current travail, people will anniversary of the Stockholm due role in environmental progress until look back on the present as conference, but to convene a 20th it takes to heart the recent words of the horse-and-buggy days of anniversary sequel in 1992 to take stock Thomas E. Lovejoy, Assistant Secretary environmental management .... of global problems and consider new at the Smithsonian Institution. Referring steps to deal with them. to conditions worldwide, he said: Who can say that, considering the "Massive intervention in society is recent upsurge in international required over a very short time environmental concern, the world will span- perhaps less than 10 years." (See are available. What is required is the not be ready to consider a stronger article on page 42 .) politic al will to allocate the resources." structure for international collaboration Finally, there is the Council on In the 1988 State of the World report than was envisioned in 1972? For each Environmental Quality. Conceived as an of the Worldwatch Institute, Lester year that passes brings added evidence elite advisory body for the President Brown, a leading eco-economist, that the earth's thin mantle of resources and Congress, it produced much of the estimated that the earth's current is not divisible into manageable bits and substance of the nation's initial burst of environmental decline could be halted pieces but must be dealt with as a unity environmental reform. But it has been with an international expenditure of in which "everything is connected to relegated to unheeded, faceless $150 billion a year-a fraction of the everything else." o obscurity, from which the national world's $900 billion annual military interest demands that it be reactivated expenditures. But to do it, he added, as soon as possible. would call for "a w holesale reordering [Hill is the former national of priorities, a basic restructuring of the environmental correspondent of The A Test of Statecraft global economy, and a quantum leap in New York Times. Copyright Gladwin international cooperation." Hill.) If life on earth ~urvives its current None of these requisites seems near to travail, people will look back on the realization. But to make a start, as present as the horse-and-buggy days of Russell Peterson noted, requires environmental management. with global "political will." And that is steadily activities ridiculously fragmen ted and crystallizing under the pressures of crises met with a succession of ad hoc, environmental populism and rapidly panic-button, transitory coalescences of broadening public comprehension of the effort. non-military threats to the earth's "The recent quickening of security. international environmental The New York Times reported from conferences, treaties, and protocols and Washington on May 15 that "the world's of environmental speeches by world deteriorating environment has become a leaders is an encouraging sign," Russell top economic concern of the United Peterson, former head of the Council on States and other industrial nations, Environmental Quality and of the along with Third World debt and trade." William Nitze, the State Department's top environmental official, says

JULY/AUGUST 1989 7 The Greening of EPA by William K. Reilly

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Point Re.yes National Seashore 1n Ca1ifo111ia-syrnbo , l l natura1 treasure. New thinking nnd new att tude'l <.ire 11• ·l ( • J protect our resources from environment

8 EPA JOURNAL 11 Future historians," predicts former the 1990s? Above all, we must be long as overall targets are hit, industry National Security Advisor willing to change-to adjust to the new is given considerable flexibility in Zbigniew Brzezinski, a careful observer realities of our age, to think about the deciding, for example, if greater of international events, "will almost environment from a fresh perspective, to emissions reductions should be made at certainly hail the last years of this give up outmoded assumptions and one plant in exchange for lesser century ... as a watershed in world "black-hat, white-hat" preconceptions of reductions at another. affairs." the past in favor of cooperative, This approach-combining traditional As events in China, Russia, Eastern innovative approaches to environmental "command-and-control" regulation and and VVestern Europe, and Latin America protection. New ways of thinking about vigorous enforcement with a flexible, suggest, change-rapid, even the environment can lead to market-based system of incentives and revolutionary change-has clearly significantly more effective ways of tradeoffs-can be applied to many other become the watchword for the closing protecting it. issues besides clean air. Senators John years of the 20th Century. A good place to start fostering these Heinz and Tim Wirth outlined many of What do political changes of global new attitudes and approaches is right them last year in their comprehensive magnitude have to do with the here at EPA and at other institutions "Project 88" report on market-based environment? Just this: as Dr. Brzezinski environmental initiatives. points out, the breathtaking upheavals I find the market-incentive approach in the world today present the United New approaches to especially appealing for two reasons: it States with an unprecedented array of environmen ta] protection-like makes the private sector a partner, "challenges begging to be exploited as market incentives and rather than an adversary, in controlling opportunities." pollution prevention-mean pollution and reducing environmental And nowhere are these that EPA, too, must change. risk; and it leverages the government's challenges-and opportunities-greater limited resources by exploiting market than in the ·area of environmental forces to achieve environmental goals. protection. People everywhere are Incentives also can be used to expressing concern over a deteriorating and organizations responsible for advance another much-needed global environment. The term "national protecting the global commons. approach: pollution prevention. security" is being redefined to include Government and private institutions Programs to control pollution at its security from environmental. as vvell as alike must begin to move beyond source-before it enters the environment military, threats. Environmental issues traditional environmental protection and becomes subject to traditional were highlighted at the recent Western programs, which-despite past end-of-pipe contrels and cleanup-are economic summit in Paris as never successes-no longer offer solutions to now a top priority at EPA. before in the 15-year history of the today's problems. Pollution-preventing ideas are beginning event. The environment, in other words, One example of a new approach that to take hold throughout the · has moved from the margins to the shows great promise for enhanced environmental and business mainstream. environmental protection is market communities as their advantages in What's more, our understanding of incentives, incorporated in President reducing environmental and health risks environmental problems is changing. No Bush's recent proposal to amend the become more and more obvious. longer are our concerns over pollution Clean Air Act. The President's proposal Like the market-incentive approach, defined by geographic boundaries or establishes tough stundards and pollution prevention offers both direct specific environmental media. Global deudlines for reducing emissions of and indirect benefits to participating problems like the Greenhouse Effect, toxic chemicals and other pollutants. It industries. Not only can it save a deforestation, stratospheric ozone also contains a number of market company money by promoting depletion, and acid rain already are incentives that should encourage production efficiencies and reducing the beginning to usher in a ne\'I' era of industries to participate much more costs of hazardous waste disposal, but it cooperative international uction. willingly-and effectively-in pollution also can contribute to community What must we do, as individuals and control efforts. goodwill. What better message could a as a society, to meet the challenge of Under the President's plan, the plant send its neighbors than that it has politicul and environmental chunge in private sector will have much of the been able to reduce greatly the amount responsibility for defining how and \'l'hen harmful air emissions are cut. As

9 JUL YiAUGUST 1989 of hazardous substances it uses and I know this is a controversial changing this country's "throw-away" releases into the community? proposal. Some environmentalists and mentality than right here at EPA'? The movement toward pollution members of Congress may be In short, my vision of EPA in the prevention is complicated by the fact uncomfortable with the idea of giving closing years of the 20th Century that current environmental law tends to EPA the authority to waive pollution consists of two related images-a require media-specific, if not controls set by law. Yet if EPA can show clenched fist, representing our pollutant-specific, controls. Make no that such an approach can reduce risks continued emphasis on controlling mistake-laws like the Clean Air Act, and costs at the same time, then I pollution and vigorously enforcing our the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking believe it is a proposal well worth nation's environmental laws; and an Water Act, and the Resource pursuing-especially if we see results open hand, symbolizing our receptivity Conservation and Recovery Act were that would transform our understanding to new ideas, our desire to work with landmark achievements that have made of what will be needed to fight the public and other organizations to remarkable progress cleaning up the pollution in the years ahead. develop new and better \•vays of environment over the past two decades. New approaches to environmental reducing environmental risk, and our But nearly 20 years' experience has protection-like market incentives and willingness to he! p citizens get the shown us that single-medium laws pollution prevention-mean that EPA, information they need to protect based on containment and treatment of too, must change. We will have to themselves and their families from individual pollutants have limitations. develop new skills, and broaden our use environmental risks in their homes and They usually don't remove pollutants of old ones, as we work in a climate that communities. from the environment, but merely shift emphasizes regulatory flexibility. A new EPA-an EPA that is equally them from one environmental multi-media pollution prevention, and proficient at employing an open hand as medium-air, water, land-to another. decentralized deci si on-making. well as a clenched fist-will be well And current laws provide little or no For example, the ability to listen to prepared to respond to the momentous incentive for industries to develop the public's concerns and to changes taking place in the world creative, cost-effective methods of communicate effectively with citizens around us. And we will be \•vell eliminating or reducing pollution at its on issues related to environmental risks prepared to exploit all the opportunities source, or to adopt environmentally safe and tradeoffs will become an those changes will bring. o methods of recycling those pollutants increasingly valuable attribute in the which cannot be eliminated. EPA of the 1990s. Communication skills [Reilly is Administrator of EPA.) The time has come to consider also will be important as we increase applying market incentive/pollution our emphasis on consumer prevention approaches to environmental education-making individuals and programs across the board. With that in families aware of the environmental mind, we are considering asking risks of life in an industrial society. EPA Congress for limited authority to use an must improve its efforts to help people integrated, multi-media approach to understand how we all contribute to reducing health and environmental pollution and what we can do to risk-one that \•vould give EPA the eliminate it from our daily lives. flexibility to look at a facility's total In this, v1•e at EPA must serve as emissions to all environmental media, examples as well as advocates. As we and then impose controls that would urge citizens and communities to result in the greatest risk reduction at separate and recycle their wastes in the least cost. order to relieve the pressure on our nation's overburdened landfills, EPA itself has to practice '":hat it preaches. Each of us has to participate in Agency-wide efforts to recycle paper, purchase recycled supplies, cut back on the use of non-degradable products and products with excessive packaging, and so forth. What better place to begin

10 EPA JOURNAL Tackling the Institutional Barriers

by Jessica Tuchman Mathews

The fo llowing article is adapted from Mathews' essay entitled "Redefining Securi ty," which appeared in the Spring 1989 issue of Foreign Affairs.

he 1990s will demand a redefinition Tof what constitutes national security. ln the 1970s, the concept was expanded to include international economics . .. . Global developments now suggest the need for another analogous, broadening definition of national security to include resource, environmental, and demographic issues .. .. Environmental strains that transcend national borders are already beginning to break down the sacred boundaries of

The majority of environmental problems demand regional solutions which encroach upon what we now think of as the prerogatives of national governments.

national sovereignty, previously rendered porous by the information and communication revolutions and the instantaneous global movement of EPRI Journal phoro. Arco Solar's Carissa Plains site, near San financial capital. The once sharp Luis Obispo, California, is connected to the dividing line between foreign and Pacific Gas and Electric system The author cal ls for a 10-year U.S. energy policy aimed domestic policy is blurred, forcing insect pollinators; or the price of at more efficient energy production with governments to grapple in international worsening pollution, once filtered from less damage to the environment. forums with issues that were the air by vegetation .... contentious enough in the domestic Moreover, for the first time in history arena . . . . mankind is rapidly- if Individuals and governments alike are inadvertently- altering the basic cause of turmoil is often ignored; beginning to feel the cost of substituting physiology of the planet. Global changes instead governments address the for (or doing without) the goods and currently taking place are poverty and instability that are its services once freely provided by healthy unprecedented in both their pace and results . ... ecosystems. Nature's bill is presented in scale. If left unchecked, the Millions have been forced to leave many different forms: the cost of consequences will be profound and, their homes in part because of the loss commercial fertilizer needed to unlike familiar types of local damage, of tree cover, the disappearance of soil, replenish once naturally fertile soils; the irreversible . . . . and other environmental ills that have expense of dredging rivers that flood Moreover, environmental decline made it impossible to grow fo od. their banks because of soil erosion occasionally l13ads directly to conflict, Wherever refugees settle, they flood the hundreds of miles upstream; the loss in especially when scarce water resources labor market, add to the local demand crop fa ilures due to the indiscriminate must be shared. Generally, however, its for food, and put new burdens on the use of pesticides that inadvertently kill impact on nations' security is felt in the land, thus spreading the environmental downward pull on economic stress that originally forced them from performance and, therefo re, on political their homes. Resource mismanagement stability. The underlying environmental

JUL YI AUG UST 1989 11 is not the only cause of these mass movements, of course. Religious and ethnic conflicts, political repression, and other forces are at work. But the environmental causes are an essential factor. A different kind of environmental concern has arisen from mankind's new ability to alter the environment on a planetary scale. The earth's physiology is shaped by the characteristics of four elements (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur); by its living inhabitants (the biosphere); and by the interactions of the atmosphere and the oceans, which produce our climate. Mankind is altering both the carbon and nitrogen cycles, having increased the natural carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere by 25 percent. This has occurred largely in the last three decades through foss il-fuel LOUIS J M erz photo. U.S Forest Servoce use and deforestation. The production rather high. The greatest risk may well While that fraction may be of commercial fertilizer has doubled the come from a completely unanticipated sustainable, it is doubtful that it could amount of nitrogen nature makes direction. keep pace with the expected doubling of available to living things. The use of a Absent profound change in man's the world's population. Human use of single, minor class of chemicals, relationship to his environment, the 80 percent of the planet's potential chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), has future does not look bright. Consider the productivity does not seem compatible punched a continent-sized "hole" in the planet without such change in the year with the continued functioning of the ozone layer over Antarctica, and caused 2050. Economic growth is projected to biosphere as we know it. The expected a smaller, but growing loss of rate of species loss would have risen stratospheric ozone around all the from perhaps a few each day to several planet. Species loss is destroying the The United States, in h undred a day. The pollution and toxic work of three billion years of waste burden would likely prove evolution .... particular, will have to assign unmanageable. Tropical forests would Serious enough in itself, stratospheric a far greater prominence than have largely disappeared, and arable ozone depletion illustrates a worrisome it has heretofore to the land, a vital resource in a world of 10 feature of man's newfound ability to practice of multilateral billion people, would be rapidly cause global change. It is almost diplomacy. decreasing due to soil degradation .... impossible to predict accurately the Happily, this grim sketch of long-term impact of new chemicals or conditions in 2050 is not a prediction, processes on the environment. CFCs but a projection, based on current were thoroughly tested when first have quintupled by then. Energy use trends. Like all projections, it says more introduced, and fou nd to be benign. could also quintuple, or if post-1973 about the present and the recent past Their effect on the remote atmosphere trends continue, it may grow more than it does about the future. The planet was never considered. slowly, perhaps only doubling or is not destined to a slow and painful The lesson is this: current knowledge tripling. The human species already decline into environmental chaos. There of planetary mechanisms is so scanty consumes or destroys 40 percent of all are technical. scientific, and economical that the possibility of surprise, perhaps the energy produced by terrestrial solutions that are feasible to many quite nasty su rprise, must be rated photosynthesis, that is. 40 percent of the current trends, and enough is known food energy potentially available to living things on land. 12 EPA JOURNAL Erosion in South Carolina. Soil erosion and other kinds of resource depletion are not taken into account in Gross National Prod uct calculations for the United States or most other countries.

society blocks a clear view of where the climate-valued, though their loss may long-term threats to global security lie. entail great expense. The result is that Overcoming these economic and economic policymakers are profoundly political barriers will require social and misled by their chief guide. institutional inventions comparable in A second step would be to in ent a scale and vision to the new set of indicators by which global arrangements conceived in the decade environmental health could be following World War IL Without the measured. Economic planning would be sharp political turning point of a major adrift without G1 P, unemployment war, and with threats that are diffuse rates, and the like, and social planning and long-term, the task will be more without demographic indicators ... difficult. But if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the planet and a heavy toll in human suffering, nothing less is likely to suffice. A partial list of Among these new UJJ.proaches, the specific changes suggests how perhaps the most difficult to demanding a task it will be. achieve will be ways to Achieving sustainable economic negotiate successfully in the growth will require the remodeling of presence of substantial agriculture, energy use, and industri.al scientific uncertainty. production after nature's example-their reinvention, in fact. These economic about promising new approaches to be systems must become circular rather confident that the right kinds of than linear. Industry and manufacturing would be impossible. Yet this is research will produce huge payoffs. will need processes that use materials precisely where environmental Embedded in current practices are and energy with high efficiency, recycle policymaking stands today .... vast costs in lost opportunities and byproducts, and produce little waste. On the political front. the need for a waste, which, if corrected, v.rould bring Energy demand will have to be met new diplomacy and for new institutions massive benefits. Some such steps will with the highest efficiency consistent and regulatory regimes to cope with the require only a reallocation of money, with full economic growth. Agriculture world's growing environmental while others will require sizable capital will rely heavily upon free ecosystem interdependence is even more investments. None of the needed steps, services instead of nearly exclusive compelling. Put bluntly, our accepted however, requires globally unaffordable reliance on man-made substitutes. And definition of the limits of national sums of money. What they do demand all systems will have to price goods and sovereignty as coinciding with national is a sizeable shift in priorities .. .. services to reflect the environmental boundaries is obsolete .... But if the technological opportunities costs of their provision. The majority of environmental are boundless, the social, political, and A vital first step. one that can and problems demand regional solutions institutional barriers are huge. should be taken in the very near term, which encroach upon what we now Subsidies, pricing policies, and would be to reinvent the national think of as the prerogatives of national economic discount rates encourage income accounts by which gross governments. This is because the resource depletion in the name of national product (GNP) is measured. phenomena themselves are defined by economic growth, while delivering only GNP is the foundation on which the limits of watershed, ecosystem, or the illusion of sustainable growth. national economic policies are built, yet atmospheric transport, not by national Population control remains a its calculation does not take into borders. Indeed, the costs and benefits controversial subject in much of the account resource depletion. A country of alternative policies cannot often be world. The traditional prerogatives of can consume its forests, wildlife, and accurately judged without considering nation states are poorly matched with fisheries, and its minerals, clean water the region rather than the nation ... . the needs for regional cooperation and and topsoil, without seeing a reflection Dealing with global change will be global decision-making. And ignorance of the loss in its GNP. Nor are more difficult. No one nation or even of the biological underpinning of human ecosystem services- sustaining soil group of nations can meet these fertility, moderating and storing rainfall, challenges, and no nation can protect filtering air, and regulating the

JULY/AUGUST 1989 13 itself from the actions-or inaction-of growing scientific understanding. The year 2000; full support for and others. No existing institution matches recent Montreal agreement on the implementation of the global Tropical these criteria .... stratospheric ozone layer supplies a Forestry Action Plan developed by the The United States, in particular, will useful precedent by providing that World Bank, the United Nations have to assign a far greater prominence one-third of the parties can reconvene a Development Programme, the Food and than it has heretofore to the practice of scientific experts group to consider new Agricultural Organization, and the multilateral diplomacy. This would evidence as it becomes available. World Resources Institute; sufficient mean changes that range from the The new model will require new support for family planning programs to organization of the State Department economic methods for assessing risk, ensure that all who want contraceptives and the language proficiency of the have affordable access to them at least Foreign Service, to the definition of an by the end of the decade; and, for the international role that allows leadership Einstein's verdict that "we United States, a 10-year energy policy without primacy, both in the slogging with the goal of increasing the energy work of negotiation and in adherence to shall require a substantially productivity of our economy (i.e., final outcomes. new manner of thinking if reducing the amount of energy required Above all, ways must be found to step mankind is to survive" still to produce a dollar of GNP) by about around the deeply entrenched seems apt. three percent each year. North-South cleavage and to replace it While choosing four priorities from with a planetary sense of shared dozens of needed initiatives is highly destiny. Perhaps the su~cesses 9_f_!l:te arbitrary, these four stand out as U.N. specialized agencies can be built especially where the possible outcomes ambitious yet achievable goals on which upon for this purpose. But certainly the are irreversible. It will depend on a a broad consensus could be developed, task of forging a global energy policy in more active political role for biologists and whose success would bring order to control the Greenhouse Effect, and chemists than they have been multiple, long-term global benefits for example, is a very long way from accustomed to, and far greater technical touching every major international eradicating smallpox or sharing weather competence in the natural and planetary environmental concern. information .... sciences among policymakers. Finally, Reflecting on the discovery of atomic Today's negotiating models-the Law the new model may need to forge a energy, Albert Einstein noted, of the Sea Treaty, the Nuclear more involved and constructive role for "everything changed." And indeed, Nonproliferation Treaty, even the the private sector .... nuclear fission became the dominant promising Convention to Protect the International law, broadly speaking, force-military, geopolitical, and even Ozone Layer-are inadequate. Typically, has declined in influence in recent psychological and social-of the such agreements take about 15 years to years. With leadership and commitment ensuing decades. In the same sense, the negotiate and enter in force, and from the major powers it might regain driving force of the coming decades may perhaps another 10 before substantial its lost status. But that will not be well be environmental change. Man is changes in behavior are actua_!l~_ sufficient. To be effective, future still utterly dependent on the natural achieved .... Far better approaches arrangements will require provisions for world but now has for the first time the will be needed. · · monitoring, enforcement, and ability to alter it, rapidly and on a global Among these new approaches, compensation, even when damage scale. Because of that difference, perhaps the most difficult to achieve cannot be assigned a precise monetary Einstein's verdict that "we shall require will be ways to negotiate successfully in value. These are all areas where a substantially new manner of thinking the presence of substantial scientific international law has traditionally been if mankind is to survive" still seems uncertainty. The present model is static: weak. apt. o years of negotiation leading to a final This is only a partial agenda for the product. The new model will have to be needed decade of invention. Meanwhile, (Dr. Mathews is Vice President of the fluid, allowing a rolling process of much can and must be done with World Resources Institute.) intermediate or self-adjusting existing means. Four steps are most agreements that respond quickly to important: prompt revision of the Montreal Treaty, to eliminate completely the production of chlorofluorocarbons no later than the

14 EPA JOURNAL Let's Get Serious about Pollution Prevention by Barry Commoner

n January 19, 1989, a moment in strontium 90--reflects the same now used in the electrolytic cells Ohistory marked by the end of the remedial action: production of the instead of mercury. In sum, the Reagan Administration, then EPA pollutant has been prevented. Lead has prevention strategy recognizes that Administrator Lee M. Thomas published been largely removed from gasoline; pollutants originate in production a statement in the Federal Register that, DDT and PCB have been banned; processes and that these must be in future histories, is likely to chloralkali plants responsible for changed in order to eliminate the overshadow even Mr. Reagan's mercury pollution have eliminated that pollutant. departure. The Pollution Prevention metal from their processing; Alar. the treatment for enhancing the Policy Statement acknowledged that atmospheric nuclear bomb tests that marketability of apples, provides a much of EPA's past effort "has been on produce strontium 90 have been halted. recent, particularly instructive example pollution control rather than pollution In each case, the production process of what prevention means. Like many prevention" and that '"EPA realizes that that originally generated the pollutant other petrochemical products, Alar there are limits as to how much presents a health risk; it induces cancer environmental improvement can be in test animals. As in many other cases, achieved under these [control] The prevention strategy there has been controversy about the programs, which emphasize resultant hazard to people, especially management after pollutants have been recognizes that pollutants children, and about what standards generated." originate in production should be applied to Lmit exposure to Mild as it sounds, this statement processes and that these must "acceptable" levels. actually calls for a major reorientation be changed in order to Alar broke out of this pattern when of the nation's environmental programs, eliminate the pollutant. the manufacturer, Uniroyal, decided for until now they have been based on that regardless of the toxicological and laws that trigger regulation only after regulatory uncertainties, Alar would be pollutants are produced. Prevention has taken off the market simply because occurred rarely and only in response to has been changed. In the production of parents were unhappy about raising very special circumstances. It is gasoline, lead has been replaced by new their children on apple juice that important, therefore, to examine the unleaded octane boosters; in cotton represented any threat to their health. justification for such a sweeping change production, where most DDT was used, Food, after all, is supposed to be good in policy, to understand how it relates DDT has been replaced by other for you. to the present regulatory program, and insecticides; in transformer This illustrates the advantages of to consider the actions required to manufacturing, PCB has been replaced prevention; banishing Alar from apple implement it. by new insulating fluids; in chloralkali production reduces the cancer risk to The evidence concerning the plants, semipermeable diaphragms are zero and puts an end to the technical ineffectiveness of the present pollution Kenneth Gsrrerc Woodfin Camp, Inc control program not only justifies the new preventive policy, but demands it. I presented a good deal of that evidence in a speech given at EPA Headquarters on January 12, 1988, entitled "The Environmental Failure" as a means of encapsulating the overall outcome of the Plane spraying present control-oriented program. pesticides. The ban of DDT in 1972 is Consider the existing data on the degree cited by the author to which the emissions of various as an example of pollutants had been reduced over the pollution last 10-15 years. In nearly every case, prevention. DDT the improvement has been at best was once widely modest- on the order of 10-20 used in spray percent- and, at worst (for example, applications. ' f nitrate in ground water) negative. The environmental levels of only a handful of pollutants have been reduced 70-90 percent- the kind of improvement in environmental quality envisioned in environmental legislation. Every pollutant on the very short list of real improvements- airborne lead , DDT and related pesticides, PCB, mercury in the Great Lakes' fish , and

JULY/AUGUST 1989 15 ------and administrative controversies. The Alar story also illustrates the role that public opinion can play in preventing environmental hazards. Parents were not inclined to argue about how much Alar was tolerable; they wanted none of it in apples, and Uniroyal responded by an action to ensure exactly thal. Pollution prevention means less environmental bureaucracy and more environmental democracy. Pollution prevention means identifying the source of the polluti on in a production process, eliminating it from that process, and substituting a more environmentally benign method of production. Once a Used aluminum cans at this pollutant is eliminated, the elaborate Newark, New system of risk assessment and standard Jersey, center setting- and the inevitable debates and will be crushed litigation inherent in control-based and reprocessed. environmental regulation- becomes Recycling is an irrelevant. important aspect of pollution How can current environmental prevention. programs, which, as EPA Administrator Reilly has pointed out in recent Congressional testimony, "stress treatment and disposal after pollution has been generated" relate to a program of pollution prevention? To the individua l polluter, there is an unavoidable conflict between prevention and control; one course or the other must be chosen. For example, organic farming- agricultural production without the use of petrochemical pesticides and chemical fertilizer- is a very effective way of preventing the serious environmental effects of these agricultural chemicals. To the farmer, the choice between prevention and control is unavoidable: either the farm uses the chemicals, subject to the present system of regulation and controls, or it does not use them and the entire administrative control structure becomes irrelevant. In the same way, a printing company that wishes to prevent the environmental hazards of the volatile chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents used ALCOA photo to clean its presses can do so by switching to water-based inks and they too must be controlled. The next trash-burning incinerator is a control detergent cl eansers. The company must preventive step might be to eliminate device; it is a means of treating trash choose between controlling emissions of the entire press-cleaning problem by after this pollutant has been generated the chlorinated pollutant, or eliminating switching to a new, perhaps laser-based, in an effort to reduce its environmental it by changing the printing process. Yet, method of printing. Prevention is clearly impact. detergents are themselves the preferable means of achieving Incineration itself involves a series of pollutants- albeit less hazardous than environmental quality; assiduously controls: on incinerator stack emissions. chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents- and applied, it can progressively reduce the on the landfill to which the residual ash need for controls in the national is consigned, and on the landfill environmental program. leachate. By converting components that Mr. Thomas' statement and Mr. would otherwise become trash into Reilly's testimony emphasize recycling useful materials. recycling prevents all as an important aspect of prevention. The issue of trash disposal is an illuminating example. In a sense, a

16 EPA JOURNAL these pollution problems and eliminates prevention avoids a serious fault in the The most serious hindrance to the the need for such controls. And again, it control strategy-the problem of shifting prevention strategy is implementation; it is necessary to choose between the pollutants from one medium to another. will be much more difficult to persuade control strategy and the preventive one. This is precisely what an incinerator farmers and manufacturers to change Some 80 percent of the trash emissions control system does: it shifts the way they grow corn or construct components can be either burned or heavy metals and other toxic materials automobiles than to attach controls to recycled, but obviously not both. from emissions to the deposited fly ash. their tractors or smokestacks. Current Moreover, as .a recent pilot test done by Clearly this problem is avoided when methods of production are the the Center for the Biology of Natural separation reduces the toxic metal presumably profit-maximizing responses Systems showed, 84 percent of the entering the incinerator. 1 am afraid that to economic forces. and there will be a household trash stream can be this decision misconstrues the facts and good deal of resistance to changing recycled-a disposal capacity even them. greater than that of the incinerator, This is a hurdle that can be which is about 70 percent. Evidently, the entry of the surmounted only by government action. EPA has recently confronted the The federal government could overcome choice between prevention and control prevention strategy into the the auto industry's resistance to in trash disposal. This choice arose in nation's environmental producing new kinds of cars and trucks connection with a proposed program is not likely to be by specifying smog-free engines in the trash-burning incinerator in Spokane, particularly smooth or $5 billion of vehicles it buys annually. Washington. Opponents argued that uncontroversial. With that large an incentive, the engines according to the Clean Air Act, the will surely be built and take over the facility must employ "best available private market. Similarly, if the federal control technology" (BACT). which the government placed an order for some Act defines to include existing means seriously weakens the role of prevention $0.5 billion of photovoltaic cells to be for the removal of potential pollutants in EPA policy. installed in government facilities, their from fuel. In practice, this would mean, Evidently, the entry of the prevention price would drop by more than 90 for example, removing and recycling strategy into the nation's environmental percent and open up a vast new market nearly 11ll of the trash components, for program is not likely to be particularly for these pollution-free sources of most of them contribute to the smooth or uncontroversial. Another electricity. pollutants generated by incineration. example is President Bush's Clean Air As we approach the 20th anniversary Citing the Thomas statement, EPA bill. Just before announcing the bill. Mr. of the birth of environmentalism in Region 10 agreed with this position and Bush proclaimed himself not only an 1970, it is fitting that we should review referred it to the Administrator for environmentalist but also a what has been done and from it learn decision. He had a momentous preventionist. In reporting the how to improve the nation's thus-far opportunity to signal EPA's turn toward President's June 9 address, the failing environmental record. prevention by supporting the Region 10 Washington Post said that "his goal will Reorienting the environmental program position. Unfortunately, the decision be prevention, not just cleaning up, toward prevention can assure that in the has given us the wrong signal. environmental problems." next 20 years we can at last accomplish Apart from legalisms, the decision to Yet a few days later Mr. Bush the purpose set forth 20 years ago in the disagree wit.h Region 10 and deny the announced that polluters will be National Environmental Policy Act: petition makes only one substantive encouraged to buy and sell the right to argument: that the experimental pollute. This is of course a perverse "to promote the efforts that will evidence does not support the parody of the "free market," in which prevent or eliminate damage to the conclusion that separating potentially instead of goods-useful things that environment and biosphere." o polluting materials from trash will in people want-being exchanged, "bads" fact reduce toxic air emissions. The that nobody wants are traded. Clearly a (Dr. Commoner is Director of the Center experiment cited showed that removal market in pollutants cannot operate for the Biology of Natural Systems at of metals and glass from trash clearly unless the market is provided with what Queens College. City University of New reduced the toxic metal content of flue it is supposed to exchange-pollutants. York.) gas before it entered the emissions This proposal not only fails to prevent control system. But the decision pollution but actually requires it. But concludes that the study does not show there are ways to prevent air pollution. Editor's Note: Dr. Commoner's speech, "that there would be a reduction in Smog was created when "The Environmental Failure," given at pollutant emissions had conventional high-compression engines were EPA headquarters on January 12, 1988, pollution control devices been in introduced to power the large as part of the Office of Radiation operation." post-World War II cars; running hot, the Programs' Environmental Seminar This conclusion is unwarranted; engines generate nitrogen oxides which Series, will be one of eight speeches by simple logic tells us that vvhen the trigger the photochemical smog reaction. guest speakers included in a amount of toxic metal entering a control Preventing smog calls for new engines forthcoming EPA publication. device is reduced, if it works. even less that produce little or no nitrogen will leave it. More serious is the oxides-for example, the stratified decision's failure to recognize a major charge engine or electric motors. point in the Thomas statement: that Applied to the acid rain problem, prevention calls for energy conservation and non-burn power sources such as photovoltaic cells.

JULY/AUGUST 1989 17 Under the Environmental Regulation Layer Cake by Arthur Koines

he distant traffic light turns a pale And in the national news today, Then, in 1972, Congress passed the Tgreen against the hazy afternoon sky. Environmental Protection Agency Clean Water Act to rescue the nation's A young attendant clad in a grey jump Administrator William Reilly rivers and lakes from decades of neglect. suit waves the next car into the testing expressed optimism about the In 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act area. The endless line of cars behind it possibility this year of was enacted, and in 1976, the Resource creeps forward like a lazy, summer reauthorizing the Clean Air Act ... Conservation and Recovery Act. caterpillar. As I release the brakes, my In all, Congress enacted 10 major own car inches over the hot pavement The Clean Air Act. Those words environmental laws in the 1970s. State to close the space between it and the car revive me with memories of simpler legislatures throughout the country directly in front. Waves of heat rise times. I remember Earth Day 1970. We followed quickly by passing their own from the roadway, obscuring my view of stood in the warm, April sunshine to environmental laws empowering state the instruction sign: "Put car in neutral. celebrate the dawn of a new era of governments to manage the major new Turn off air conditioning. Depress gas environmental responsibility. The Clean environmental programs created by pedal . . .. " Air Act, enacted by Congress later that federal legislation. Rehearsing the test procedure helps to same year, promised to improve some of pass the time momentarily, but after a the nation's most visible environmental . .. and new technology standards few practice runs, my mind wanders in problems. for industries emitting toxic search of relief from the growing chemicals into the air boredom. Absent-mindedly, I tune in . . . with tough, new requirements the car radio to the news: for cool-fueled electric utilities .. . The laws sought to protect our air, water, and lanrl from the excesses of a modern society. But the administration of those laws has fostered another modern illness: a large, redundant bureaucracy. Federal, state, and local agencies were formed to implement the laws. Countless pages of regulations were written to sharpen the meaning of the statutes for those who had lo

PVT CAR comply with them. Thus the simple IN H[\JTI\Jtt.L

TU~OH" AIJ\ intent of environmental laws found CONOITIO"llNG expression in complex, new institutions. DEPOE55 GAS KlML The federal government kept a vigilant eye on the actions of state and local governments to ensure consistency in the way federal laws were implemented. The states, sensitive to their own individual needs, chafed

~ 1

Drawing by Bob Flanagan. 18 EPA JOURNAL under the federal yoke. Efforts at increases, to finance the future ones? In a world of limited financial defining and redefining the federal-state facility. resources. a decision to address one relationship took precious energy away environmental problem generally from the common task of protecting the Environmental protection is costly. implies a decision not to address environment. Much of the money for it comes out of another. We can't do everything, yet we local government budgets and is used to try. We've stretched the fabric of ... and construction sanctions for construct basic infrastructure for environmental protection in this cities unable to attain national providing environmental services. A country so thin that it seems as if it standards for ozone .... municipal waste incinerator can easily must soon come apart. Holes are cost a city $500 million to construct. A beginning to appear at the local level, Today's environmental bureaucracy is public drinking water system for a where bureaucracy. budget shortfalls. something of a Rube Goldberg medium-sized city adds up to and competing social goals have organization. It is most imposing when construction costs of $100 million. Even combined to frustrate our efforts toward viewed from the local level, where three a small municipal sewage treatment improved environmental quality. layers of law, regulation, and plant costs an average of $15 to $ 20 The traffic light turns a bright green. I bureaucracy vie for jurisdiction. For million. lift my foot from the brake pedal one example. here the individual person or Decisions concerning how to fund last time, allowing my care to drift into busine~s discovers how a simple permit these facilities and where to site them the testing area. Settling back in my request can involve red tape from are nearly always politically unpopular seat, I turn off the radio to enjoy the several government agencies. and thus are avoided. if possible, by crystal clarity of one final thought: The emissions testing area is now in elected officials. But delay has its own The systerri for providing plain view. Succumbing to the heat, a costs. Today, it is common to find environmental protection is on car in line ahead stalls out, bringing the municipal governments confronting overload, and it isn't going to improve slow procession to a temporary halt. several such costly, politically sensitive on its own. Our episodic efforts as a After a couple of awkward minutes. decisions. Twenty years of close federal society to respond to environmental doors on two nearby cars swing open as and state oversight has made local threats have led to institutions lacking their drivers step out to help move the governments reluctant environmental in unified direction and efficient disabled vehicle out of line. decision-makers. organization. To improve them, we must The news continues: Only three cars are now ahead of me establish common environmental goals in line. I can see the state insignia on and set realistic priorities. And in local news. city officials the sleeve of the jump suit worn by the It's time to get it together. and the have expressed concern over the young, female attendant. I need be local level is a good place to start. After limited capacity of the city's aging patient only another few minutes. all, here businesses live and die on the municipal 1·vastewater treatment The news continues: implications of words printed in plant .... environmental regulations; the average And on the international scene, American pays his water, sewer. trash Local economic growth has placed President Bush today announced collection, and utility bills; and here I increasing demands on environmental plans for a conference of world sit in line at the automobile emissions services in some places; local economic leaders to discuss deepening testing station. o decline has eroded tax bases, causing a concern over the apparent shortage of funding for such services in warming of the earth's (Kaines is o Branch Chief in the others. Local governments everywhere atmosphere ... Regulatory Integration Division of EPA's are straining against the competing Office of Policy Analysis.) social goals of economic development The changing global climate has and sustained environmental quality to robbed us of our optimism about the find the right balance for their own future. Public confidence has been communities. shaken by revelations of environmental problems not even imagined by the With the planned phaseout of organizers of Earth Day 1970. EPA's construction grants program, city officials must look to ... which could cause a melting local sources, such as tax of the polar ice cap and result in future flooding of some major coastal cities.

Who will find the wherewithal to meet these new challenges? How can we do a better job of addressing the old

JULY/AUGUST 1989 19 Could There Be a Better la\N?

by Frances H. Irwin

hat if, instead of multiple compartmentalization of e nvironmental W environmental statutes, there were programs has demonstrated dravvbacks: a single, comprehensive pollution • The re is a tendency, under separately control law governing environmental mandated programs, to transfer protection in the United States? Would pollutants from one part of the the institutional capacity of this country environment to another, as opposed to to protect the environment be finding long-term solutions to significantl y improved? To explore environmental problems or curtailing these kinds of questions, and generally pollution in the first place. Existing to stimulate debate concerning more laws frequently apply differing integrated approaches to environmental standards to control the same pollutants problems, The Conservation Foundation in different environmental media. In has drafted a ''model" law call ed The other cases, a pollutant may be Environmental Protection Act. controlled in some media but not others. Let me make clear at the outset that As a result, pollutants may be the model environmental statute is not "removed" to the least protected part of intended as a bill for proposal as such the environment. For example. waler to Congress. Rather. it is a working draft may be cleaned up by encouraging document intended as a research tool volatile pollutants to evaporate into the for exploring possibilities for air; this practice bas turned some wastewater treatment plants into major air polluters. As the 200-page Act shows, it • ew environmental problems are is indeed conceptually generally not recognized and acted on possible to deal with all forms promptly because no one is responsible of pollution within the for asking, for instance, what ultimately framework of a single law. happens to pollutants such as chlorofluorocarbons, vvhich we now know deplete the ozone layer, or the • The basic goal of protecting the restructuring envi ronmental law. Partly sulfur and nitrogen oxides that are environment is sometimes lost in the funded by EPA, the preparation of the damaging forests and fisheries. extraordinary com plexities and model statute is part of The Moreover, existing problems may not be technicalities of the existing legal Conservation Foundation's New adequately controlled because the structure. Each law establishes its m,vn Environmental Policy Project, vvhich sources are not identified. For example, procedures for collecting information. concerns the nature and extent of deposition of pollutants from the air is a granting permits, and taking cross-media environmental problems significant source of pollution in many enforcement actions, for exa mple. and how to deal with them. bodies of water. Efforts to clean up Currently, separate laws govern EPA's surface water pol lution will inevitably The working draft of the efforts to protect air, water, oceans, and be unsuccessful unless this source is Environmental Protection Act proposes drinking water; to clean up waste sites; taken into account. ways to cut through the current and to regulate waste management • It is difficult to set priorities and fragmentation of environmental statutes practices, pesticides a nd other toxic make budget d ecisions concerning in order to overcome basic obstacles to s ubstan ces, and noise. All of tl1ese separate programs without a common protecti ng the environment. As the environmental responsibilities a re goal and common denominator for 200-page Act shows, it is in deed in terrel a led. as stressed in the comparing the potential of program conceptually possible to deal with all reorganization plan that first established initiatives for protecting h ealth and the forms of pollution with in the framework EPA in 1970; however. in the environment. of a single law. intervening 20 years. the Agency's The Environmental Protection Act is separate program areas have each been • Some existing research shows that set up in terms of functions that include s trengthe ned uJJdcr separate new laws. pollution controls for facili ties, such as research, information-col lection and Progress has in fact been made using a new coal-fired power plant, would monitoring, permitting, sta ndard-setting, this approach. However, the cost significantly less to construct and and enforcement, for instance. These operate if designed as part of a system , are, of course, fami li ar components of rather than added on as an afterthought existing environmental laws, and to to meet the separate requirements of air, some extent, the model law can be water, and waste control standards. considered a codification of existi ng

20 EPA JOU RNA L Mike Bnsson photo Lake M r JI laKes are threatened not only by point and nonpo1nt-source wate• po Lot1or but o by the deposition of airborne pollutants originating hundreds of mile.. WJY A c oss nwd1a" approach is therefore needed to solve the Great Lakes' wa•er qu1 1ty pr b"

laws. However, the model law combines environment as effectively and cost-benefit analysis would not be a these provisions from different statutes efficiently as possible. fixed formula for deci ion-making: and, in the process, standardizes the The Environmental Protection Act procedures governing, for example, the proposes a single standard for all Nothing in this section shall be gathering of information, the granting of environmental decis ions, rega rdless of construed as requiring the permits, and enforcement actions for the source or location of the Secretary [of the proposed environmental violations. pollu tant- making it less likely that Department of Environmental In addition to standardizing pollution would be simply shifted Protection[ to perform q uantitati ve regulatory procedures, the model statute among different parts of the cost-benefit analysis. In exercising includes provisions that would environment. The standard proposed is the judgment necessary lo decide encourage or require consideration of "prevention of unreasonable risk," with whether an action under this Act the environment as a whole in all six factors to be considered when should be taken, the Secretary decisions- regardless of how local or applying this criterion to specific cases: shall give the greatest weight. to media-specific the problem seems- in the benefits of the proposed acti on. • Ri sk to humans and the environment an effort to all eviate compartmentalized decis ion-making. To begin with, the • Economic costs to society and the To avoid "paralysis by analysis," lhe model law would establish a distribution of those costs within proposal also gives the Secretnry the Cabinet-level Department of society discretion to determine the amount and Environmental Protection, likewise • Effects on technological innovati on type of analysis to be conducted for u organized by pollution-control function. particular decision, in proportion to the EPA's current mission is a combination • Existence of substitute products or importance of the decision. of the goals of the disparate laws it methods Consider, for exam ple, how the administers (which means that • Feasibility of implementing proposed overall standard might apply to functions su ch as research, for example, actions decisions concerning point sources. are driven largely by the individual, Limits on releases would be set for separately mandated programs). The • Potential effects on other nations. various categories of point sources proposed Department of Environmental based on the best technology to prevent While this overall sta ndard calls for Protectio n would have a single mission unreasonable risk from total releases consideration of costs and benefi ts, the to improve the overall quality of the from the source. The factors considered model makes it clear that quantitative JUL Y1AUG UST 1989 21 Netherlands Board of Tourism photo. in determining these limits would The limits on releases from point concentrations discharged into include the best technology available, sources might be expressed in terms of particular pathways (pounds released to the environmental impacts of applying total amount of a substance released (for air). A combination of these approaches it, and the efficiencies that could be instance, the total number of pounds of might also be used. In any case, the achieved by considering the toluene released from a facility by all limits would be applied to a facility relationships among all forms of pathways); alternatively, the limits through a single permit, rather than by pollution. might be expressed as amounts or separate permits for air, water, and waste releases. There is also a provision in the model law that would give some force to pollution reduction. This proposal Highlights of "The Environmental Protection Act." would make the issuance of a permit for • A Cabinet-level Department of and substances and articles environmental releases contingent on a finding that the applicant was using, or Environmental Protection, • A comprehensive, integrated organized by function and with a would use to the maximum extent system for regulating substances single mission: to improve the practical, the available pollution including new and existing reduction methods. overall quality of the environment pesticides and other chemicals as effectively and efficiently as In another significant change, the possible • A single-permit system model act would make it illegal to governing permissible releases of discharge any pollutants without a • One primary standard pollutants to all parts of the permit unless the pollutants or source (prevention of unreasonable risk) environment for major facilities have been explicitly exempted from for taking environmental action, regulation. regardless of the source of the • No permit issued unless the pollutant or the location into applicant uses, to the maximum Under the model law, nonpoint which it is discharged extent practical, available methods sources would be controlled through for reducing total releases to the management programs developed by the • A shift from media-specific environment states. The nonpoint source pollution concerns (e.g., air, water, solid control programs called for by the waste) to a broader focus on • Integrated grant assistance to Environmental Protection Act are releases to all media from the four state and local governments to somewhat similar to the programs types of sources: mobile sources, help deal with cross-media mandated by the 1987 amendments to point sources, nonpoint sources, environmental problems. the Clean Water Act, except that all media are covered, not just water. The 22 EPA JOURNAL The Netherlands and other Europcaf" countries are oevelop1ng and experirnen: ng with integrated approaches to environmental problems. Rather than focusing separately on air, wate<, and waste, the Netherlands has adopted a• 1nteyrated planning process focusing O'l t'ic. sources of pollution in all env1ronrrPntal media.

management programs would identify of environmental law professors. Those excessive cost" for pollutants released types or categories of nonpoint sources, who teach environmental law believe from major facilities to all media. The best management practices for dealing that efforts enmeshed in the details of Netherlands has developed an with them, and means for achieving the present laws, such as the Resource integrated planning process that focuses these practices-such as enforcement Conservation and Recovery Act and the on the sources of environmental and technical assistance. Superfund law, are fa iling to address problems and their effects, rather than Under the model law·s provision the fundamental causes and cures of separately on air, water, and waste. The concerning high-risk or persistent environmental problems. etherlands is also experimenting pollutants, standards could be set Moreover, in rethinking existing further with integrated permitting. limiting the total amount of a particular systems, we need to think globally, not Under the Swedish Environmental substance, such as a metal, permitted to just nationally. The World Commission Protection Act, the Swedes already enter the environment. The limit could on Environment and Development and control pollutants at major facilities be zero or background level; it might be the Organization for Economic through single permits, rather than set on a geographical basis or made to Cooperation and Development have multiple permits governing allowable apply to particular sources; limits could both identified the fragmentation of releases into specific media. also be set in terms of allowable institutions as an obstacle to effective In the Federal Republic of Germany, concentration in a particular environmental protection worldwide. some lawyers are exploring the environmental medium. The European Community noted the longer-term possibility of an It is important to point out that the same problem in its fourth environmental code based on Environmental Protection Act does not Environmental Action Programme. Vorsorgeprinzip, the principle of exist in a vacuum. For the immediate Changes are now occurring in Europe. foresight or precaution. prospect, certain initiatives take steps For instance, the United Kingdom is In closing, let me emphasize again toward achieving a more integrated introducing legislation that would apply that the Environmental Protection Act is approach to environmental issues in the "best available technology not entailing a working draft, intended to propose a United States. For example, legislation framework for restructuring and has been introduced in Congress which integrating pollution control laws. As would mandate waste reduction defined Consolidating such, it helps in overcoming the first in terms of all media. Also, EPA is obstacle to the status quo: the looking at options for improving its Environmental Laws conception of alternatives to the present enforcement by developing more fragmented system. Pilot projects consistent procedures across program The integrated statute drafted as a implementing some of the model lines. And following the research tool by The Conservation statute's proposals on an experimental recommendation of a recent report, a Foundation consolidates basis, such as single permits instead significant amount of research is likely provisions from the following of multiple permits governing to be targeted to overall risk-reduction laws: environmental releases, could help across rriedia. • The Clean A i.r Act overcome a second obstacle: a lack of Obviously, fundamental change in data on the application of integrated U.S. environmental law will not occur • The Clean Water Act environmental programs in the real overnight; rather the prospects for such • The Safe Drinking Water Act world. o change are longer-term. In 1969, concerns about the inability of the • The Comprehensive (Irwin is a Senior Associate with The existing system to solve pressing Environmental Response, Conservation Foundation's environmental problems led The Compensation, and Liability Act Environmental Quality Program.) Conservation Foundation to sponsor the ("Superfund"), as amended by the Law and Environment Conference that Superfund Amendments and helped give impetus to the development Reauthorization Act of 1986 of environmental law. One indication of • The Resource Conservation and the need for rethinking the field 20 Recovery Act years later comes from a recent survey • The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act • The Toxic Substances Control Act • The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act • The Noise Control Act.

JULY/AUGUST 1989 23 use. !or example. has increased ten-fold EPA and the World in this century. and the resulting e missions have likewise grown: sulfur d ioxide, six-fold: nitrogen oxides. Clean-up Puzzle ten-fold; carbon dioxide. ten-fold. Meanwhile. human demands on by James Gustave Speth biological systems have grown to the point that we consume about 40 percent of the world's total terrestrial wenty years ago, the U.S. The environmental concerns novv photosynthetic productivity. and much Tgovernment responded vigorously to gai ning prominence encompass the of this is occurring in a way that is not a rapidly growing public concern about li fe-s upporting systems of the planet's biologically sustainable. For the first the environment. ew national policies biosphere. They include the alteration time, human impacts have grown to were declared; EPA and other agencies of climate and biogeochemical cycles, approximate those of the natural were created; and major pollution the destruction of earth's ozone shield, processes that control the global clenn-up and resource management the loss of tropical forests and li fe-support system. initiatives were launched. biodiversity, the spread of traditional The future could hold more of the It is customary lo think of that fertile pollutants beyond urban-industrial areas same-a lot more. The scale and period as giving birth to modern and across national borders, and the momentum of economic activity on the environmentalism in America, but that erosion of the natural resource base in planet today are difficult to is only partly true. The period from the developing countries. Increasingly, comprehend. It took a ll of human mid-1960s to the mid-1970s also environmental concerns ar history to grow to the $600-bi II ion represented something else: a shift in transcending national laws and are world economy of 1900. Today the environmental initiative from the state intersecting international economic and world economy grows by more than this and local level to the national level. The security interests in powerful ways. amount every two years. By the middle fo cus of leadership changed because the The emergence of environmentalism of the next century, a scant lifetime environmental challenges of the cl ay in recent decades- first local. then away, our human world of five billion could only be tackled successfull y on a national, and now international-has people will likely double to 10 billion, national basis. much to do with the successes and and our global economy of $12 trillion Today, we a re seeing a remarkably failures of economic activity. The 20th likely will be five times as large as simil ar surge in environmental interest. Century has witnessed explosive today. Once again, the media are full of stories, growth. World population has tripled to Societies near and far have set two and environme ntalists are ful l of five bi llion. and today's world economy long-term goals for themselves- proposals. But there is a basic is 20 times larger than in 1900. i mproving environmental quality and difference. Today the shift in attention One result is that pollution and waste achieving large increases in economic is from the nati onal level to the generation are occurring on a vast and activity. Reconciling these two goals international. unprecedented scale. Global fossil fuel w ill be one of the dominant

USDA photo challenges facing political leaders on all conflic ts with other countries, a nd to manufactured by processes that harm continents in the 1990s and beyond. realize m utual benefits. including the environment. much as we restrict The United States should be a leader in economic progress and the protection of imports of endangered species and meeting this challenge. but whether \\'e the common natural heritage of harmful products? Should we import lead or follow. we will have to respond. mankind. As such. it is not entirely copper from countries where smelters For EPA, this nev\' reality will require new. The register of international operate without serious pollution major changes in two areas: conventions a nd protocols in the field control? international activities and tec hnology of the e11\'ironment has grown steadily Much of EPA's international a c tivit~ · transformation. in this centur : the main multilateral in the past bas fo cused on the treaties today number about 100. many Organization of Economic Cooperation International Activities of them having to do with the and Development and other protection of the marine environment trans-Atlantic matters. In the future, the Several factors are pushing and wildlife. North-South and East-West dimensions environmental concerns increasingly What is new is the prospect that will ri al the orth-:North ones in into the international arena. More and environmental issues will move from a importance. It alread) seems clear that more, pollution is transboundary and secondary to a primary international solutions to the most serious global even global in scope. Pressures on concern and in creasingly croV\ d the environmental challenges will require a shared resources, such as river basins diplomatic agendas of nations. And series of vital understandings between and coastal fisheries, are mounting. these diplomatic agendas in turn will the industrial and the de\'eloping Resource deterioration in many nations increasingly affect domestic countries. is so extensive that other countries are environmental policy. U.S. For example, the developing countri es affected. for example, when ecological environmental policy will more and will expect the industrial countries to refugees fl ee across borders. As more be set in concert with other take the first and strongest actions on international trade increases. nations. global warming. They will want to see commodities and merchandise become It is not fully discernible what the the seriousness of the threat validated, the carri ers of domestic e nvironmental challenge of ''internationalization" and they will conclude, quite correctly , policies that must be rationa li zed. means for EPA in practical terms. that the industrial countries are largely It is n.ot just that there are more Eventually. major policy a nd responsible for the problem and have environmental problems like ozone institutional innovations will be the most resou rces to do something depletion that must be dealt with at the required. Certain preliminary initiatives about it. international level; it is also that the seem highly desirable, though. But a tragic stalemate w ill occur if line between national and international Elevating the head of EPA's Office of this argument is carried too far. environmental problems is fast International Activities to 1\ ssistant Developing countries already account disappearing. Administrator status was a for about a fourth of all "greenhouse" Nitrogen oxide emiss ions. for commendable step in the right gas emissio ns, and their share could example, must be regulated locally direction. Efforts to give international double by the middle of the next because of ground-level ozone dimens ions a higher priority within the century. Increasingly, all countries will forma ti on, regionally because of acid Agen cy should continue. Even more be pressed to adopt energy and forestry rain, and globally because ground-level important is ensuring that domestic and strategies that are consiste nt with ozone is an infra-red trapping international activ ities are actually containing the Greenhouse Effect within "greenh ouse" gas. Methane and, coordinated internally. tolerable limits. indirectly, carbon monoxid e also EPA also needs a world-class capacity The Un ited States and EP 1\ need t contribute to the Greenhouse Effect. to follow relevant developments in build a new set of relationships with In these instances, domestic and other countries a nd in international developing country officials so that global environme ntal concerns pus h in institutions , to u nderstand and analyze confidence and trust are built for the the same direction. On the other hand, a the various approaches to challenging times ahead. One major step major move to methanol as a substitute environmental protection being taken in this direction wou ld be for the for gasoline could increase the global abroad, and to anticipa te future needs United States to initiate a new program warming risk. A car burning metha nol and developments at the international of international environmental mad e from coal would result in perhaps level. cooperation with developing countries. twice the carbon dioxide emissions per Beyond EPA's internal workings, new Su ch a program would not be limited mile as one burning gasoline. patterns of relating to other federal to AID-eligible countries but would Environmental diplomacy is the agencies seem desirable. either global extend to countries like Brazil and logical outgrowth of the desire to nor local atmospheric issues are likely Mexico. It would provide technical protect one's own national environment, to be solved unless energy and assistance, training, access to to minimize environment-related environmental policy are made together information and expertise, and planning in the future. As environmental grants all aimed al increasing the diplomacy increases, finding capacity of developing countries to appropriate patterns of interaction w ith manage their environmental cha ll enges. the Department of State w ill become EPA should also begin to think Erosion control o:i an Iowa farm: When imperative. creatively about how international cor:i is planted in the residue of last year's soyoea'1 crop, no tilling is required. The Moreover, the future is likely to bring environmental regulation should be author p1oposes a special panel to increasing efforts to link environmental done in the future. The ad hoc recommend ways in which major sectors of objectives and trade poli cy. For processes that have led to the the economy, such as agriculture, might be example, should the United States redesigned to meet economic needs restrict imports of products that are without degrading the environment.

JULY/AUGUST 1989 25 stratospheric ozone layer convention reducing the pressures on the natural To start this process, the President and other agreements will need environment. and EPA could establish a distinguished eventually to be replaced by a more We need the technology for a nevv panel from within and outs ide expeditious, permanent mechanism that agriculture, one redesigned to be government to recommend long-term can function across a broad range of sustainable both economically and goals fo r meeting the fo llowing issues. ecologically, which stresses low input of challenge: how can the major sectors of It is interesting to ask whether the commercial fertilizers, pesticides, and the U.S. economy-manufacturing, evolution of environmental energy. And we need new technology to agriculture, transportation, housing, and decision-making in the European transform industry and transportation energy- be redesigned in the years Community offers lessons for other from an era of materials-intensive, ahead so that they fulfill economic contexts. What happened in Europe, "high-throughput" processes to an era needs without destroying our na1ional where both economic integration and that uses fuel and material with great and global environments? transboundary pollution led to efficiency, generates little or no waste, What are the critical technologies in coordinated environmental policies, is recycles residuals, releases only benign each sector, and how can they be actually happening more slowly on a products to the environment, and is, further developed and promoted? The world scale as the world economy hence, more "closed." panel would examine what America's expands and becomes more integrated. Guiding and speeding the application longer term goals should be in these areas, and it would explore how "seeing Technology Transformation of solution-oriented technologies will also require institutional innovation at the future" can be used to enhance A second major challenge is for EPA to EPA. What if EPA were organized not American exports and promote other organize to promote rapid and strictly by air pollution, water pollution, national goals. far-reaching technological change. pesticides, and so on, but by A new federal center associated with Imagine, just as a simple thought transportation, manufacturing, EPA could be created to work as a experiment, what would happen if agriculture, energy, and housing? These catalyst within the federal system and "greenhouse" gases, industrial waste, great sectors of economic services are between government and the private and other pollutants increased technology-based and sector. The center would have a policy proportionately with the five-fold technology-driven. In the past EPA has research budget and would carry out a expansion in world economic activity tended to stand "outside," imposing variety of research, convening, projected for the middle of the next external pollution control standards. coordinating, and educating functions. It century. That would indeed happen if In the future, EPA must come would try to define a series of win-win this growth merely replicates over and "inside," and environmental factors options and stimulate public and over today's prevailing technologies, must be integrated into the basic design private action to promote these options. broadly conceived. of our transportation, energy, and other Alternatively, EPA could create an Seen this way, reconciling the systems. A new type of cooperation Assistant Administrator for Technology economic and environmental goals among the private sector, EPA, and Strategy with a staff of scientists, societies have set for themselves will traditional Cabinet agencies, and engineers, business managers, occur only if there is a transformation in environmental advocates must be economists, and others organized by technology: a shift, unprecedented in formed. Together, we must work economic sectors. Similar offices should scope and pace, to technologies-high upstream to change the products, be established in other federal agencies and low, soft and hard-that facilitates processes, policies, and pressures that and given mandates to cooperate with economic growth while sharply give rise to pollution. EPA in promoting patterns of environmentally sustainable development. Environmental protection began as a IF THE.YMR local and national concern, but the FIX T~E H:)LE challenges ahead are such that it must IN TME R0:t become a major international concern as well. It began on the periphery of the l~~~ek&~ THE economy, bottling up some pollution Fck.. us· here, saving a bit of landscape there, but ~~..... it must spread a creed and code to the core of economic activity. By moving ahead to address these new realities, EPA can perform an immense public service. o

(Gus Speth is President of the World Resources Institute, an environmental research and policy institute in Washington, DC.)

26 EPA JOURNAL From a 11Polluter's" Vie\N by John W. Rowe

ew industries have been more Fdirectly affected by environmental laws and regulations than the electric utility industry. The industry's power plants and generating units burn large quantities of fuel and produce significant amounts of pollutants, but they deliver a particularly useful form of energy to homes and businesses ti across their service areas. Ji A natural target for pollution control g strategies and environmental ~ regulations, utilities have been called 1? upon to make and have, in fact, } achieved a significant contribution to - improving the environment since major l environmental legislation was first The New England Electric System has designed energy conservation programs to investment involved on new pollution provide customers w ith the same electric If we are not careful, we may control equipment. As a result, we are service while using fewer kilowatt -hours. find ourselves spending more burning coal with significantly lower One method includes installing particulate and sulfur emissions than energy-efficient lighting in customer and more on environmental we emitted with oil. buildings, a practice pictured here. controls for less and less Our experience was an economic and benefit, without fully environmental success, but it also addressing the key illustrates a flaw in the current of emissions on the atmosphere. At the environmental issues of the approach to environmental regulation. same time, technological, point-source day. Under this approach, the primary solutions are running headlong into the regulatory objective has been to law of diminishing returns. If we are not minimize emissions levels at individual careful, we may find ourselves spending enacted 20 years ago. Our experience at point sources by using costly technology more and more on environmental New England Electric indicates that the to capture emissions "at the end of the controls for less and less benefit, integration of energy-conservation pipe." without fully addressing the key programs with the more traditional, In general, environmental costs have environmental issues of the day. technological approaches to emissions been factored into project decisions by A new approach to today's reduction can be an important means utility companies only insofar as the environmental issues may be necessary. for achieving President George Bush's company's compliance strategy required We need to move from the present recently enunciated clean air goals. additional investments or operating solution of minimizing emissions from Over the past 20 years, the record of expense outlays. Moreover, the specific sources to minimizing New England Electric illustrates the regulatory standards in existing emissions from the mix of sources used kind of commitments required to environmental laws tend to result in to provide electric service. achieve environmental goals. Before increased investment or expense President Bush's approach to acid 1970, we burned coal at several associated with each emissions rain appears to move in the right generating stations. When the Clean Air source-to the point where any direction with its focus on a least-cost Act was passed, we switched to oil to economic benefits of an individual concept that maximizes flexibility in the achieve lower costs and compli ance proposal are sharply limited, even if the way emissions reductions are achieved with air emissions regulations. But after proposal would reduce emissions over and expressly rejects a "command and the oil price shocks of the 1970s, we existing faci Ii ties. control," end-of-the-pipe approach to converted the units back to coal and But the environmental focus is now the acid rain issue. Moreover, the spent more than half of the $300 million beginning to shift away from point-source controls to the total impact

JULY/AUGUST 1989 27 Since 1979, the New E"ng li.l•ld E cct c System has employed load management and conservatio'l programs 1n its three-state service area Here, a representative of the company's Partners in Energy Planning' prograrr w•nps e1 home water heater.

some in the ongoing acid rain debate. Customers of the New England Electric system companies, for example. should not have to pay to clean up other utilities' emissions, particularly when they have already supported our company's environmental investments. Moreover, those evaluating future expenditures on control projects should include all costs of control in their attainment strategies. Subsidies for certain environmental investments, but not others, tends to encourage bias toward expensive end-of-the-pipe

New England Electnc pharo solutions. By reflecting the full value of demand-side conservation and President's program acknowledges the introducing such conservation measures load-management programs and by impact that conservation and lo our customers, we will produce avoiding subsidization of costly load-management programs can have in significant environmental benefits controls, we can assure that all parties meeting our national acid rain goals and throughout ew England. have th e flexibility and incentive to other environmental objectives. These conservation-related emissions accomplish emissions targets efficiently Over the past several years, ew savings have not been taken into and effectively. This is especially England Electric has implemented major account under the traditional approach important when in vestment in conservation and load-management to environmental regulation. These conservation efforts may well avert a programs to provide our customers the emissions redu ctions have not been much greater investment in high-priced same electric service with fewer credited by the regulatory process. so technology. kilowatt-hours. Under these programs, their environmental benefits would not In sum, we must do a better job of we pay the costs of new conservation be seen as creating economic savings in integrating economic and environmental measures in the homes, factories. an emissions control compliance objectives in our overall resource schools, nnd businesses aero ·s our strategy. Thus, the true economic and plann ing. This can be achieved by service territory. This yenr alone, we are environmental value of such programs establishing overall emissions targets spending about $40 million to install has been understated. To achieve our and allowing fl exibility in resource energy-efficient lights, insulnte water environmental goals more efficiently, decisions to achieve these targets, rather heaters, improve industrinl efficiency, the new regulatory approach should than simply adding more capital and wentherize electricall y hented nnd provide the incentives and flexibility investment at the en d of the p ipe. cooled buildings. necessary to encourage reduction of By creating a system of cred its for 13y 1991, we expect our progrnms to total emissions in the overa ll plan, not energy conservation programs, we can save 300 megawatts of powE~r required just al specific point sources. assure that the economic and to meet penk demands. Over the next 20 This kind of approach is now being environmental values of such efforts are years, conservation should save over tried in Massachusetts. Under the state's reflected in our resource plans. This 1,000 megawatts of capacity and meet acid rain law and recently issued strategy will allow u tilities to achieve one-third of the lond growth projected regulations. utilities are al lowed environmental targets through in our service territory. emissions credits for investments in conservation that These programs will provide our conservation-related reductions as we provide better service to our customers customers the same e lectric service they work to achieve state-imposed acid rain rather than end-of-the-pipe controls that now receive. but with fewer compliance targets. We understand that only add costs to our products. o kilowatt-hours. And. they will provide the Bush administration is considering the same electri c service with redu eel a llowing meaningful credits for (R owe is Pres ident and Chief Executive emissions into the environment. demand-side programs that may provide Officer of the New Eng/and Electric The emissions savings are impressive. real economic benefits to utilities for System.) For example, one energy-efficient light conservation programs in their bulb saves nbout 400 pounds of coal or compliance plans. Such credits w ill one barrel of oi l over its lifetime. By provide the power industry with the d irect economic incentives necessary to achieve the nation's environmental objectives most efficiently . The President also has correctly rejected the fee approach suggested by

28 EPA JOURNAL Next Steps the States Could Take by Robert Bendick

uring the medical waste scare of the someth ing." In response. each person reaching a point of dimin ishing returns Ds ummer of 1988, a prescription elected or appointed to office reaffirm in pursuing new and more d etail ed bottle that had washed u p on a Rhode the crusade against polluters and environmental regulatory programs. I Island beach was turned in to the State dumpers of toxic wa te. say this despite the fa ct that I ha\'e Health De partment. The bottle '"'as one It is not surprising that the public directed a state environmental of few such items of medical refu se that envisions bad guys behind regulatory agency for seven years. displayed legible printed info rmati on, environmental problems. Environmen tal personally supervising a succe sful team and criminal investigators from Rhode of criminal investigator of Island's De partment of Environmental environmental crimes. Management were able to trace it to a I believe we are reaching a A great deal of environmental da mage wom an in the Borough of Queens in point of diminishing returns in comes fr om manv small , individual New York City. The in vestigators hoped actions of fa milies an d busines ·es. Th is that the woman would rem ember w here pursuing new and more damage w ill not be alleviated th rough she had d is posed of the bottle and that detailed environmental regu latory enforcement alone. People this info rmation wou ld lead them to a regulatory programs. must become voluntarv stewards of the waste hauling firm , hospital, clinic, or environment. They m ~st better other culpable entity that had dumped u n derstand that not all environmental medical waste in the Atlantic Ocean. action in this country has been driven problems are "someone else's fa ult." The w oma n from Queens must have by a series of discoveri es of terrible Only changes in the way we li \'C. spend been astonished when d etectives wrongs don e to our land, air, and water our time, use our lan d . spend our confronted her with questions about a by people who knew or should have money, and cooperate with and sacri fice seemingly ordinary ite m of garbage. To known better. However, l believe we are fo r each other will preserve acceptable everyone 's dismay, however, she was unable to shed light on how the pill bottle had ended up in the Atlantic . In retrospect, the investigati on of the u J /\l WASTE DE89~~ pill bottle from Queens seems excessive, but like other, similar cases it illustrates the pressure on government to fi nd FLONlrl RT someone or some evil conspiracy to blame fo r environmental problems. Toward the end of last summer, when the evidence strongly indicated that the Tll> \I 1 I ICU ... , I" t I I \ HT plastic medical refu se reaching '' \\ '1 111C1, I I \ 10 111 1( shorelines east and west of ew York City probably came from New York's storm sew ers, its littered shorelines, and its major landfill, there was a sense of public frustration. People were skeptical and d isappointed when a bad guy couldn't be fo und and strung up for spoiling summer at the beach. In state government, where most front-line environmental regulation and permitting takes p lace, this syndrome is all too familiar. Citizens. outraged by continuing environmental problems, demand that public officials "do

Environmental policy making at the local level. New York City Councilwoman Susan Molinari proposes stringent tracking of medical waste from medical and dental practices too small to be covered by t h.e state's medical waste tracking law. At this Midland Beach press conference, she presents a chart of combined sewer and storm water outfalls, which, she declares, r deposit medical waste on local beaches. c< • .l •

Rob So/feet photo. Staten Island Register JU LY/AUGUST 1989 29 environmental conditions. recyclables are collected and marketed environmental agencies much more say To bring about such changes, state in a standardized way. State agencies in transportation policy at every level. government must begin by changing the must move to organize collection, We have learned that natural systems way it manages the environment by ensure quality control, and work with such as forests and wetlands can help adding new approaches to the other states to develop reliable markets. preserve the quality of air and water. environmental programs which have Deposit-and-return legislation may be Wetlands process pollutants; vegetated been successful so far. ln particular, the an effective economic means for buffer zones protect water from following deserve consideration: achieving safe disposal or reuse of nonpoint sources of pollution. Green certain environmentally harmful areas can reduce air pollution and • We should use economic incentives products. With deposit systems, unless separate conflicting land uses. While to modify individual and corporate many states have wetlands protection behavior at levels that are not amenable laws, few use the acquisition and to regulation. management of park and forest land as Many state transportation part of pollution-control strategies. As This will mean new roles for state departments still see with transportation, progress in regulators of public utilities. It will environmental concerns as integrating public lands policies with require, among other things, new secondary to the goal of environmental goals will require new programs to make recycling mandatory kinds of cooperative action among state (and to sustain markets for recycled achieving desired levels of transportation service. agencies. material). Deposit-and-return Most land-use regulation remains in requirements for environmentally local hands. This is unlikely to change, harmful products also warrant but local decision-makers could become consideration. an item (say a car battery or tire) is much more informed about the Public utility regulators have returned to the dealer and then to the environmental implications of land-use traditionally set water, sewer, and manufacturer, the deposit required at decisions. States could use tools such as electric rates to ensure that the public is the time of purchase is lost. Rhode Island's statewide computerized protected from excessive rate increases Deposit-and-return systems encourage Geographic Information System to by utility monopolies. Utility manufacturers to develop ways of provide local officials with information commissions are generally not reusing or reprocessing returned on ground water, surface water, considered environmental agencies. materials. Given the questionable wetlands, and other environmental However, since water, sewer, and success of hazardous waste tracking concerns, in order to improve the energy use are effectively influenced by laws, a deposit-and-return system might quality of local land-use actions. rate structures, environmental goals even make sense for industrial should be given weight in rate chemicals. • Environmental data-gathering within decisions. This would require new regulatory programs needs to be • State transportation and public lands formal channels of communication simplified and integrated in a way that policies as well as local land-use between utility regulators and aJJows regulated industries and public planning should be integrated with environmental agencies and officials to better understand the nature environmental goals. collaboration on decisions such as the and impacts of industrial wastes. disposition of any windfall revenue Automobile use has profound, direct derived from environmentally driven Despite all the discussion of the need to impacts on air and water quality. Public rate setting. address environmental problems in a investment in roads and mass transit As the first state to implement a unified way, states are required by alternatives is crucial in influencing mandatory statewide solid-waste federal legislation and EPA regulations land development decisions. However, recycling program, Rhode Island has to collect and analyze data from many state transportation departments found that, while citizens are industry in accordance with each still see environmental concerns as remarkably cooperative, economically separate air, water, and hazardous waste secondary to the goal of achieving successful recycling does not happen by program. Businesses are thus confronted desired levels of transportation service. itself. It is necessary to restructure with a dizzying variety of forms to The basic approach to state manufacturing in several industries to document their compliance with transportation planning must be accept vast quantities of recycled pollution-control legislation. All of this changed within the nation's urban material in order to achieve the helps perpetuate the problem of corridors so that environmental often-stated goal of recycling 25 percent pollutants being moved from water to improvement becomes an explicit of the nation's solid waste stream. air to land, without sufficient thought purpose of transportation investment This goal can be accomplished only if being given to overall pollution that makes use of state and federal reduction. funds. This would require governors to restructure transportation decision-making in most states to give

30 EPA JOURNAL Saving the environment requires innovation and ingenuity. Here, Thomas E. Wright, Executive Director, Rhode Is and Solid Waste Management Corporation, stands next to a flare that burns methane gas to control odors at New England's largest landfill, thus reducing the amount of landfill gases released to the atmosphere. Beginning in the spring of 1990, the methane gas will be converted into enough electricity for 20,000 homes.

Chesapeake Bay, and efforts to clean up more and do more for environmental and protect the Connecticut River all protection. demonstrate that states can better Recently I stopped by the home of a address problems facing a natural young engineer, one of my brightest and resource by banding together to take most conscientious colleagues, to try to action appropriate to that resource. convince him not to leave state Regional efforts can no longer be government. He said he was tired of vague, ceremonial expressions of good being an environmental regulator, of will. For example, the northeast air always being in the middle, of being directors, through an organization called distrusted and abused by both citizens Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. have brought eight states together in lowering gas volatility regulations to reduce Local decision-makers could ozone formation in the Northeast. become much more informed Similarly, the Chesapeake Bay states are about the environmental working together to solve the bay's implications of land-use problems. A whole new series of decisions. interstate compacts is needed to achieve regional ends. • States must take an active role in and representatives of industry. He was, restructuring municipal sewer and I believe, tired of trying to resolve issues water districts to ensure that they have and conflicts, through narrow regulatory the fiscal and technical resources to procedures, which the society as a meet increasing environmental whole has not resolved. demands. 1f we are to continue to make environmental progress in the 1990s, In general. citizens have shown a Americans must move beyond the idea willingness to pay more for that only a few individuals or environmental protection. However, corporations are to blame for recent studies by EPA reveal that the environmental problems and that the

Rhode Island Solid Wasre Management Co1porat1on photo. costs of upgraded wastewater and way to solve these problems is for drinking-water treatment fall government to apportion blame and 1f states were given more freedom by disproportionately on smaller then extract retribution. federal legislation, they could develop communities and those with a high At the state level, strict regulation single standardized reporting forms fo r proportion of low-income people. Small will always be a necessary part of industry. Such standardized forms districts also often lack the technical environmental protection; however, might then be used by reorganized state expertise to operate sophisticated through new strategies such as those monitoring agencies and by the treatment plants and supporting described in this article, we can broaden businesses themselves to aid real environmental programs such as the base of environmental responsibility reductions in overall environmental industrial pretreatment. In addition, as so that concerns about th future of the impacts. water consumption and use behavior air, water, and land of our planet have become recognized as important become an integral part of the decisions • New regional relationships among factors in waste treatment, there are we make in every aspect of our lives. o states are needed to deal with the more reasons to integrate water and environmental large natural problems of sewer management within watershed (Bendick is Director of Environmental systems. areas. Management for the State of nhode These trends suggest a need for state Island.) Physical and natural boundaries (rather governments to take an active role in than political jurisdictions) must be examining the established patterns of used as the basis for environmental water, sewer, and other environmental programs; this means far more regional districts, with the objective of cooperation among states. The ozone combining jurisdictions to balance costs problem in the northeast corridor, the to individuals and businesses and to continuing water quality problems of improve environmental performance. Each citizen and industry-might then feel treated fa irly and be willing to pay

JULY/AUGUST 1989 31 Making the Smog Cleanup Happen in L.A. by James M . Lents

l's daybreak in Southern California, have resulted in today's cars emitting 10 oil companies, 24 on other businesses Iand millions of people rise to begin a percent or less of the pollutants emitted and industries, 23 concerning paints daily routine of unconscious polluting by the typical mid-1960s car. and solvents, 52 traffic and mobile amidst forecasts of another smoggy day. This progress, however. is being source measures, and 13 residential and Each household ooks breakfast on a slowed. And if present trends continue agricultural measures. Tier II, five to 10 gas stove that has an ever-burning pilot unchecked, the gains we have made will years out, further tightens these light, after spraying aerosol cooking oil soon be reversed by population growth, measures, and Tier III , 10 to 20 years into an egg-poaching pan. ln the more motor vehicles and more driving, out, calls for total conversion of the bathroom, people shower and reach for basin's vehicle fl eet to extremely the aerosol deodorant. low-polluting technologies, such as Then they each hit the road for a solo Smaller cars, microwave electric motors powered by fuel cells or car commute in bumper-to-bumper ovens, and water-based house batteries, highly controlled methanol or traffic. At lunchtime, everyone hops in paints have been widely natural gas veh icles, and industry use of the car again. visits a drive-up light-curable surface coatings. automated banking machine. then lines accepted without Some complain this plan will require up ;ind idles at a drive-through revolutionary lifestyle Big Brother tactics. But the Orwellian res tau rant. changes. What the AQMD is analogy could not be further from the In the evening, they all fill their advocating is much along the truth. lawnmowers w ith gasoline, cut the same lines. First, rather than alienating the grass, and drench the barbecue charcoal basin 's citizenry, AQMD is seeking to briquets wi th lighter fluid. involve people in the debate over While each person adds a only tiny a proliferation of small bus inesses. such cleaning up the air. bit to the area's air pollution, the result as dry cleaners, and lifestyle habits that Second, AQMD is working to educate adds up lo make the South Coast Air promote dirty air. people so they can help clean up the Basin the Super Bowl of smog. Residential and commercial sources basin 's air through informed personal The basin is home to 12 m illi on account for 280 tons, or 22 percent of choices, such as carpooling. Recent residents (more than the individual the 1,246 tons of reactive organic gases polls indicate these educational efforts populations of al l the states except emitted daily, and 142 tons, or 14 are having results, with the California, New York, and Texas), 8 percent of the 1,040 tons of nitrogen overwhelming ma jority of basin million motor vehicles (three times as oxides, both prime contributors to residents saying they are willing to many as in all of India), and the world's ozone. Use of domestic aerosols and make s uch personal changes. largest gasoline market. 1t includes Los other consumer products alone accounts Third, many changes will be largely Angeles. Orange, and Rivers ide counties for more than 93 tons a day of reactive invisible to consumers as long as the and the metropolitan portion of San organic gas emissions, or 8 percent of zero- or low-polluting alternatives Berna rdino County. And it has the the total. perform up to the consumer's worst air qualit y in the nation, Mobile sources emit 52 percent of the expectations, w hether this be cars, exceeding one or more federal hea lth basin's reactive organic gases and 72 lawnmowers. deodorants, or barbecues. standards on 232 days in 1988. percent of the nitrogen oxides. The As long as we get where we want to go, In the South Coast Air Basin , the South Coast Air Quality Management mow the lawn. cook the steaks, and federal ozone standard was violated 178 District (AQMD) proje ts that the have deodorized armpits, most days in 1988, and the carbon monoxide number of vehicles in the basin will consumers will not m ind. Big Brother standard 61 days. The basin exceeds the increase by 35 percent and tha t miles will not be watching. In fact, only zero­ fi ne partic ulate matter standard by 100 traveled will increase 68 percent by and low-polluting products will be sold percent in some areas a nd is the on ly 2010, if nothing is clone. in the basin. place in the nation that still fa ils to Therefore, to continue down the path Smaller cars, microwave ovens, and meet the federal nitrogen dioxide to clean air, the South Coast AQMD water-based house paints have been standard. must not only tighten industrial controls widely accepted without revolutionary Em issions controls on the largest but also change some of the behavior industries and motor vehicles over the patterns of millions o( Southern years have helped cut pollution, w ith Californians. peak ozone levels steadily declining Find polluting vehicles. Stop therT'. Issue On March 17, 1989, the AQMD board citations and advise drivers bow tJ "cl11ci11 from .68 parts per million (ppm) in of directors adopted a three-tiered plan up their act." That sums up the rrnss1011 of 1955 to .35 ppm in '1 988. The nation 's to achieve the nitrogen d ioxide and the eight-member California Hi~;hway strictest tailpipe emissions standards carbon monoxide standards by 1997 and Patrol's smog enforcement team, which those for ozone and fine particulates by operates throughout Southern CaliforrrnJ. 2007. The w hite patrol cars bear the South Co

32 EPA JOURNAL lifestyle changes. What the AQMD is encourage development and use of the Los Angeles Museum of Science and advocating is much along the same a lternate means of transportation. Industry. lines. AQMD is already far along in As AQMD proceeds with its plan, it is Cleaning up the air involves an implementing its ridesharing program writing a new chapter in the history of incremental, multi-pronged effort. All requirements. By mid-1991, some 8,500 clean air in this basin-and a slightly sectors of our society contribute to the major employers will be required to different routine as millions of southern air pollution problem, and all must provide strong incentives fo r their Californians arise at daybreak to radio contribute to the solution. employees to car pool or use alternate forecasts of another clear day. That AQMD must continue to tighten modes of transportation, such as publi c routine will be roughly as follows. pollution control requirements for major Brew coffee on an electronic-ignition industries as better technologies become gas stove, and spray a light m ist of available. Moreover, controls must be In the evening, cut the lawn cooking oil onto the pan from a extended to smaller businesses, such as with an electric mower and pump-spray bottle. the 4,000 auto body paint shops in the start the patio barbecue with Take a shower dra\Yn from a basin, and crafted in a way that will not para/in-treated briquets while solar-assisted water heater. and reach cause undue economic hardships. for the stick deodorant. We mus t join with leading engineers gazing in the fading sunlight Carpool in a methanol-powered car or and scientists, both here and abroad, to at the purple mountains 60 catch the vanpool group in its electri c develop cleaner fuels for cars and miles away. van, thereby saving fuel an d auto industry, cleaner industrial process insurance. Walk to a nearby eatery in technology, and ultimately the office park for lunch. non-polluting materials. To push transit or vanpools. This regulatory In the evening, cut the lawn with an technology, AQMD's technology program is coupled with an aggressive electric mower and start the patio advancement office is fu nding research public information campaign to promote barbecue with parafin-treated briquets and demonstration projects through its the clean air benefits of ridesharing and while gazing in the fading sunlight at five-year, $30.4-million matching grant other congestion relief measures. the purple mountains 60 m iles away. o program. In other educational areas, AQMO is To reduce emissions generated by d eveloping a model curriculum on air (Dr. Lents is an Executive Offi cer with indirect sources of pollution, su ch as pollution for local schools and an the So uth Coast Air Quality shopping centers, AQMD must exhibit on the causes of pollution for Management District.)

Cafdom1a Highway Parral photo, Onrano, Cafdou11a

JULY/AUGUST 1989 33 John Quarles

an we continue to wait The threat of resource Can We Win with the Cuntil the wolf is at the constraints hobbling our door in dealing with future also seems less environmental problems, imminent today than when Crisis-Oriented especially when we face the Club of Rome Report was serious new challenges to our issued [The Limits to Growth: global ecology? Pragmatically A Report for the Cl ub of Approach? speaking, perhaps a better Rome's Project on the question would be: Do we Predicament of Mankind Tvvo Observers Speak have any choice? (Washington, DC: Potomac The answer to either Associates, 1972)], and the question may ultimately risks of drastic shortages in New environmental Jaws and Greenhouse Effect. Will the depend on which problem energy supply, for now at policies have typically come "reactive" environmental we are talking about. It least, seem more remote. about in the wake of crises approach work in dealing depends on how serious they There are many reasons for and disasters- the Donora, with the new generation of turn out to be. It depends on this progress, all relevant to Pennsylvania, air pollution environmental problems what consequences we are our capacity to respond to episode; the gross pollution confronting us7 EPA Journal willing to accept. crises in the future. American of Lake Erie; the gos leak at asked two respected Before jumping to ingenuity and Union Carbide's plant in observers on the conclusions on either side of resourcefulness deserve Bhopal, Tndio. However, environmental scene-former these questions, we should much of the credit: we have environmental problems of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, reflect on what results we found new ways to gauge the another kind are now the founder of Earth Day, have achieved in this country risks and control them. Our emerging, threatening and John Quarles, former during the past two decades economic prowess also serves disastrous global Deputy Administrator of since the environmental us in good stead. The same consequences for the EPA-to comment. Here ore awakening of the late 1960s. industrial engine which long-term future, such as the their answers: We have recorded some caused so many ramifications of the impressive successes. Our air environmental problems has and our water are cleaner, also provided the resources despite continuing growth in to redress them. Our population, industrial institutions have activity, and auto usage. Lake demonstrated a similar Erie is no longer dead, and capacity to respond: the the Cuyahoga River will not regulatory apparatus which again catch fire. EPA implements, and indeed We have achieved progress the existence of EPA itself, on a broader front as well. As reflect on our capacity to one indicator, the all igators, meet new challenges. for example, have come back. There are definite limits to our successes. Where Greater Clevaland Growth Assoc1at10n photo problems persist, we should examine the reasons. Often the fault lies not in a failure to address the problem soon enough but rather in the fact that once we began, we did not try hard enough. The "intractable" problem of ground-level ozone provides an example. Though the ozone problem is complex and many factors intertwine, the simplest explanation for continuing conditions of nonattainment is that the public has been unwilling to

1y 1oga River, ')'Qr1ety by w dean ailed rn cccss sto1y

34 EPA JOURNAL Gaylord Nelson

support the measures which disregard its ecological base. Let's hope we can he 20th anniversary of required for success. The underpinnings. Part of that nonetheless react in TEarth Day 1970 is just 10 traumas of auto inspection price can be redeemed sufficient time and with months away. Twenty and maintenance, the through special efforts, but sufficient intensity to avert million people participated resistance to many other certain wounds cannot be catastrophic effects. in that dramatic event. methods of control, and the easily healed. For those who feel that this The main purpose of Earth continuing love affair of Obviously, it helps to get prognosis does not provide Day was to organize a · Americans with their on the right course at the sufficient satisfaction, let me nationwide, grassroots cars-all testify to the fact start. It helps to see the reiterate the fundamental demonstration of public that we have missed serious problems coming. But point that we are operating in concern for the environment opportunities to reduce levels even more important is the a democracy. In placing that would get the attention of ozone, even after that strength of our response. As a liberty and equality at the top of the politicians and force problem was clearly general rule, even where of our priority list, we may the environment issue into recognized. problems have become forego a theoretical capability the mainstream of political But envfronmental abuse serious, we have been able to to anticipate every problem dialogue. The politicians got often does leave a permanent overcome them if we have and achieve ideal protection. the message, and they scar. Despite the massive been committed to that What our system does responded with major investments in water result. provide, however, is an legislative initiatives at the adaptive capacity to correct national, state, and local our past mistakes. By giving levels. The regulatory apparatus effective force to the power While we have made some which EPA implements, and of public opinion, we can significant progress here and indeed the existence of EPA enjoy the benefit of a there since Earth Day, a dynamic corrective process. continuance of efforts at itself, reflect on our capacity But the success of that to meet new challenges. current levels will fall far process requires first that we short of what is needed and as citizens see the need and will not prevent continued second that we unite to steady environmental pollution control, and the When the focus shifts to respond to it. In America, the noteworthy progress those global concerns, the difficulty decline. security of our future The resiliency of the living efforts have brought to our of the problems increases, depends on all of us. rivers and lakes, the and the limitations on our planet has already been dangerously compromised. It sediments are still loaded ability to act are more severe. (Quarles, currently a partner with nasty compounds. At But whether it be is rapidly losing Hs capacity in the Washington Office of to renew itself. The insults to many sites the soils and stratospheric ozone Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, ground water are depletion, deforestation, the land, water, and air are served as EPA's first General too many and too massive. ccintaminated beyond a global warming, or some Counsel and was Deputy likelihood of rehabilitation. other emerging trend that In short, threads of the net Administrator of EPA from that hold the world Vast areas of wetlands are threatens the future of 1973 to 1977.) gone forever, and, for miles "spaceship earth," many of ecosystem together are along our coastlines, the same factors that have breaking and unravelling. beautiful natural sand dunes affected American response Only a massive, coordinated have been permanently to ecological danger will worldwide effort will save replaced with concrete operate similarly in the what is left of the natural bulkheads. international sphere. The world and give nature a In fact, it is in the use of democracy among nations, chance to repair some of the land (and the establishment like the democratic character damage we have caused. of our transportation systems) of our own political system, If this sounds like alarmist that many of our most will require that world talk, it is, because the irrevocable mistakes cast a opinion be mobilized to bring situation is nothing short of long shadow into our future. sufficient pressure for change alarming. Plans for a worldwide When one flies the course of in established practice. the "megalopolis" from This dynamic means that Earth Day in 1990 are well Washington to Boston, the we will have little alternative underway. Indications are landscape that unfolds is than to wait until that this will be the largest environmental problems grassroots demonstration in packed with such dense history. development that many a assume proportions of reality child will seldom stroll in a before major efforts can be The single most important meadow. launched to bring relief. objective of this 20th anniversary celebration is a From this quick review, it Doubtless we will incur worldwide public is possible to conclude that permanent damage to certain demonstration so nature has a great redemptive attractive and important overwhelming that it literally capacity, and that human features of our world-wide shakes the political progress has made it possible environmental and resource leadership of the world out for us to lend a helping hand. of its lethargy and galvanizes Even SO, we pay a price for those practices of civilization

JULY/AUGUST 1989 35 it into a monumental, imaginative leadership from reduction in military much longer are we and the cooperative effort to stop the President Bush and President expenditures and a Soviet Union going to expend deterioration of the planet Gorbachev. They have it in reallocation of resources to a total of $500 billion a year and begin it s restoration. their power to alter the environment and other on weapon systems that put It is time our leaders dramatically the course of socially productive us both in greater jeopardy recognize that the state of our history. if they will but grasp enterprises. while degrading and environment is far more the opportunity. President Bush would destroying the very resource important than the threat of The cause is right. The inspire the world and give it base that sustains us? nuclear war, missile gaps, time is ripe. The world is 'the dramatic leadership it Once Mr. Bush and Mr. star wars, crime on the ready. Mr. Bush and Mr. yearns for if he would Gorbachev reach an streets, communism in Gorbachev should begin by propose that the United agreement in princi ple, the Nicaragua, world hunger, formally declaring an end to States and the Soviet Union iron curtain countries, national economies, or any of western Europe, and most a dozen other issues that other countries could be occupy the front pages of our It is time for our political persuaded to follow because daily newspapers. leaders to recognize an it would also serve their own It is time for our political important truth: the fate of the best interests. leaders to recognize an living planet is the most Very few Presidents are important truth: the fate of important issue facing afforded the opportunity to the living planet is the most mankind. achieve greatness. Those who important issue facing did, achieved it because they mankind. No other issue, successfully met a major now and for all centuries to the cold war and the mutually reduce military threat to the security of the come, is more relevant to our beginning of a new era. expenditures by 50 percent nation: war, social turmoil, way of life than the status of The Soviet economy is a in the next 10 years and economic chaos. These were our resources- air, water, shambles. It desperately another 50 percent in the the challenges faced by soil, minerals, scenic beautv, needs relief from the burden following decade, with half Washington, Lincoln, and wildlife habitat, forests, - of unproductive military the annual savi ngs allocated FDR. rivers, lakes, and oceans. It is expenditures. So does the to husbanding the ecosystem Tow, for the first lime in the resource base that United Slates. The national of the planet. Under this history, the nation is determines how we live and debt overhangs the economy, proposal, everyone is a confronted with a challenge defines our habitat and the saps the vitality of our whole winner- there are no losers. far more serious than any limitations for survival of all economic and social system, This not unilateral war or economic depression. species: plants, animals, and weakens our competitiveness, disarmament: it is not Mr. Bush is the first man. and distorts national idealism run amok; it is, president in contemporary What is needed right now priorities. Both nations plainly and simply, times to define himself as a is strong, vigorous, would benefit from a drastic hard-nosed realism. How conservation president. He has a golden opportunity to grasp this issue and lead the world. The United States is the largest industrial power- and the world's greatest polluter. This nation has an obli gation to set an example. Whatever else President Bush does in his presidency will fade into distant memories, but if he successfully initiates the battle to preserve the integrity of the planet, he will be remembered as long as history is w ritten. o

[Nelson, a former U.S. Senator, is Senior Co unselor fo r the Wilderness Society.)

As part of the 10th anniversary celebration of Ea rth Da y in 1980, enthusiasts carried a "Save the Humans" whale around t he Mall near the Washington Monument.

Bernie Boston phoro. Tho Washington Star Copyright Wush1ngton Post, reprmrcd by permission of llie DC Public Library 36 Changing from "Consumers" to Citizens by Jay D. Hair

verything we do has an effect on the Currently there are over 121 mill ion cars in environment. It may be that people feel Eenvironment. Was your morning the United States. Collectively, they emit the job is just too large-that one person orange juice in a plastic container? It about 600 million tons of carbon dioxide can ha rdlv make a difference. each year. Are you carpooling? will probably become one of the Don't believe it. There are people who 640,000 plastic containers dumped know from experience how import ant carelessly into the ocean every day. Last When asked if they would pay $75 more personal, individual sacrifice is and just Sunday, did you read the morning in taxes in order to achieve tougher how much of a difference each of us can newspaper? If you simply tossed it out enforcement of anti-pollution laws. they make. without recycling it, you contributed to said yes- by a margin of more than two In Illinois, 39-year-old Jerry Paulson the demise of more than 500,000 trees to one. Most recently, a Media has mad e a career of changing la'"-'S and used to produce 88 percent of the General-Associated Press poll found that regulations to solve environmental Sunday newspapers that are never 75 percent of the 1,084 adults polled problems. For more than a decade, he recycled. Did you use your auto air said laws against pollution are too has actively organized volunteers to conditioner this week? If so, its weak, and 87 percent said they woul d participate in the regu latory process. emissions of hlorofl uorocarbons are and his efforts have led to the helping to destroy the earth's protecti ve protection of a number of important ozone layer. It seems puzzling that despite wetlands in Il linois. Clearly, our thoughtless this powerful evidence of In Bethesda, Maryland , Marjori e environmental choices are affecting the public concern about Smigel has become one of the state's environment. We, as consumers, are most tenacious conservation activists- a turning America the Beautiful into environmental problems, major fo rce behind the passage of the America the Pol luted. Moreover, as reckless habits continue first state law in the country mandating other articles in this issue of EPA destroying the environment. health and enviro nmental safeguards by Journal make clear, the environmental commercial lawn services- and all from consequences of our actions reach the modest beginnings of the Springfield beyond our national boundaries to the favor measures requiring them to sort Garden Club. global ecology. We are surely and not so their garbage fo r recycling. Jim Murray in Detroit has made clean slowly destroying the conditions need ed Poll aft er poll has come up w ith water his business. The 45-year-old for life to thrive on earth. And all of u s, similar results. Whenever the public is conservationist grew u p on the banks of as consumers of products that asked about en vironmental issues, the the Rouge River in Detroit, and he has contribute to this destruction, must returns almost always and nearly made a career of pursu ing cleaner water instead become part of the solution. unanimously point in one direction: fo r the region through hard work and There is some good news, and deep concern an d worry about the sacrifice. Of all his efforts, Murray is evidence that a change in attitude is country's environment. perhaps most pleased w ith his success occurring, albeit slowly. A 1986 Louis It seems puzzling that despite this at organizing a Rouge River monitoring Harris poll found that when given a powerful evidence of public concern program made up of high school science choice, the American public vvould not about environmental problems. reckless classes. Students sample the river's opt fo r jobs over a clean environment. habits continue destroying the wa ter, rate its quality based on a

37 Gardeners can improve their crops by using compost made from leaves, grass, and vegetable waste to en rich the soil This also saves valuable space 1ri landfills.

National Science Foundation index, and World War II. We must work just as • Reuse grocery bags and ask for paper, then share the results through a selflessly for peace, only this time the not plastic. Use mugs instead of paper computer network. goal must be peace with the cups; rags, not paper towels; cloth, not Jan Garton is keeping the wetlands in environment. paper napkins. Just remember to choose Kansas alive; Art Aylesworth in western There is so much each of us can do products that will last. If it's disposable Montana is working to save the and it will make a difference. Here are and convenient, it is filling our bluebird; and New York's Hudson River just a few of the most obvious steps to landfills. And if it is made from a is cleaner, thanks to determined take: petroleum-based material (plastics, conservationist Robert Boyle, who for 20 foam), it is creating "greenhouse" gases • Cut down on your trash. Reuse and and other pollutants. years has made protection of the repair. Americans produce 150,000 tons Hudson an obsession by founding the of solid waste per year. The average • Use public transportation or car Hudson River Fishermen's Association. U.S. household discards 1,800 plastic pools. There are now more than 121 Acting as river watchdogs, their first items; 13,000 individual paper items; million cars on the nation's roads-over victory, in 1969, stopped a railroad 500 aluminum cans; and 500 glass 4 million more than in 1986. Each of company from piping its waste oil bottles yearly. New York alone produces those cars emits an average of nearly 5 directly into the Hudson. 26,000 tons of waste each day. tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is the major • Use household chemicals completely "greenhouse" gas. That means we're The situation now is just as before tossing their containers. Solvents putting about 600 million tons of carbon urgent as it was during World and cleaners in landfills seep into the dioxide into the atmosphere annually ground water. Never throw chemicals just by driving. War II. down the drain; take them to a hazardous waste center. • Plant a tree. Trees are the primary absorbers of carbon dioxide, and • Use cloth diapers instead of These stories of environmental tragically, the rate of deforestation in disposables. Each year we are throwing activism provide inspiring examples. this country has exceeded one acre away 18 billion disposable diapers, They illustrate the kind of deep-seated every five seconds since 1967. Every which are filling up our landfills at an tree in your yard saves in heating, commitment and awareness of the alarming rate. Did you know that diaper environmental consequences of our cooling, and soil erosion costs. Besides services are much less expensive than individual actions that are so looking nice, they also absorb buying disposables? desperately needed. There are no easy poll utan ts. answers and there is no magic- just • Put grass clippings, leaves, and • Don't buy endangered plants, good, old-fashioned hard work and vegetable waste into a compost heap. animals, or products such as furs, ivory, individual sacrifices. Every year we dispose of 24 million reptile skin, or tortoise shell, which are Not everyone can be an tons of leaves and grass clippings, made from over-exploited or endangered environmental leader, but everyone can which could be composted to conserve species. make individual lifestyle changes to landfill space. Did you know that 10 help preserve the environment from years ago, there were over 18,000 And let's not forget our role as voters. further degradation. municipal landfills across the country? We must elect government leaders who Where lo begin'? There must be a Now, because they're filling up, we're espouse an environmental ethic. realization that the job isn't too large. A down to 9,000, and more are closing Consider what happens when we do. good example would be the sacrifices of daily. Last March, the Suffolk County, New those during World War II who saved • Don't leave water running needlessly. York, legislature, in an effort to reduce string, metal, and tin foil while going It has been shown that up to 50 percent solid waste, approved a plan to outlaw without so many "extras." The situation of the water wasted in the home is the use of plastic grocery bags and now is just as urgent as it was during attributable to taps that run plastic food containers. The bill, one of unnecessarily. Also, install a the most comprehensive of its kind, water-saving device in your toilet or, better yet, have a low-flush or air-assisted toi let installed. These toilets can save 60 to 90 percent of your water.

38 EPA JOURNAL vehicles per household. Inconvenient, you say? Remember the consequences of inaction and apathy. As the environment becomes one of the hottest political issues of the 1990s, let's guard against those who suddenly have an "election-year conversion" to environmentalism in order to capture the green vote. In the polling booths, we must be more active in electing environmentalists to public office and put forth candidates from the environmentalist community. My message is quite simple. It is time to harden the edge. It cannot be business as usual. Our mission is urgent. Time is running out. As Adlai Stevenson said, "We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable resources of air and soil; all committed fo r our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and- I will say- the love we give our fragile craft." If you would like a more complete list USDA photo. of personal changes you can make to preserve the environment, write to the comes just in time: by 1990, all Long landfills, and Pennsylvania and National Wildlife Federation, 1400 16th Island townships must close their Connecticut are preparing to do the St., NW, Washington, DC 20036. o overburdened landfills to safeguard same. In addition, cities and towns in a their threatened ground-water supplies. number of states, including New York (Dr . Hair is President of the No tional In Nebraska, the legislature passed a and California, have begun programs to Wildlife Federation, the notion 's largest bill that will outlaw the sale of keep leaves and grass out of local conservation organization , with more nondegradable diapers by 1993, landfills. than 5.8 million members and realizing that these throwaway, Finally, in Los Angeles, voters are supporters and 51 affiliate single-use products cannot be recycled, seeing their taxpayer dollars at work. organizations nationwide. A pri vate, devour landfill space, and threaten Members of the California Highway non-profit organization. the Federation ground water w ith chemicals and Patrol have turned into "Smog Busters," was founded in 1936.) disease. ticketing anyone who is contributing to Over the next four years, the state the country's filthiest air- namely in governments of Wisconsin, Illinois, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Florida, and Minnesota will enforce and San Bernardino counties. In order statewide bans prohibiting landfills to meet federal clean air standards, the from accepting leaves, brush, and grass South Coast Air Quality Management clippings, which make up about a fifth District also plans to require of the garbage in most municipal cleaner-burning fuels , such as methane landfills. New Jersey has already banned and compressed natural gas; expand leaves but not grass clippings from its current incentives for car po_pling; outlaw free parking; and use part of parking fees to encourage the use of mass transit and limit the number of

JULY/AUGUST 1989 39 Lessons about Environmentalism in Congress by Robert T. Stafford

or more than two decades, Congress ill-defined adversary. We authorized acid rain, or ground-water Fhas set the course for our nation's development of the expertise needed to contamination, each of which has quest for clean and healthy air, water, understand the scope of environmental generated massive problems in our and land. The House and Senate have problems. We established programs to country. Nor did we spend much time enacted an extraordinary number and measure the development of state and thinking about the Greenhouse Effect variety of laws that have helped to keep local regulatory programs. We set up and resulting climate changes, depletion our environment safer than it would modest federal enforcement capability of the ozone layer, desertification, otherwise have been. to deal with environmental problems deforestation, or species extinction, all But if we are to help mankind achieve that crossed jurisdictional lines. of which affect not only our nation, but its eternal and universal goals of Our knowledge expanded. The public our entire planet. happiness and prosperity, we shall have became more· aware of environmental Our early efforts came in response to to change our approach in the future. problems. As a result, Congress dramatic events-a smog that killed, We shall have to put more emphasis on attempted to respond to public demand water pollution that closed beaches, anticipation than on response. We shall for a higher level of performance chemical dumps that leaked into water have to concentrate more on prevention dealing with pollution control. The supplies, and toxic releases from than on cleanup. And we shall have to landmark Clean Air Amendments came factories. extend our environmental concerns in 1970, followed by the 1972 Clean The laws we wrote in those responses beyond the boundaries of our nation. Water Act. were imperfect, but they were superior To those ends, we shall have to to the enforcement and support they guarantee that environmental received from the regulators at both the considerations be a major part of all It seemed then like such an state and federal levels. Too many significant policy decisions, in and out ambitious effort. But, in waivers were issued, and too many of government. If we are to continue to reality, it was a limited deadlines were allowed to pass. encourage the kind of orderly growth But we have learned that we do not and development that bring prosperity, environmental agenda. have unlimited time to meet the we must recognize that our efforts to environmental problems of the future. provide at the same time a safe We have also learned that we are all environment will require new ways. These laws had-and still have-two inhabitants of a single ecosystem of a Needed will be legislation that basic objectives: first, to establish fragile planet and that we had better pay anticipates the use of a variety of specific regulatory requirements and more attention to each other's habits, processes, ranging from regulation to precise timetables to achieve those policies, and ambitions. conservation, to changes in lifestyles, to requirements and, second, to establish It is in our own national interest to forcing the development and use of long-term policy goals for assume world leadership of the effort to technology. environmental programs. prevent environmental catastrophe. This The twin pressures of global To justify this federal intrusion into decade has seen the four hottest years in population growth and the ambition for the environmental process, we focused recorded history. The planet's ozone a better life by struggling billions in on protection of human health in our shield is three percent thinner because developing countries call out for the efforts to control air pollution. That it has been weakened by manmade United States to assume a position of concern for health has become the chemicals. Levels of ozone closer to the world leadership in the necessary effort hallmark of most of the environmental earth's surface have doubled. to secure a safe environment. Congress legislation that followed, and the Clean There is a growing consensus among must play a critical role in this effort. Air Act and Clean Water Act have scientists and more and more In the early 1960s, we spent much of evolved as among the most important policymakers that these and other our time trying to learn as much as public health laws of this nation. Public circumstances pose a potential threat to possible about our environment and health standards became the scientific human survival that must be addressed about ways to deal with threats to that basis for pollution controls, and a body now. Humanity has moved closer to the environment. As we learned those of law based on health protection has edge of an environmental abyss, and we things, we quickly became aware of how developed in the United States. These will surely plunge over it unless we laws continue to enjoy overwhelming important it was-and still is-to get the change our ways. public involved in environmental and increasing public and, thus, To permit and encourage our nation issues. We found very quickly that the political support. to assume the world leadership required public demanded margins of It seemed then like such an ambitious to prevent environmental disaster, the environmental safety far stricter than effort. But, in reality, it was a limited federal government will have to develop industry thought was reasonable and environmental agenda. It has been said a new spirit and system of cooperation politicians thought practicable. we asked for too little in the 1960s and that will make environmental concerns Emboldened by this public support, too much in the 19 70s. The truth is, of an integral part of all national-and Congress moved slowly to engage an course, that we have not done enough. even international-planning. Our early environmental concerns did not include toxics, hazardous wastes, 40 EPA JOURNAL tra PcnrisyNania's Homer City electric r t , p1an: burns coal from a nearby T v ronmental impact of m c'ectr c util ties continues to concern

pollution through source reduction, waste minimization, improved energy efficiency, and methods to be developed in a new spirit of cooperative effort. We will not have to reinvent the wheel to accomplish these goals. The technology already exists to build a power plant that converts nearly one-half of its energy to electricity while putting nearly two-thirds of the rest of the heat to a useful purpose. It is possible to build refrigerators and to make electronic chips without using CFCs. Our country has developed very highly efficient gas turbines, and other countries have built functional automobiles that travel between 80 and 100 miles per gallon of gasoline. The challenge is to find the way to extend these limited successes throughout the world. New reports from virtually ever corner of the globe tell us that the inhabitants of this planet increasingly are demanding protection for their environment. These same news reports ' tell us that more and more politicians are responding to those demands. The challenge is great. but the opportunity is even greater if only we dare to learn from the past and to change our ways in the future. o

(Stafford, a former Republicon Senotor from Vermont, was the Chairman of th e Senate Environment and Public Works Committee from 1980 to 1986 and Nattonal Coal Assoc1a r1on photo ranking minority member of the Committee fo r the remainder of his Congress can take the lead by ending Laws and regulations- and even service. I-le retired from Congress in its competing interests and jurisdictions international treaties- will have to force early 1989. Stafford is o long-time among its various committees dealing technological d evelopment and changes leader on environmental issues. ) with the environment, energy, in lifestyles. The Montreal Protocol on commerce, agriculture, development, reducing the use of chlorofluorocarbons and finance. Improved cooperation will (CFCs) is a good start. We may have to have to be forged among the private provide incentives to the economy as sector, environmental and industry we seek to control- even to advocates, and EPA and other agencies end-pollution. We cannot require of the government. We no longer have developing nations to forego the benefits the luxury of taking the time to impose of technology because the industrialized environmental regulation after the fact nations have fouled the environment of contamination; environmental through the enjoyment of those benefits. concerns must be made a part of all Likewise we can no longer permit the basic processes. It is time to recognize investment of American funds in that the true costs to human society are developing nations without regard for the costs of pollution-not the costs of the environmental consequences of that pollution control. investment. We will also have to attack

JULY/AUGUST 1989 41 improving the economies of Third The Third World's Environment: World nations and making the industrialized nations, particularly our own, far less wasteful and energy-greedy A Global Dilemma in the future. The challenge is for developing nations to find ways to by Thomas E. Lovejoy move toward development that can bypass the environmentally destructive ways of the industrialized northern Y any measure, the planetary The socio-economic problems of nations. Benvironmental crisis is at poverty and population pressures are The role of the wealthier nations, the hand- whether in our accelerating loss inextricably interrelated to the United States in particular, is critical. of biological diversity or the changes in environmental problems of our planet. We certainly are in a position to help the chemistry of our atmosphere, The population issue is so emotionally other countries, but it must be borne in altering the physics of the earth. These charged and so delicate that people and mind that our example is at least as indicators say very clearly that the way politicians often are reluctant to address important as our assistance. If the human society as a whole is living, we it. Yet it is utterly obvious that any set wealthiest nation on earth, alone are exceeding the carrying capacity of of measurements drawn up to address responsible for 20 percent of the annual the planet. the environmental problems is bound to increase of carbon dioxide, is not seen To these problems must be added the to grapple with reduction of energy likelihood of a doubling in population consumption, it will be very hard to by the middle of the next century, Even a modest increase of expect nations of far less wealth to mostly in the developing world. energy consumption per-capita undertake vital environmental measures. Nonetheless, the nations of the If we fail on that front, we give credence developing world understandably aspire in China could produce C02 to accusations of ecological imperialism to achieve the living standards of emissions that would put the and the notion of a conspiracy to industrialized nations. Greenhouse Effect beyond prevent the poorer nations from their We clearly face a challenge of a scale reach of a solution. rightful development. On the other and immediacy unlike any we have had hand, if we develop an effective before. With so many exponential national biological survey, for example, adverse trends, I personally believe we fail if it does not include consideration and protect our biological diversity have less than 10 years to effectively of human population growth. through effective land use policies and address the situation. The problems The problem of Third World programs, the United States could set a cannot be dealt with by nibbling at their development is an integral part of any style and example for other nations. edges. Business-as-usual will not work. solution to the impending The ultimate challenge is that the Nothing short of massive intervention environmental crisis. The aspirations for nature and the magnitude of the into the forces causing environmental economic development of those nations environmental crisis require a solution deterioration will be adequate. cannot be overlooked or denied. Yet at that is inherently international. Humanity as a whole must develop a the same time, if every person in the Consider the emissions that exacerbate wartime mentality to mobilize society to world were to rise to the same the Greenhouse Effect, for example. make the necessary changes. We are in per-capita level of energy consumption Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) can be fact at war with ourselves and our as the United States, environmental replaced by other products that are future, and only a similarly strong disaster would be inevitable. environmentally benign, but the counter-response can save the day. The answer then must lie in participation of all nations is required

Bangladesh. A crowded country on an increasingly crowded planet.

42 - (whether b ig consumers like ourselves or aspiring manufacturers like some ... ANP ifs A~OOi developing countries) to effectively TiME, 100 ...1 phase out the CFCs. The situation with respect to carbon dioxide (C02) emissions is more

complex and difficult. Just keeping C02 emissions in the atmosphere from growing beyond the current level of 3.5 billion tons per annum, directly affects the fossil fuel dependence of a large part of industry and transportation. For a nation like China, there seems little alternative but to use its massive coal reserves for energy. At the same time, even a modest increase of energy consumption per-capita in China could produce C02 emissions that would put the Greenhouse Effect beyond reach of a solution. Reprinted wo rh permission from rhe L1ncoln Journal. Lincoln, ebraska As a temporary, remedial measure, the world's forests offer a means for problems, and addressing them currency. Ironically, such objections are partially counterbalancing C02 promptly, is nothing short of staggering. rarely raised about commercial debt emissions because growing forests Essentially, this is because we have swaps, suggesting few people yet realize convert C02 into wood, whereas treated the environment as a free how seriously environmental impacts burning forests produce C02 . A commodity and have not paid the full can affect an economy. conservative estimate puts the annual price for our ways of life. Now the bill One approach to avoid inflation is to contribution from human-caused forest has arrived and it is huge, although less convert debt into interest-bearing burning at about 20 percent of the than it will be if we do not right our instruments such as bonds. This has the annual net increment of C02 in the course. As a practical matter, we must added benefit 0£ providing stability to atmosphere. Reforestation on the order look for the most efficient way to pay programs and institutions just as of a million square kilometers or so, this bill by harnessing market forces endowments do. The debt, in any case, spread around the world in countries under the right set of rules. is the only resource available on the north and south, could achieve about a We need to look for resources that are scale needed and may represent our one-third reduction in the annual net commensurate with the environmental only fiscal chance to address these huge increment of C02 . Moreover, if problems. It would be folly to let this unnecessary forest burning were opportunity escape our grasp. stopped concurrent with reforestation Brazil is in a position through The global environmental crisis initiatives on this scale, the annual C02 Amazonian deforestation to requires both international and national addition to the Greenhouse Effect could pull an ecolo,8ical rug out from solutions. There clearly is no place for a be reduced by about half. Vigorous planetary Big Brother, and no nation is energy conservation and energy beneath itself, the region, the environmentally perfect in its behavior. efficiency measures could go a long way continent, and perhaps the Yet some nations have a bigger toward reducing the rest of the current world. responsibility than others- none more net increment. than ourselves, for with our 20 percent What about the needs and aspirations annual contribution to global C02 for increases in fossil fuel use by problems the planet faces. In many emissions, our action will significantly developing nations? If China presses cases, there is nowhere to turn but the influence whether the ecological rug is forward with its coal-fired utility plants, international debt, at least for the pulled out from under the world it could help balance the equation with environmental problems of many through climate change. massive tree planting. Moreover, a developing nations. Debt restructuring, Brazil is in a position through nation like ours could help by taking a including debt-for-nature swaps (which Amazonian deforestation to pull an new, relaxed attitude toward technology involve purchasing dollars at great ecological rug out from beneath itself, transfer where environmental issues are discount and subsequently redeeming the region, the continent. and perhaps concerned. This approach to balancing the money at much higher va lue in local the world. Other nations are astride the annual sources and sinks (storage currency), offers special opportunities. other ecological levers. Those very same mechanisms) of C02 is not a permanent Debt swaps for commercial purposes nations are the ones that can contribute soh1tion because growing forests store (debt-for-equity swai:~l have occurred in important environmenta l leadership at carbon at significant annual rates for considerable volume in r.iany countries. the time it is needed most. The only about 30 years. However, it does Debt-for-nature swaps have occurred in opportunity and challenge are clear. o buy time to work out a better energy only a few countries, but there seems to scenario. be growing interest. (Dr. Lovejoy, a tropical ecologist, is The cost of addressing these huge Curiously, an objection frequentl y Assistant Secretary for External Affairs raised is that debt-for-nature' swaps are at the Smithsonian Institution.) inflationary because thev dump large amounts of local cunc.. cy into an economy, thus "cheapening" the

JULY/AUGUST 1989 43 Ho~ Do We Get There? by Michael Gruber

olutions to the environmental must conclude that our pattern of types of products, and in daily habits. It Sproblems we face for the remainder desires and our motivations are out of means paying the true environmental of this century require not primarily touch with what we say our values are. cost of everything we use or buy. technique, but political will and, In other words, while we want clean This is already starting to happen. perhaps, important changes in our air, in principle, we also want to drive The cost of solid waste disposal, which national culture. The vexing question is to work in large fast cars burning cheap a decade ago was only $5 to $10 not "what is to be done?" but "can we gas, and we want lots of cheap a ton, is $125 per ton in some places do what is required?" electricity to run our appliances and and rising. The people of Boston have For it is now clear that the kind of heat and cool our houses. We want an started to put money instead of just regulatory program that EPA has end to hazardous waste dumps, in sewage into their harbor; sewage utility traditionally fostered, a regulatory principle, but we don't want the rates have risen fourfold as a result. program based largely on "pollution When costs go up like this, one result is control," is, by itself, inadequate to deal to focus the mind wonderfully on with these problems. Regulation alone is Regulation alone is not going preventing waste in the first place, not going to clean the air or the waters to clean the air or the waters using less, and making products that are in this country, nor will it stop the in this country, nor will it stop recyclable or reusable. destru lion of major ecosystems or deal the destruction of major This process must be made to with global warming. continue at an accelerating rate. The If we wish to do these things (without ecosystems or deal with global way to do this is to build environmental first enduring catastrophic loss, that is), warming. protection into the heart of the market then environmental protection in its economy itself, to make it an inherent broadest sense must become a more part of the great advantage that market important part of our national life. The infrastructure necP.ssary to run an economies have over all their rivals: the first step in making it so is to admit effective hazardous waste recycling enormous flux of information they can how relatively insignificant and program built anywhere near where we bring to bear on resource decisions, peripheral a role it now plays. The live. We abhor toxic chemicals, in information generally expressed in the environment is more often than not an principle, but we buy great quantities of form of prices. Unlike polls, prices tell afterthought in both business and the paints, plastics, wrappings, and the truth about what people really politics, like the tip one leaves for the consumer chemicals that use such value. waiter after a hearty meal. In public life, substances, and we demand flawless, Here is an example. Because of the the important things are national cheap fruits and produce. Valdez spill in the Gulf of Alaska and security, in the sense of military and Our efforts at cleaning our the subsequent mismanagement of the international relations, and economics. environment have not, as yet, cut very initial cleanup, the Exxon Corporation These are what make and break deeply into this lifestyle. Our is now the great environmental villain. administrations; environmental issues concentration on the control of Imagine that Exxon now says: "We've do not, and political leaders understand pollution by the manufacturing sector reformed. From now on we're this very well. has meant that pollution control costs committed never to spill another drop In the private sector, with few were passed on to the public in small of oil on the sea. Our tankers will all be exceptions, firms regard environmental doses. Although the total cost to society retrofitted to have triple hulls and concerns as a cost to be minimized by has been substantial, the impact on double crews. Each one will travel in lobbying and legal maneuver. In general, most individuals is barely noticeable. convoy with empty tankers and special industry does not get rich on This will no longer be the case if ships full of containment gear and environmental protection. environmental protection becomes a teams drilled to the peak of efficiency. But still we have those poll results. more important part of national life. It is This will be very expensive. For this What can it mean when The New York going to pinch. reason, we will cut salaries and skip a Times says that around 80 percent of This is because really protecting the few dividends, and we will have to sell Ameri ans want a cleaner environment environment means preventing our gas for $3 dollars a gallon. But we're no matter what it costs? When we pollution, and preventing pollution does not worried. We know the American observe how our citizens act, rather not mean merely setting up an office people are for environmental protection than what they report to pollsters, we with that name at EPA. lt means making regardless of cost. That's why we. don't significant changes in production, in

44 EPA JOURNAL NYT Pictures think skilled people will leave our industries will be held to standards, decisions by individuals and firms. employ, and institutional investors usually expressed in terms of the For example, market-based won't dump our stock, and all those installation of parti cular technologies. approaches will be a necessary part of Americans who are environment-lovers Plants can pollute up to a certain point, any attempt to reduce "greenhouse" gas regardless of cost (that 80 percent!) will but no more, and that level is the emissions. Here the most attractive flock to buy our gas. " subject of elaborate negotiations and, options involve improving energy The extreme improbability of this generally, the result of much legal efficiency. If the world were to improve scenario is evidence that those who run action. energy efficiency by two percent a year. corporations regard the The theory assumes further that as global average temperature could be environment-cost tradeoff more new technology is developed, the kept to within one degree Celsius of realistically than do environmentalists standards will be made more stringent. present levels. Many industrialized or the media. They understand that to And to a limited degree, this has been nations have maintained this level of get anything serious done in a market true; a new plant is cleaner than the one improvement during the past 15 years. economy, the government must make it it replaces. But industrial manufacturing Efficiency gains may still have to be possible for people to become rich by pollution makes up a smaller percentage promoted by market incentives when, as doing it. This is how we built the of American pollution than it once did. now, energy prices lag behind increases railroads and the military-industrial Right now the real problems are in in income. A "climate protection" tax of complex, and this is how we can build a transport, land use, energy, and $1 per million BTUs on coal and 60 clean environment. But it isn't waste-the lifestyle quartet. There is cents per million BTUs on oi l is an happening yet, and the way you can tell thus little incentive for industry to example of such an incentive. It would is that nobody is trying to compete in develop new means of pollution control. raise gasoline prices by 11 cents per business on the basis of environmental since everybody must march in lockstep gallon and the cost of electricity an quality. to the current technology-based average of 10 percent and ield $53 Think of the ads on television. Most standards. billion annually, part of which could be compete on image, many on price and Environmental protection should used to fund environmental protection quality. Nobody, however, says (yet) therefore be massively refocused to efforts on a scale that would give "Our product costs a little more, but mobilize rather than suppress the serious, rather than rhetorical, attention that's because we have the ingenuity and creativity of industry. to the goal of our clean air and water environmentally cleanest plant in the This means that we should seek legislation. industry." additional gains in pollution control Some form of emissions trading Regulation has not helped to move (and that includes reductions in program w ill be necessary, and on a the day of frank environmental carbon-dioxide emissions) not by much larger scale than has been the reckoning closer. The theory behind increasing the stringency or technical case so far. Emissions trading is a current environmental law is that specificity of command-a nd-control natural predicate for reductions in regulation, but by implementing greenhouse gas emissions on a incentive-based systems. With such systems, scarce public sector resources are magnified by tens of thousands of

JULY/AUGUST 1989 45 While protesting toxic pollution from chemical manufacturing, people continue to demand the products of these processes.

This is virtually the first time the federal government has acted to place environmental values above what was seen by its promoters as a major area-wide economic expansion. There now is a movement in Congress to remove this power from EPA. The sanctions are "politically unacceptable," which is a way of saying that when push comes to shove, the jobs of construction workers and the fortunes of mortgage bankers are more important than environmental values. As long as such attitudes do not change, as long as the real motivators of daily life (like prices ancl business opportunities) do not support environmental values, then all the command-and-control regulation in the world will not stop America from continuing its highly polluting and wasteful style of life. And, as a result, our efforts to get the less developed Steve Delaney photo nations to protect their environmen t will be considered mere cant and national level and even more so on a environmental problems for which they hypocrisy, the fri ghtening changes in global scale. are clearly inappropriate, such as the global systems will continue, and the In such a progrom, all major sources use of unacceptably dangerous environment will return the favor by of pollutants (including greenhouse chemicals, or where irretrievable becoming ever more hosti le to human gases, of course) would be issued environmental damage is likely to take society. permits specifying allowabl e emissions. place. Once again , \•Ve must lock into But Americans are capable of Sources that could reduce their the wealth-producing mainspring of our radically redefining what is politically emissions below the specifi ed level- for enterprise system. This means applying and economically feas ible in the li ght of example by investing in the major sanctions that are built into obvious and compell ing crises. Pearl efficiency- coulrl sell their excess our environmental laws, sanctions that Harbor and Sputnik are the famous emissions allowance to other sources. say, in effect, if people are getti ng ri ch examples. Whether we can accomplish Firms for whom it might be in a way that adds unacceptably to such a redefinition in response to a prohibitively costl y to retrofit or build pollution, we must act to cut off their crisis that is more tentative and d iffuse, new plants could meet their permitted opportunity. and where our own desires and material levels through purchases, or could close The big sanctions have never been values are the "enemy," remains to be down their least efficient plants and sell applied. We have not frozen the road seen. o the vacated permits to ongoing firms. building or the construction permits or Environmental protection will have the sewer hookups. EPA's veto power (Gruber is an EPA staffer on temporary really arrived in this country when such over Corps of Engineer-supported assignment to the Department of permits are the subject of fr enzied projects has rarely been used. This is Natural Resources in the state of trading in the Chicago Pit- when, in why the recent EPA decision halting the Washington under an Intergovernmental other words, en vironment has become a proposed Twin Forks Dam p roject in Personnel Act program.) central concern of business, like finance Colorado was so startling. A dam project and marketing. that would have suppli ed the waler Market-based systems are, of course, necessary for continued growth in the not a panacea. There are some Denver metropolitan area was suspended.

46 Appointments

F. Henry ("Hank") Habicht II Timothy B. Atkeson has been Special Counsel to the High Robert G. Heiss is the new is the new Deputy nominated by President Bush Level Review Committee at Associate Enforcement Administrator of EPA. to be Assistant Administrator the Inter-American Counsel for Water, in the From 1984 to 1987, for International Affairs of Development Bank, in 1988. Office of Enforcement and Habicht was Assistant EPA, a new position that He graduated from Haverford Compliance Monitoring. Attorney General in the U.S. replaces the Associate College in 1947, attended Heiss had been the Deputy Department of justice, a Administrator. Oxford University as a Chief Counsel for Operations period in which the number When the Council on Rhodes Scholar from 1947 to in the Economic Regulatory of civil and criminal Environmental Quality was 1949, and earned a law Administration at the environmental enforcement created in 1970, Atkeson was degree from Yale University Department of Energy before prosecutions more than appointed General Counsel in 1952. joining EPA in February of doubled. He first joined the and served there until 1973. this year. From 1985 to 1988, Department of justice in 1981 He has been a partner with Charles L. Grizzle was he served as Deputy Special as special assistant to the Washington, DC , law firm reappointed as Assistant Counsel in the same agency. Attorney General William of Steptoe and Johnson since Administrator fo r A 1971 graduate of Harvard French Smith and served as 1975. Administration and Law School, Heiss joined the Deputy Assistant Attorney Atkeson was co-author of Resources Management. He Department of Energy in General from 1982 to 1983. "Superfund Deskbook," has served in the same 1975 as an attorney-advisor At the Department of published in 1986, and position since February 22, in the Office of the General Justice, Habicht directed the "Superfund: Litigation and 1988. Counsel. In 1978, he was Land and atural Resources Cleanup," published in 1985. Before joining EPA, Grizzle appointed Assistant General Division, which handles all He has taught environmental had been Deputy Assistant Counsel for Enforcement. federal government litigation law at Georgetown Law Secretary for Administration Heiss earned his bachelor's concerning environmental, School, Dartmouth College, at the U.S. Department of degree in history from energy, and land and and Catholic University Law Agriculture (USDA) since Williams College. After resources management School. 1983. He joined USDA in graduating from law school, matters. He also formed and In 1958, he began a 1982 as a special he worked for the chaired the National three-year term as Deputy assistant to the Secretary, and Washington, DC . law firm of Environmental Enforcement General Counsel with the also served as a staff assistant Brownstein, Zeidman, & Council, which promotes U.S. Development Loan to the director of the Office Schomer specializing in coordination of federal and Fund, followed by a year as of Operations and Finance. franchising law. state environmental Regional Legal Advisor for From 1974 to 1981, Grizzle enforcement actions. Latin America with the was an officer of First Since 198 7, he has been Agency for International National Bank of Louisville, counsel to the Seattle law Development. He was an Kentucky. He also served firm, Perkins Coie, and was associate and partner at briefly in 1981 as executive Vice President of William D. Steptoe and Johnson from director of the Republican Ruckelshaus Associates, 1962 to 1967. Party of Kentucky. Washington, DC, with From 1967 to 1969, He earned his bachelor's responsibility for counseling Atkeson was the first General degree in English and on environmental, natural Counsel of the Asian political science from the resources, and energy issues. Development Bank in Manila. University of Kentucky in He is an alumnus of the Most recently, he served as Lexington. In 1987, he Woodrow Wilson School of successfully completed the Public and International Senior Managers in Affairs at Princeton Government program at the University, where he was Kennedy School of president of the rugby club. Government at Harvard He holds a law degree from University. the University of Virginia.

47 Tidwell Dr. Ralph H. Hazel was Adamkus Layton Kay appointed as Senior Office of Research and Development Official for EPA 's Environmental Research Center. The center is located in Research Triangle Park, EPA Administrator William North Carolina. K. Reilly recently announced As Senior Official, Hazel the retention of the Regional will be the principal Administrators for EPA spokesman for the center and Regions 4 through 10. Their will direct the Research and names and brief biographical Development Services Staff, sketches follow: Scherer McGovern Russell with special emphasis on enhancing community Greer C. Tidwell has been Morris Kay has been Robie Russell has been outreach programs. Regional Administrator for Regional Administrator for Regional Administrator of Hazel had been the Senior Region 4 , headquartered in Region 7, headquartered in Region 10, headquartered in Science Advisor to the Atlanta, since March 1988. Kansas City, Kansas, since Seattle, si nee 1986. He served Regional Administrator of Previously, he operated his 1982. Kay spent three terms as Senior Deputy Attorney EPA's Region 7 in Kansas own environmental in the Kansas House of General and Deputy Attorney City, since 1983. From 1979 engineering firm. He earned Representatives, where he General fo r the state of Idaho to 1983, he was Director of his bachelor's and master's was majority floor leader. A befo re joining EPA. A native the Johnson County degrees in engineering from Kansas native, he earned his of Idaho, Russell earned a Environmental Department in Vanderbilt University. bachelor's degree from the bachelor's and a law degree Kansas. Valdas V. Adamkus has University of Kansas. from the Universitv of Idaho. Hazel earned his bachelor's been Regional Administrator James J. Scherer has been As EPA Journal ~epo rt ed degree in chemistry from the of Region 5, headquartered in Regional Administrator fo r last issue. Ted Erickson was University of Central Chicago, since 1981. He Region 8, headquartered in named the Regional Arkansas, his master's degree served as a director of the Denver, since April 1987. He Administrator for Region 3, in chemistry from the Ohio River Basin Regional operated his own car rental w hich is headquartered in University of Arkansas, and Office in Cincinnati before and leasing business in Philadelphia. /\ new Regional his doctorate in joining EPA. Born in Denver and served tvvo terms Administrator for Region 2. environmental engineering Lithuania, he attended the in the Colorado legislature headquartered in ew York, from the University of University of Munich and before joining EPA. An has not yet been selected. Kansas. He has taught holds a bachelor's degree in Indiana native, Scherer Recently, President Bush environmental science at engineering from the Illinois earned his bachelor's degree announced his intention to both the high school and Institute of Technology. from the University of Notre nominate Michael Deland, college levels. Robert E. Layton has been Dame. currently Regional He has also been awarded Regional Administrator of Daniel McGovern has been Administrator for Region 1, two EPA Silver Medals for Region 6, headquartered in Regional Administrator for headquartered in Boston, to Superior Service and a Dallas, since February 1987. Region 9, headquartered in be Chairman of the White Bronze Medal for A Texas native, Layton San Francisco, since House Council on Commendable Service. earned a bachelor's degree February 1988. Previously, he Environmental Quality. Until from Texas A & M University served as General Counsel of he is confirmed by the in engineering and ran his the National Oceanic and Senate, Deland will continue own engineering firm before Atmospheric 'Administration to serve as Regional joining EPA. and as principal deputy legal Administrator. o advisor to the U.S. State Department. He earned a law degree from UCLA School of Law.

48 EPA JOURNAL Sea oats guard the dunes on South Ray M ullka photo. Coastal Photo Service Carolina's coast.

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