7

Environmental : Decision Making and Problem Solving

Chapter Objectives This chapter will help you:

Describe environmental policy and assess its societal context

Identify the institutions important to U.S. environmental policy and recognize major U.S. environmental laws

Categorize the different approaches to environmental policy Delineate the steps of the environmental policy process and evaluate its effectiveness Discuss the role of science in the policy process List the institutions involved with international environmental policy and describe how nations handle transboundary issues

Lecture Outline I. Central Case: San Diego and Tijuana: Sewage Pollution Problems and Policy Solutions

A. In 2007, San Diego officials closed public beaches 27 times, issued 668 days’ worth of health advisories, and kept one area off-limits to swimming the entire year. Of these beach closures, 76% were due to pollution from the Tijuana River. A river’s watershed consists of all the land from which water drains into the river. The Tijuana River’s watershed covers 4,500km2 (1,750 mi2) and is home to 2 million people of two nations, making this a transboundary issue. B. This problem also occurred across the border in the Mexican city of Tijuana, as raw sewage leaking from old sewer systems overflowed into streets, beaches, and the Tijuana River, directly affecting people’s day-to- day lives.

C. The rise of U.S.-owned factories, or maquiladoras, on the Mexican side of the border has contributed to the river’s pollution, both through direct disposal of and by attracting thousands of new workers to the already crowded region.

D. As impacts have intensified, many people in the San Diego and Tijuana areas have worked with policymakers to address this problem.

II. Environmental Policy: An Overview

1. A policy is a formal set of general plans and principles intended to address problems and guide decision making.

2. is made by , and consists of laws, , orders, incentives, and practices intended to advance societal welfare.

3. Environmental policy pertains to human interactions with the environment.

4. Forging effective policy requires input from science, ethics, and economics.

A. Environmental policy addresses issues of equity and resource use.

1. interacts with individual citizens, organizations, and the private sector in a variety of ways to formulate policy.

2. Environmental policy aims to protect environmental quality and the natural resources people use, and to promote equity in people’s use of resources.

3. The tragedy of the , as explained by Garrett Hardin, is when an unregulated resource held in common eventually becomes overused and degraded.

4. Although public oversight through government can alleviate the , this dilemma can also be addressed in other ways, including a cooperative approach and privatization.

5. If a community agrees to reduce use, or pollution, in a common resource while one or two groups or individuals do not participate, they are free riders on the efforts of others; this can collapse the system.

6. External costs are harmful impacts borne by people not involved in the market transactions that created them.

7. Some , such as the , specify that the party responsible for pollution should also be held responsible for covering the costs of its impacts. This helps avoid a tragedy of the commons. B. Many factors can hinder environmental policy.

1. Some people see government policies that regulate the environment as restrictive, inconvenient and an economic loss in their implementation.

2. Another reason people sometimes do not see a need for environmental policy stems from the nature of most environmental problems, which often develop gradually.

III. U.S. and Policy

A. Federal policy arises from the three branches of government.

1. Legislation is created by Congress, which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

2. Legislation is enacted (approved) or vetoed (rejected) by the president, who may also issue executive orders, specific legal instructions for government agencies.

a. Regulations are specific rules or requirements intended to help achieve the objectives of the more broadly written statutory law.

3. The judiciary, consisting of the Supreme Court and various lower courts, is charged with interpreting legislation.

a. Courts interpret laws because over time social norms, societal conditions, and technologies change.

b. Decisions made by the courts are known as case law.

c. Previous rulings then serve as precedents for new cases.

B. State and local governments also make environmental policy.

1. States, counties, and municipalities all generate environmental policy of their own, and interact to address environmental problems.

2. States with higher population densities often have more strict environmental laws and tend toward more because citizens observe the damage from unregulated activities.

3. State laws cannot violate principles of the U.S. Constitution, and if state and federal laws conflict, federal laws take precedence.

C. Some constitutional amendments bear on environmental law.

1. One of these is the clause from the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting states from denying ―equal protection of its laws‖ to any person.

2. The Fifth Amendment ensures, in part, that private shall not ―be taken for public use without just compensation.‖

a. A regulatory taking occurs when the government, by means of a law or regulation, deprives a property owner of some or all economic uses of that property. D. Early U.S. environmental policy promoted development.

1. The early environmental laws were intended to promote settlement and the extraction and use of the continent’s abundant natural resources.

a. Among these early laws were the General Land Ordinances of

1785 and 1787. It gave the federal government the right to manage unsettled lands, and it created a grid system for surveying them and readying them for private ownership.

b. This law wholly displaced the Native Americans who were inhabiting these lands.

c. All of these policies encouraged settlers, entrepreneurs, and land speculators to move west.

E. The second wave of U.S. environmental policy encouraged conservation.

1. In the late 1800s, as the continent became more populated and its resources were increasingly exploited, public perception and government policy toward natural resources began to shift.

2. During this time, the government created national parks, refuges, and the forest system.

F. The third wave of U.S. environmental policy responded to pollution and public outcry.

1. The publication of ’s Silent Spring awakened the American public to the negative impacts of and industrial chemicals.

2. The burning of the Cuyahoga River moved the public to prompt Congress to do more to protect the environment.

3. , first celebrated on April 22, 1970, continues to be supported by millions of people worldwide.

G. NEPA gives citizens input into environmental policy decisions.

1. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was signed in 1970 and requires that an environmental impact statement (EIS) be prepared for any major federal action.

2. The EIS process uses a cost-benefit approach typical of neoclassical economics, and generally does not halt development projects, while providing incentives to lessen the environmental damage resulting from a development or activity.

H. Creation of the EPA marked a shift in environmental policy.

1. The Agency (EPA) is charged with conducting and evaluating research, monitoring environmental quality, setting and enforcing standards, assisting the states in meeting standards and goals, and educating the public.

I. Other prominent laws followed. 1. This included the Federal Control Acts (1965 and 1972) and Clean Water Act (1977).

2. In the 1980s, Congress strengthened, broadened, and elaborated on the major laws of the 1970s. For example, major amendments were made to the Clean Water Act in 1987 and to the Clean Air Act in 1990.

J. Many people reacted against regulation.

1. From 1994 through 2006, the Republican-controlled Congress, and the White House under George W. Bush, sought to weaken or eliminate hard- won environmental protection measures.

2. In a departure from the former environmental advocacy stance that relied on technological fixes, consultants argued that arguments based on people’s core values were more effective in gaining public support for environmental protection.

3. New perspectives helped contribute to the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008.

K. Today’s environmental policy focuses on and change.

1. With Obama’s election and enhanced Democratic majorities in Congress came widespread optimism that the might reestablish its international leadership in environmental policy.

2. We may now be embarking on a fourth wave of environmental policy, one focused on sustainability and .

IV. Approaches to Environmental Policy

A. Conflicts can be addressed in court.

1. Prior to the legislative push of recent decades, most environmental policy questions in the United States were addressed with lawsuits in the courts through tort law, which is law that deals with harm caused to one entity by another.

B. Command-and-control policy has improved our lives.

1. Most environmental laws of recent decades, and most regulations enforced by agencies today, use a command-and-control approach where a regulating agency prohibits certain actions, or sets rules, standards, or limits, and threatens punishment for those who violate these terms.

2. The command-and-control policy has largely been effective.

3. Despite these successes, many people have grown disenchanted with the top-down, sometimes heavy-handed nature of the command-and- control approach.

C. tools can help achieve environmental goals. 1. Political scientists, economists, and policymakers today are exploring alternative policy approaches to channel the innovation and economic efficiency of the market in directions that benefit the public.

D. Green taxes discourage undesirable activities.

1. Green taxes, or taxes on environmentally harmful activities and products, discourage undesirable activities.

2. Today there is debate worldwide about whether ―carbon taxes‖—taxing

gasoline, coal-based electricity, and fossil-fuel-intensive products according to the carbon emissions they produce—should be instituted to fight global .

E. Subsidies promote certain activities.

1. Subsidies are government giveaways of money or publicly owned resources. They are intended to encourage a particular industry or activity.

a. A tax break is a common form of subsidy.

b. Plenty of environmentally harmful subsidies remain.

F. We can harness market dynamics to promote sustainability.

1. We may also pursue policy goals by establishing financial incentives and then letting marketplace dynamics run their course.

G. Permit trading can save money and produce results.

1. Permit trading is where the government creates a market in permits for an environmentally harmful activity, and then companies and utilities are allowed to buy, sell, or trade rights to conduct the activity.

a. For instance, to decrease emissions of air pollutants, a government might grant emissions permits and set up an emissions trading system.

2. In a cap-and-trade emissions trading system, the government first determines the overall amount of pollution it will accept (i.e., it caps the amount, at a level below what it would be in the absence of the program), and then issues permits that allow each entity to emit a certain fraction of that amount.

a. Polluters may buy, sell, and trade these permits with other polluters.

b. Although cap-and-trade programs can reduce pollution overall, they do allow hotspots of pollution to occur around plants that buy permits to pollute more.

H. Market incentives also operate at the local level.

1. At all levels, from the local to the international, market-based incentives that are well planned and implemented can reduce environmental impact while minimizing overall costs to industry, easing concerns about the intrusiveness of government regulation.

I. The public and private sectors can work as partners.

1. In a public-private partnership, a for-profit entity takes charge of performing the work, while operating within confines agreed upon with a public entity that acts as an overseer.

V. Science and the Environmental Policy Process

A. Environmental policy results from a step-wise process.

1. Identifying the problem is the first step.

2. Pinpointing causes of the problem is the second step in the policy process.

3. The third step is envisioning a solution.

4. Getting organized is the fourth step.

5. Cultivating access and influence is the fifth step.

a. Lobbying is spending time or money trying to influence an elected official’s decision.

b. Making campaign contributions is another way to get voices heard.

c. The movement of powerful officials between the private sector and governmental agencies helps gain political influence and is called the revolving door.

6. Shepherding a solution into law is the sixth step in the policy process 7. The final steps are to implement, access, and interpret policy.

B. Science plays a role in policy formulation.

1. Economic interests, ethical values, and political ideology all influence the policy process; yet effective environmental policy is generally also informed by scientific research.

2. The more information a policymaker can glean from science, the better policy he or she will be able to create.

C. Science can be ―politicized.‖

1. Sometimes policymakers choose to ignore science and instead allow political ideology alone to determine policy.

2. In 2004, the nonpartisan Union of Concerned Scientists released a statement titled, ―Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making,‖ which faulted the Bush Administration for manipulating scientific information for political ends: censoring, suppressing, and editing reports from government scientists; placing people who are unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in positions of power; ignoring scientific advice; and misleading the public by misrepresenting scientific knowledge.

VI. International Environmental Policy

A. International law includes conventional and customary law.

1. Conventional law is international law arising from conventions, or treaties, into which nations enter.

2. Other international law arises from long-standing practices, or customs, and is known as customary law. U.S. law, in contrast, rises from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

B. Cross-border cooperation helps address environmental problems.

1. Often, nations make progress on international issues not through legislation or treaties, but through creative multilateral agreements hammered out after a lot of hard work and diplomacy.

C. Several organizations shape international environmental policy.

1. The United Nations (UN) sponsors environmental agencies, including the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Created in 1972, UNEP helps nations solve environmental problems with sustainability as the goal.

2. The World Bank holds the purse strings for development. Funding environmentally destructive development programs is one of the chief criticisms of the World Bank.

3. The European Union (EU) is active in environmental affairs.

4. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has recently attained surprising power. Among these new powers is the ability to circumvent and even overturn national environmental protection laws of sovereign nations if those statutes are barriers to trade and profit-making.

5. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also exert influence.

a. A number of NGOs are international in scope and influence international environmental policy.

b. The World Wide Fund for Nature, Conservation International, , Population Connection, and others attempt to shape policy through research, education, lobbying, and protest.

D. International institutions wield influence in a globalizing world.

VII. Conclusion

A. Environmental policy is a problem-solving tool that requires science, ethics, economics, and the political process. B. The United States has historically often led the way with environmental policy, but often span political boundaries and require international cooperation.

Key Terms for chapter 7

cap and trade command-and-control conventional law conventions customary law emissions trading environmental impact statement (EIS) environmental policy Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) European Union (EU) free rider green tax legislation lobbying National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) permit trading policy polluter pays principle public-private partnership public policy regulation regulatory taking revolving door subsidy tort law treaties United Nations (UN) watershed World Bank World Trade Organization (WTO)

1. Assign students to read Garrett Hardin’s paper, ―The Tragedy of the Commons,‖ published in Science 162:1243–1248. The article can be found on the Science magazine website at www.sciencemag.org. Ask them to answer the following questions: a. Why does the ―economic man‖ behave differently in a commons than on private property? b. What are the implications of this behavior on public lands?

student.