US Environmental Policy in Action

Practice and Implementation

S. Rinfret, M. Pautz

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137482082
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política medioambiental y energética

US Environmental Policy: A Practical Approach to Understanding Implementation provides a comprehensive look at the creation, implementation, and evaluation of environmental policy, which is of particular importance in an era of congressional gridlock. With a focus grounded in the front-lines of environmental policy, readers are afforded examples of how environmental policy works through case studies and voices sections, thereby enriching the text's practical approach to understanding contemporary American environmental policy.

CHAPTER 1

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN PRACTICE

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Lessons from The Lorax

Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax presents readers with a choice: protect the land for future use, or develop the land for monetary gain. The story unfolds as a young boy attempts to understand what caused the extinction of the beautifully colored Truffula Trees. He discovers that the trees were cut down in order to produce Thneed needed for various products. Eventually, Thneed was overproduced, causing the natural landscape to become dark and dreary—a wasteland where no one wanted to live because of all the pollution. This story reminds us what happens when we make environmental choices; cutting down trees has costs and benefits.

The story of The Lorax struck a chord with former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson; she hoped that the book, which was turned into a feature film in 2012, would help us understand the importance of protecting the environment (Nakashima 2012). After all, during her time at the EPA, Jackson always kept a copy of The Lorax in her desk to remind her of the importance of protecting the environment (Boyle 2010).

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Today, the United States continues to confront a host of environmental issues that range from protecting the gray wolf in Arizona and preventing drinking water contamination in the hills of West Virginia to endeavoring to preserve biodiversity and combat climate change. Moreover, although the environmental problems we confront today are a bit more complex than those in Dr. Seuss’s story, the choices they present are no less stark. The following pages unpack these challenges by exploring environmental policy in the United States.

We begin our conversation about environmental policy by defining some key terms. First, a basic dictionary definition of “environmental policy” is necessary. The word “environment” encompasses the natural surroundings in which someone lives. Policy is a course of action adopted or created by the government in response to public problems. Then, when the terms are put together, environmental policy represents the collective choices we make as a society about the environment (Kraft 2011). More specifically, environmental politics, according to Michael Kraft (2011), “concerns policy goals and the means we use to achieve them as well as the way we organize and govern ourselves, for example, through the government institutions on which we rely and the political processes we use to make decisions” (5). As Richard Andrews (2006) suggests, “Environmental policy as a whole, however, includes all government actions that alter natural environmental conditions and processes, for whatever purpose and under whatever label” (4).

Although having a working definition of environmental policy is important, environmental policy is also inherently about making tough choices, just as the Lorax suggests. Environmental decision making is often difficult as the American public might be vehemently opposed to shutting down a coal company that releases harmful pollutants because it mean a loss of jobs for the community; however, that same public also wants a clean environment. Moreover, environmental policymaking is hard because it brings together an enormous array of actors—institutional (Congress, the President, and the Courts) and non-institutional actors (media, interest groups, political parties, and the public).

In addition, environmental decisions are increasingly difficult because the information age has brought us a deluge of material, and discerning fact from fiction can prove challenging. Historically, institutional actors, if they did not have the requisite information to make a decision, relied upon scientific or policy experts to inform and help them make the best, most informed choice. However, the temptation today could be that institutional actors make decisions based upon evidence available at the click of a button from the first set of results from an Internet search. Moreover, for politicians, the temptation is to base choices increasingly on how they might help secure re-election (Jacobson 2012). For instance, if an elected member of Congress’ congressional district has the highest unemployment rate in the United States, the goal is not going to be to shut down the local coal mining facility because jobs are needed; and this takes precedence over protecting the environment. However, what if this coal mining company’s chemicals end up in the local water supply and kill thousands of citizens? As this example suggests, environmental policy is about difficult choices.

The focus of this introductory chapter is to, first, present a few environmental dilemmas (e.g., air pollution, water contamination, garbage disposal, and species protection) in order to examine the choices that the United States has made about these issues. Then, we introduce the reader to our central theme: that we need to pay attention to the doers of environmental policy, as they are the people on the front-lines of environmental policy, implementing society’s choices.

With the term “front-lines”, we are referring to the people who implement or carry out environmental policy on a daily basis. These individuals on the front-lines include environmental rule-writers, who translate congressional statutes into actionable policy, and environmental inspectors, who ensure that your neighborhood waste management company is complying with federal law to ensure that your waste is properly stored. Further, we cannot overlook those businesses that cooperate with rule-writers and environmental inspectors to protect the environment (Pautz and Rinfret 2013). The argument we make in this book is that, in order to more comprehensively understand environmental choices made in the United States, we need to pay attention to these individuals, many of whom occupy the so-called fourth branch of government (i.e., the bureaucracy).

Environmental Dilemmas and Choices

Next, we offer a snapshot of environmental challenges (e.g., air pollution, climate change, hazardous and solid waste, etc.) and the choices the United States has made to address some aspects of these issues. These choices by no means indicate that these environmental issues have been resolved, as so many of the challenges are constantly evolving. We suggest, in this overview, that the evidence indicates environmental problems have improved over time; however, there still exist issues we need to make decisions about. In addition, although we do not provide an exhaustive list of all the environmental dilemmas the United States faces, our goal is to introduce readers to some examples, leaving the remaining pages of the book to fill in the details.

Clean or Dirty Air?

Prior to the 1970s, the air quality in the United States was often defined as unhealthy or simply dirty because of the pollution that filled the air in many of our major cities such as Los Angeles (Andrews 2006). The culprits of the dirty air were six major toxic pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates, lead, and ozone (Andrews 2006). These six pollutants are of concern because of their impact on the health and well-being of humans; but, what are the origins of these pollutants? For instance, carbon monoxide (the most common of the six) is colorless and odorless and is a product of burning fossil fuels (including running your car), and when there is too much of it in the air, it can cause an array of cardiovascular problems and even visual impairment.

Because of such concerns, Congress decided to establish air-quality standards with the passage of the Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1970, which created National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The EPA, in implementing the NAAQS, established limits for the aforementioned six pollutants and continues to enforce these standards across the country (Kraft 2011). Going back to our example of carbon monoxide, the NAAQS standards forced car manufacturers to devise ways to produce cars that are cleaner burning. In a recent report, the EPA suggests that, when examining these six areas of pollutants that lead to poor air quality, significant improvements have been made over time. The EPA reports that, from 1980 to 2012, air quality in the United States has, indeed, improved because the agency set standards that were required to be met; if not, fines resulted (US EPA Air Quality Trends 2012). To demonstrate some of these improvements, the EPA’s longitudinal study of carbon monoxide from 1980 to 2012 reports a decrease by 83 percent (US EPA Air Quality 2012).

Cleaning up dirty skies may not seem to be a difficult choice, as evidenced earlier; however, challenges still exist today. For instance, why has Congress not passed new legislation to combat climate change? “Climate change” is the term explaining that the Earth is warming and, according to the EPA, the Earth’s temperature has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century. Accordingly, the logical question then becomes: what has caused the temperature increases? The vast majority of scientific research supports the conclusion that human activities—through the burning of fossil fuels—have released significant quantities of carbon dioxide, posing a threat to human health. However, some US politicians, including Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), argue that the warming of the Earth is a natural occurrence, not a human-made one, and scientists should not be trusted to make these determinations. Moreover, most members of Congress do not see the value in pursuing climate change policy because the consequences will be realized well after their life expectancy (Rabe 2010).

The choices we have available here are to either believe or not believe the science. Does climate change exist? As President Obama noted in his 2014 State of the Union address: “climate change is a fact.” For some, though, the answer is not this simple.

Is it Really Drinkable?

Much like breathing clean air, it seems unfathomable that you could not drink the water from your faucet at home. Nonetheless, safe drinking water has not always been available and, in 1976, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The SDWA established national standards to protect our drinking water from naturally occurring or human-made contaminants that might be found in drinking water. The US EPA works with state and local governments to ensure safe drinking water from the more than 160,000 public and private drinking water suppliers in the United States. Although we keep in mind that the SDWA does not regulate private wells that serve fewer than 25 individuals (US EPA Drinking Water 2014), we need to also keep in mind that the United States has some of the cleanest tap water in the world, which ensures that we do not fill our drinking glasses with chromium or chlordane (Andrews 2006).

Threats to our drinking water still lurk, however. (McLendon 2014). For instance, one of the problems with the SDWA is that it does not regulate “nonpoint” sources, which include runoff from farms (e.g., cow manure), construction, or stormwater runoff (e.g., you are washing your car and the soap goes into the nearby drain). Thus, our water can still become polluted from sources that are classified as nonpoint because the exact origin cannot necessarily be determined. For example, let us hypothesize that a nearby river necessary for a town’s water supply has high traces of fecal matter in it that pose health risks for drinking water. The presumption is that the source of the contamination could be the adjacent yogurt factory that has thousands of cows grazing in close proximity to the river. However, there are also several large farms alongside the river. Therefore, how could someone determine definitively the source of the drinking-water contamination? One option would be to blame all of the farms, or at least the one closest to the drinking water facility. However, we know that contaminants upstream travel downstream, so how do you determine who is responsible? Again, it is not an easy answer.

The SDWA routinely monitors and tracks only 91 contaminants; however, there are new chemicals manufactured each day and we are unaware of their effects on our tap water. For instance, methyl cyclohexane methanol (MCHM), a black licorice-smelling chemical that is used to clean coal, is not on the list of 91 routinely monitored contaminants. In early 2014, a water-treatment plant near Charleston, West Virginia found this chemical in the water (Levitz et al. 2014). Ingesting this chemical can cause vomiting and other flu-like ailments, but much is still unknown about MCHM. The question driving this recent incident is whether or not the EPA should be required to examine and test every single chemical ever manufactured, which would take significant amounts of time and resources.

Taking out the Trash

No one—except Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch—likes trash, but few people think about it once the local garbage collector picks it up weekly and drives it away. However, there are safeguards—just as with the air we breathe and the water we drink—to protect us from solid waste through the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976.

Prior to the 1970s, the customary approach to taking out the trash was to dump it cheaply—often, in the ocean or burning it in a dumpsite (Andrews 2006). Obviously, these practices were not environmentally friendly and, with the creation of RCRA, Congress required that the EPA develop criteria for the safe disposal of hazardous waste. For instance, former EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus tried to implement “Mission 5000” to close 5,000 out of the 14,000 reported dumps across the United States and convert into sanitary landfills. Although he fell short of this mission, over time, all dumps had been closed and converted to sanitary landfills (Andrews 2006). By the 1980s, RCRA became even more stringent because of two horrific stories of hazardous waste disposal in Love Canal, New York and Times Beach, Missouri. Congress was disappointed with the EPA during these hazardous waste crises and amended the RCRA in 1984 to enact more stringent provisions requiring rapid EPA action (Kraft 2007). More specifically, the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 was set up to help provide the cleanup of previous toxic dumping sites.

According to the EPA, Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash in 2011 and, of this trash, 87 million tons were either recycled or composted (US EPA Wastes 2014). However, since 1960, these waste totals have increased by almost 60 percent, which is burdening local landfills that are on the brink of capacity in urban areas such as New York City, where expansion is limited (US EPA Wastes 2014).

The United States is confronting a solid waste problem as landfills will have to close and new space will be needed for human-generated waste. But, what are our choices in addressing our overcrowded landfills? One option is provide incentives or more stringent policies that mandate recycling and composting to help alleviate overcrowding concerns. Another approach could be to make it mandatory that all elementary and high school students take a class on best practices of how to reduce much of the waste we generate. Either approach could be plausible, but are probably impossible because A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Environmental Policy in Practice
• 2 Contextualizing Environmental Policy
• 3 The Messy Process of Making Environmental Policy
• 4 Official Actors in the Policy Process
• 5 Unofficial Actors in the Policy Process
• 6 Translating Vague Statutes into Rules and Regulations
• 7 Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Implementing Environmental Policy
• 8 Is It Working? Evaluating Environmental Policy
• 9 Understanding Environmental Policy from the Ground Up
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index