The Missing Link: Policy Guide for Environmental Scientists

1
The Missing Link Policy Guide for Environmental
Scientists

• September 8, 2008

2
Environmental Legacy Optimism of the late 1960s
to 21st Century

• Enter Rachel Carson
• Silent Spring catalyze environmental movement,
  but had some of the science wrong.
• Human costs of malaria, 300-500 million are
  infected, 2.7 million die.

3
Nixons Legacy protecting water, air, endangered
species.

• National Environmental Policy Act (1969)
• Resource Recovery Act (1970)
• Clean Air Act (1970)
• Clean Water Act (1972)
• Environmental Pesticides Control Act (1972)
• Marine Protection Act (1972)
• Coastal Zone Management Act (1972)
• Endangered Species Act (1973)

4
Ford

• Safe Drinking Water Act (1974)
• Toxic Substances Control Act (1976)
• Federal Land and Management Act (1976)
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976)
• National Forest Management Act (1976)

5
Carter

• Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977)
• Clean Air Act Amendments (1977)
• Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978)
• Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
  (1980)
• Comprehensive Environmental Response,
  Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) (1980)

6
Reagan

• Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1982)
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Amendments
  (1984)
• Food Security Act (1985)
• Safe Drinking Water Act (1986)
• Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act
  (1987)
• Global Climate Protection Act (1987)
• Ocean Dumping Act (1988)

7
G. H. Bush

• Oil Pollution Prevention, Response, Liability and
  Compensation Act (1990)
• Pollution Prevention Act (1990)
• Clean Air Act Amendments (1990)
• Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act
  (1991)
• Energy Policy Act (1992)
• Omnibus Water Act (1992)

8
Clinton Administration

• California Desert Protection Act (1994)
• Congress/presidential stalemate prevented
  reauthorization or passing much during this
  period.
• Endangered Species Act
• Clean Water Act
• Safe Drinking Water Act
• CERCLA

9
Path to protect water quality and wetlands

• Swamp Land Act (1849, 1850, 1860)granted all
  land unfit for cultivation to the states
  (Louisiana, public domain states, and Minnesota
  and Oregon).
• Reclaim flooded lands to make them productive
• Reduce mosquito breeding habitat
• Much of the land was the privatized.

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Federal Pollution Control Acts

• 1948, 1956, 1965
• Interstate issue, water quality for drinking,
  focused on sewage treatment plants, providing
  cost-share (50-75) to municipalities.

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Clean Water Act (1972, 1977)

• The objective of this Act is to restore and
  maintain the chemical, physical and biological
  integrity of the Nation's waters. In order to
  achieve this objective it is hereby declared
  that, consistent with the provisions of this
  Act--
• (1) it is the national goal that the discharge of
  pollutants into the navigable water be eliminated
  by 1985
• (2) it is the national goal that wherever
  attainable, an interim goal of water quality
  which provides for the protection and propagation
  of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provides for
  recreation in and on the water be achieved by
  July 1, 1983
• (3) it is the national policy that the discharge
  of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts be
  prohibited (FWPCA 101(a)).

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Early and recent implementation

• Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of
  1972.
• As amended in 1977, this law became commonly
  known as the Clean Water Act.
• Basic structure for regulating discharges of
  pollutants into the waters of the United States.
• EPA the authority to set wastewater standards for
  industry.

13
Non-point source and Coastal Zone Management Act
Reauthorization

• Clean Water Act 303 TMDL
• Virtually ignored in favor of 208 Watershed
  Planning
• CZARAstepped into NPS, via Department of
  CommerceNOAA.
• Lawsuit by environmental community force EPA to
  enforce 303, thus states.

14
National Environmental Policy Act (1969)

• Signed by Nixon as his official first act of
  1970, declaring the 1970s to be the
  environmental decade.
• The act declared, it is the continuing policy of
  the Federal Government to use all practicable
  means and measures to create and maintain
  conditions under which man and nature can exist
  in productive harmony, and fulfill the social,
  economic and other requirements of present and
  future generations of Americans.

15
NEPA (1969)

• Established Council on Environmental Quality
  (CEQ)
• Required Environmental Impact Statements (EIS)
  for all projects receiving federal funds.

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Public Policy

• Problem oriented
• Multi-disciplinary endeavor
• Sociology, psychology, politics, history,
  economics
• Normative values for the development of policy
• e.g. welfare state, public good, public interest,
  etc.

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Ecosystem-based Management Federal Policy for
Public Lands

• Integration of economic, social, and ecological
  principles
• Protecting all the natural benefits of forests,
  rivers, wetlands, and other natural resources.
• Protect whole and interrelated ecosystems
• Watershed provides a unifying concept for many
  systems.
• Developing sound science to define what this
  protection means.
• Planning must include relevant economic,
  political, and cultural interests (stakeholders).

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Ecosystem Based Management An Awkward
Implementation

• Dominant paradigm for federal lands
• Economic development
• Sustainable harvests
• Forest Service
• Fisheries
• Recreation as a marginally important use
• Conservation limited at best
• Changed with the Endangered Species Act

19
Scienceas a source of advice

• New data prior information was inadequate for
  prior policy decisions.
• Complicating data ambiguous, fragmentary or
  contradictory data that policy makers do
  something to address or appear to address the
  issue.
• Unknown data unanticipated problems that policy
  could not address because scientists didnt see
  the problem coming.

20
The Value of Science

• In as much as it remains objective, independent
  of values and norms.
• Maintains integrity by limiting exposure to
  interest groups
• Funding to encourage boundaries of science and
  independent of results/implications

21
Scientists in Policy

• Scientists as charlatans
• Compromised by competing interest group politics.
• Delving into inappropriate arenas
• Ultimately boiled down to sound bites that
  disqualify science results, distorting
  conclusions.

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The Use and Abuse of Science

• Science is the tool of economic precedence
• Science as the mechanism for geopolitical
  domination
• Pure science transformed by goals of capitalism