Environmental Science and Policy

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Environmental Science and Policy

• Chapter 15

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Outline

• Decision Making
• Environmental Policy Cycle
• NEPA and EIS
• Environmental Law
• Statutory Law
• Case Law
• Administrative Law
• International Treaties
• Dispute Resolution
• Collective Action

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DECISIONS IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD

• Adaptive Management
• A solutions approach designed to test clearly
  formulated hypotheses about the actions being
  taken.
• Learning by doing or adaptive Management ,adopted
  by natural resource managers
• Polices are designed at the outset to utilize
  scientific principles to examine alternative and
  assess outcomes.

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Wicked Problems

• Environmental problems tend to be intractable
  because they are nested within sets of
  interlocking issues.
• Often poor match between bearers of costs and
  bearers of benefits.
• No value-free objective answers.
• Best approach comes from community based planning
  often consensus building.

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Precautionary Principle

• Four basic precautionary actions.
• People have a duty to take anticipatory steps to
  prevent harm.
• Burden of proof of carelessness lies within new
  technologies,process, activity and not the
  public.
• Full range of alternatives must be examined by
  people before using a new technology.
• Decision must be open, informed, democratic
  must include all affected parties.

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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

• Broad Goals
• Improve understanding among the general public of
  natural and built environments and the
  relationships between human and their
  environment.
• Encourage postsecondary students to pursue
  environmental careers.
• Environ. Science is highly interdisciplinary and
  integrates information from many fields of study,
  how the world works and how we should behave as
  environ citizens.

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ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

• Environmental Policy - Official rules and
  regulations concerning the environment that are
  adopted, implemented, and enforced by a
  governmental agency.
• National Policy e.g Clean Air Act.
• The international Policy e.g Convention on
  International Trade in Endangered species.
• Also encompasses public opinion.

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Environmental Policy
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The Policy Cycle
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Political Decision Making

• Politics as Power
• Politics is a struggle among competing interest
  groups as they strive to shape public policy to
  suit their own agendas.
• Rational Choice
• No policy should have greater total cost than
  benefits
• In choosing between policy alternatives,
  preference should be given to those with the
  greatest cumulative welfare and the least
  negative impacts.

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Arguments Against Rational Choice

• Conflicting values and needs are not comparable
  due to lack of information
• Few agreed-upon broad social goals (rather
  benefits on specific group or individual)
• Policymakers not motivated by societal goals.
• Large investments create sunken costs
• Uncertainty drives policy makers toward past.
• Costs and benefits difficult to calculate.
• Segmented nature of policy making in large
  bureaucracies makes policy making difficult.

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NEPA

• National Environmental Policy Act (1970) signed
  by President Nixon
• Authorizes Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)
  as the oversight board for general environ
  conditions.
• Directs federal agencies to take environmental
  consequences into account during decision making.
• Requires an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
  for every federal project having significant
  environmental impact on quality of human
  environment.

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EIS (Enviromment Impact Statement)

• ESI is one of the most powerful tool in the
  environment arsenal
• Every EIS must contain
• Purpose and need for project.
• Alternative to proposed action.
• Statement of positive and negative impacts of the
  proposed activities.
• A final ESI document is often 100s of pages and
  takes approx 6-9 months to prepare.

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ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

• Laws that govern environmental quality, natural
  resources ecological sustainibility.
• Statutory Law The Legislative Branch
• Federal laws (statutes) are enacted by Congress
  and signed by the President.
• After introduction, each bill is referred to a
  committee or sub-committee for hearings and
  debate.
• Language is modified, multiple bills may be
  combined, and overall bill is passed on to full
  committee.

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Legislative Branch

• A bill succeeding in full committee is reported
  to full House or Senate for a floor debate.
• Amendments proposed at each stage.
• House and Senate versions are often different,
  and must be sent to conference committee to meld
  differences.
• Bill goes back to House and Senate for
  confirmation.
• Passed on to President for signature.

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Case law The Judicial Branch

• Establishes environmental law by ruling on
  constitutionality of statutes and interpreting
  their meaning.
• Legal Standing First one must determined if
  participants have a right to initiate an action.

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The Judicial Branch

• Criminal Law - Derives from federal and state
  statutes that prohibit wrongs against the state
  or society.
• Charges always initiated by a government
  prosecutor.
• Guilt or innocence of defendant determined by a
  jury of peers.
• Violation of environmental statutes constitutes a
  criminal offense

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The Judicial Branch

• Civil Law - Defined by a body of laws regulating
  relations between individuals or corporations.
• Burden of proof lies with prosecution.
• Guilt or innocence based on whether the defendant
  could reasonably have anticipated and avoided the
  offense.

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SLAPP

• Strategic Lawsuits Against Political
  Participation - Practice of suing citizens who
  criticize businesses or government agencies over
  environmental issues.
• Legal defense costs can be exorbitant.

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Administrative Law The Executive Branch

• More than 100 federal agencies have environmental
  oversight.
• Federal agencies often delegate power to a
  matching state agency to decentralize authority.
• They usually have power to set rules,adjudicates
  disputes investigate misconduct.

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The Executive Branch
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Regulatory Agencies

• EPA - Primary agency with responsibility for
  protecting environmental quality in US
• Cabinet-level department.
• Department of Interior (Natural Resources)
• National Park Service
• Bureau of Land Management
• US Fish and Wildlife Service

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Regulatory Agencies

• Department of Agriculture
• US Forest Service
• Department of Labor
• Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA)
• Revolving door with workers moving back and forth
  between industry and government.

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INTERNATIONAL TREATIES AND CONVENTIONS

• Over past 25 years, more than 170 environmental
  treaties and conventions have been negotiated
  initiated to protect our global environment.
• Unfortunately many of these environmental
  treaties are vague and many do not comply due to
  public embarassment.
• Most nations unwilling to give up sovereignty.
• International court has no enforcement powers.

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DISPUTE RESOLUTION

• Arbitration is a formal dispute resolution, based
  in a trial-like setting.
• Arbitrator takes a more active role than a judge
  and is more interested in resolving the disputes
  than application of the law.

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Mediation

• Mediation is a process in which disputants are
  encouraged to come up with a solution on their
  own.
• Useful in complex issues with multiple
  stakeholders with different interests.

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Collaborative Approaches to Planning

• Community-Based Planning - Incorporates holistic,
  adaptive, pluralistic approaches.
• Collaborative Approaches - Working with local
  communities to gain traditional knowledge and
  gain local acceptance of management plans.

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COLLECTIVE ACTION

• Student Environmental Groups
• Student Environmental Action Coalition
• Public Interest Research Groups, etc.
• Mainline Environmental Organization
• National Wildlife Federation
• Sierra Club,etc.
• Radical Environmental Groups
• Earth First
• Sea Shepherd,etc,
• International Nongovernmental Organizations(NGOs)
  have become powerful aspects of environmental
  protection.

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Summary

• Decision Making
• Environmental Policy Cycle
• NEPA and EIS
• Environmental Law
• Statutory Law
• Case Law
• Administrative Law
• International Treaties
• Dispute Resolution
• Collective Action

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