Environmental policy of the United States
The environmental policy of the United States is a federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the United States. The goal of environmental policy is to protect the environment for future generations while interfering as little as possible with the efficiency of commerce or the liberty of the people and to limit inequity in who is burdened with environmental costs. As his first official act bringing in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon signed the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law on New Years Day, 1970. Also in the same year, America began celebrating Earth Day, which has been called "the big bang of U.S. environmental politics, launching the country on a sweeping social learning curve about ecological management never before experienced or attempted in any other nation."[1] NEPA established a comprehensive US national environmental policy and created the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement for “major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment.” Author and consultant Charles H. Eccleston has called NEPA the world's “environmental Magna Carta”.[2]
As a result of the environmental movement in the United States, environmental policy continued to mature in the 1970s as several broad environmental laws were passed, regulating air and water pollution and forming the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Partially due to the high costs associated with these regulations, there has been a backlash from business and politically conservative interests, limiting increases to environmental regulatory budgets and slowing efforts to protect the environment. Since the 1970s, despite frequent legislative gridlock, there have been significant achievements in environmental regulation, including increases in air and water quality and, to a lesser degree, control of hazardous waste. Due to increasing scientific consensus on global warming and political pressure from environmental groups, modifications to the United States energy policy and limits on greenhouse gas have been suggested.
As established under NEPA, the US was the first nation in the world to introduce the concept of preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) to evaluate the alternatives and impacts of proposed federal actions.[3] The EIS process is designed to forge federal policies, programs, projects, and plans.[4] A large percentage of nations around the world have adopted provisions that emulate the American EIS process.
Power delegation and policy jurisdiction[edit]
Executive branch[edit]
Governmental authority on environmental issues in the United States is highly fragmented at the national, state and local levels. While the EPA is the most comprehensive environmental agency, its authority on these matters is not absolute. Virtually all of the federal executive departments have some area of environmental authority.
As chief executive, the President plays an important role in environmental policy. Presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon have acted as "bully pulpit" to gain support for environmental legislation. Their role as chief diplomat enables them to enact international agreements with environmental stipulations. Ronald Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol, Obama was a leader in negotiating the Paris agreement and the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto protocol. Presidents can use their "soft" power to draw attention to environmental issues and set broad administrative goals. They can veto legislation and, through executive orders, regulate administrative behavior.[5]
Impact[edit]
Since the major environmental legislation of the 1970s was enacted, great progress has been made in some areas, but the environmental protection has come at a high price. Between 1970 and 1996, air pollutants dropped 32% while the population grew by 29%. Other pollutants have been more difficult to track, especially water pollutants. While air and water standards have been slowly improving, in 1996 70 million people still lived in counties that did not meet EPA ozone standards. 36% of rivers and 39% of lakes did not meet minimum standards for all uses (swimming, fishing, drinking, supporting aquatic life). In the same period, the size of the National Park Service grew from 26,000,000 acres (110,000 km2) to 83,000,000 acres (340,000 km2), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expanded by over three times to manage over 92,000,000 acres (370,000 km2). In 1995, 41% of the 960 endangered species were stable or improving.
Critics of environmental legislation argue that the gains made in environmental protection come at too great a cost. A 2003 paper estimated the overall cost of environmental regulation in the United States to be about 2% of the gross domestic product. While this cost resembles that of many other countries, calculating it is challenging both conceptually (deciding what costs are included) and practically (with data from a broad range of sources).[97] In 1994, almost $122 billion was spent on pollution abatement and control. $35 billion of that has been in direct government spending, $65 billion was spent by business, and $22 billion was spent by individuals.