Environmental Politics

Stakeholders, Interests, and Policymaking

Norman Miller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9781135899936
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The second edition of Environmental Politics: Stakeholders, Interests, and Policymaking shows students that environmental politics is fundamentally a clash of competing stakeholders' interests, and environmental policy the result of their reconciliation. But developments in environmental policymaking over the past several years have been little short of earthshaking. The text not only marks changes in the formal lawmaking process itself, but covers recent elements reshaping environmental politics, such as:

• the new environmentally activist posture of business
• the dramatic shift of policymaking influence from the federal to state and local levels
• the participation of new actors on the environmental policy stage, most notably the faith community
• the U-turn of organized labor, from opponent of environmentalists to their collaborator
• the consolidation of the varying missions of environmental advocacy groups to fight global warming
• the emergence of science from its historic political neutrality to open advocacy

• the increasing role of both the media and the judiciary

Written by an expert with more than 25 years of "smoke-filled room" experience in environmental policymaking, Environmental Politics: Stakeholders, Interests, and Policymaking gives students an insider's view of how policies are forged. By examining current environmental issues through a stakeholder lens, this book not only provides a unique perspective into how policies are adopted, but also illuminates the transformative power of global warming as a political force.

Chapter 1
The Evolving Landscape of Environmental Politics

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

(Ambrose Bierce)

In this definition from The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce, one of America’s most celebrated cynics, was obviously mocking the hypocrisy of our political life, but Americans have come to accept his characterization with equanimity. Today, few citizens are under any illusions that those with axes to grind or causes to pursue organize themselves and plead their special cases to lawmakers. Indeed, they regard such activities as a fundamental right of democracy. It is only when certain of these “special pleaders” gain disproportionate power and influence, especially by contributing vast sums of money to election campaigns, that the public bristles. Americans, to be sure, like a level playing field, but they generally have no problem with the game itself.

Despite their acceptance of the role of lobbyists or “lobbiers,” as the representatives of special interests have been known for almost two hundred years, Americans have generally regarded one or another of the major parties as the guardian of their interests. Today, most people see politics exclusively as a battle between two camps—Republicans and Democrats—representing ideologies that are correspondingly dual and opposing—Right and Left, Conservative and Liberal. Such a view provides those citizens who have only a passing interest in politics—which is to say, regrettably, most of our citizens—a formulation that does not often, if ever, encourage revision or refinement, and it allows the media to cover elections and disputes over major issues as sporting events, with all the drama and conflict inherent in such contests.

Moreover, the popular conception is that the political battlefields are almost invariably the national and state capitols, and, on the local level, city halls. Such a situation, citizens believe, puts most of them on the sidelines and leaves participation, even close observation, to the political professionals and those with the luxury of much spare time. But today’s environmental politics are playing out all around us, every day, wherever we may reside or work, and all of us are, consciously or unconsciously, participating. It is the goal of this book to sharpen the reader’s awareness of the components and forces operating in environmental politics not only to understand why and how we as a society address the problems we do, but also to empower that reader to actively take part in making those politics serve not only personal but socially desirable ends.

Ideology, Partisanship, and Interests

It is important to recognize that viewing environmental politics exclusively as partisan or ideological combat can be misleading; the forces at war are numerous and the battlefield itself complex. To be sure, the two political parties over the years have staked out broad policy orientations, manifest in their election campaigns and carefully cultivated to secure the support of their traditional social and economic constituencies. If the Democratic Party, judging from voting records and priorities, has by and large garnered the support of the environmental community, it is because environmental issues are broadly based and invested with a wide spectrum of social and civic concerns. Democratic orientation is more grassroots. Addressing environmental problems almost invariably requires federal government action and the appropriation and application of substantial levels of public funding. Democrats have more confidence in the role of the public sector. Republican orthodoxy, on the other hand, preaches small government and reliance on the free market to incentivize appropriate environmental behavior.

But the many who subscribe to the widely shared perception that the Democratic Party has co-opted the environmental agenda must account for the fact that the formative National Environmental Policy Act and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency were formal accomplishments of the administration of Richard Nixon, though supported by bipartisan majorities. They must also recognize that several landmark environmental laws, like the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, and the Clean Air Act of 1990 Amendments of 1990, were all signed into law by Republican presidents, though, again, with substantial Democratic support. Thus, party affiliations and ideologies are, by themselves, insufficient to predict policy outcomes. Any of a wide variety of events and circumstances often has more influence on policymaking than more traditional factors.

Consider the following:

• In 1982, Representative John Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan and Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, joined forces with the Reagan administration in attempting, though unsuccessfully, to scale down many of the core provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1990. Obviously, his alliance with the major interest group in his state, the automobile manufacturers, was more compelling than his loyalty to party. Until 2007, under pressure during deliberations on the omnibus energy bill, Representative Dingell opposed legislative initiatives to require auto manufacturers to increase fleet averages for fuel efficiency, known as CAFÉ standards. In taking this uncompromising stand, he differs from most of his Democratic colleagues. Similarly, Senator Robert Byrd has continually opposed any legislation that would regulate the practice of mountaintop removal in the service of his state’s coal mining industry, a practice at odds with the disposition of most Democrats. On the other side of the coin, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has joined his Democratic colleague Senator Tom Harkin in ardently supporting federal subsidies for biofuel development that would represent an economic boon for their state’s corn growers. The Senators are state representatives first and party loyalists second.

• In 1987, Alfonse D’Amato, a conservative Republican Senator from New York, enthusiastically assumed a leadership role in support of EPA’s newly proposed regulations toughening air quality standards. At the same time, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, a lifelong organization Democrat and strong ally of the Clinton administration, opposed those same standards. Senator D’Amato was more concerned with the ability of the State of New York to meet federal ambient air quality standards, which would be facilitated by imposing stringent new requirements on Midwest power plants whose emissions were wafting to the Northeast, than with the niceties of political philosophy. For his part, Mayor Daley was worried that the new regulations would disproportionately punish large metropolitan areas such as his by crippling industrial development, encouraging suburban sprawl, and promoting more auto traffic. The population concentrations in urban areas would make compliance with the regulations more difficult. Party politics often stops at the state’s or city’s boundary.

• The Chemical Industry Council of New Jersey actively supported proposed legislation granting the state intrusive and comprehensive powers not only to inspect their clients’ facilities, but also to prescribe a whole range of procedures they must follow in the handling of certain chemicals and the management of their businesses. The Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act of 1993 was introduced in the wake of the explosion at a chemical plant in Bhopal, India, the most serious industrial accident in world history. Because New Jersey has the second largest concentration of chemical plants in the U.S., opposing any measure that proposed prevention of such an accident in the state would have seriously tarnished the industry’s image.¹

• A coalition of 52 business leaders in the West tried to block a U.S. Forest Service plan to triple commercial logging in the Sierra Nevada Mountain area north of Lake Tahoe. Business’ departure from its historical alliance with the timber industry was in response to a shift in this area away from extractive industry and toward recreation and tourism. As one of the coalition businessmen put it: “We’re a tourism economy now, and people come up here to see trees standing, not on the ground.”²

• Similarly, a civil war raged among Alaskans over whether to include the Tongass National Forest in the ban on new road building throughout the national forest system. Some Alaskans support retaining the exception in the interests of continued timber harvesting, but others who make their living guiding tourists and sport fishermen through the rich natural areas want the increased protection that extending the ban to the Tongass would bring.³ In an analogous situation, 54 business groups have lobbied to stop oil and gas drilling near Yellowstone Park in Wyoming; as in Alaska, tourism was deemed more important than mineral extraction.⁴

• The Alliance for Safe and Responsible Lead Abatement, an industry group whose job is to protect drinking water from the health hazards of lead, opposed an EPA proposal to relax building containment requirements in favor of landfill disposal of contaminated materials. The EPA proposal would have given much of the work now conducted by the constituents in the Alliance to general contractors. Further, the Alliance advocated stronger rather than weaker standards through grass roots appeals for public support, in the best tradition of environmental activism.⁵ Similarly, manufacturers and suppliers of environmental technologies whose products would enjoy the wider market that strict environmental standards would generate have formed the Environmental Industry Coalition of the United States, Inc. to promote strong waste minimization and pollution prevention requirements before Congress and state and local governments. In both cases, the economic interests of the constituent members guided their political activities.

• Two business groups have undertaken opposing campaigns in connection with the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty. One—The Business Roundtable, representing 200 large companies—viewed the treaty as a significant economic threat, while a separate segment of that group, representing 13 blue-chip corporations, foresaw potential economic benefits. How the treaty negotiations play out would determine how individual interests are affected.⁶ Differing interests divided two segments of the textile industry over the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The National Textile Association foresaw their fortunes threatened by increased competition from Central America, but the National Council of Textile Organizations saw growth in the textile industry spurred by growth in demand for yarn and other fabric components.⁷

• Contrary to usual practice, a Native American tribe, the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute, is fighting the State of Utah to have their reservation designated and licensed as the site of a storage facility for half of the nation’s civilian nuclear waste, and thus enjoy the jobs and other economic benefits that would flow from such designation. The dispute is emblematic of that in several other venues, where economically disadvantaged populations—to the chagrin of government officials and environmental justice groups—are willing to bear the risks of exposure to toxic and radioactive materials or emissions in exchange for the economic benefits that would come with them.⁸

In Wyoming, owners of land on which livestock and wildlife thrive and which preserves sources of clean water are battling owners of the mineral rights beneath them, where rich methane gas deposits await extraction. The water resources are desperately needed, of course, but the revenues that the methane would generate might rescue a state with a low tax base and shrinking population from potential financial ruin.⁹

If, as these cases demonstrate, positions on environmental issues are often unrelated to partisan or ideological considerations, the collaborations that self-interest promotes are often between groups that have historically been at odds, and give renewed meaning to the old saw that “politics makes strange bedfellows.” The uneasy relationship between business and labor has nevertheless inspired at least two joint efforts. The signing of the Global Warming Treaty in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 brought together two old adversaries—the United Mine Workers and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association. The potential for job loss and higher energy prices that they see in the treaty has caused the two sides to temporarily put aside their differences to fight a common enemy.¹⁰ More recently, another collaboration between traditional enemies, the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, finds its member environmental groups and labor unions overlooking their historic differences to fight off their common threat, the World Trade Organization.¹¹

Finally, longtime antagonists—cattlemen and environmentalists—joined in support of land trusts as a way to protect western open spaces from development by providing a mechanism to allow cattle to graze them. Long opposed to the grazing of land, environmentalists saw “cows” as preferable to “condos.”¹² A comparable situation has inspired an unlikely alliance of environmentalists and developers, both of whom opposed a proposed mining project in Colorado. The area around Mt. Emmons, the tentative site of the project, has seen a conversion over the last 30 years from mining and ranching to recreational activities like hiking, camping, and skiing, on which the local economy now depends.¹³ This is the New West. The Old West seeks to restore mining to the area.

In other unlikely alliances: the Utah Outdoor Industry Association joined environmentalists in opposing the Administration’s opening of pristine backcountry to off-road vehicles, economic development, and natural resource exploitation, undermining what the Association regards as the state’s biggest economic driver;¹⁴ and environmentalists and the National Rifle Association (NRA) both worked to add conservation provisions to the 2002 Farm Bill.¹⁵ In other circumstances, unlikely clashes occurred between ranchers within the same scenic Montana area over a proposal to build a rail link to transport coal;¹⁶ and a dispute between the neighboring states of Montana and Wyoming over the draft of water from coal-bed methane.¹⁷

Finally, now gaining attention is the battle between Republican policy and the Republican base. “[R]anchers, cowboys, small property owners and local government leaders—the core of the Republican base in the Rocky Mountain West—are chafing at the pace and scope of the Bush administration’s push for energy development.”¹⁸

Environmental policy positions, then, are less often a function of ideology, of belief in certain core values that collectively constitute a commitment to social needs and aspirations, than to self-interest, principally, though not invariably, economic interest. Such an assertion may seem blasphemous, especially since the environment has achieved almost religious status among some segments of the population, and “environmentalist” is a label that virtually everyone wears with pride. Yet the self-interest involved in the formulation of environmental policy simply mirrors its role in our nation’s pol...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 The Evolving Landscape of Environmental Politics
• Chapter 2 Legislation: Leveling the Playing Field and Leveraging the Process
• Chapter 3 Environmental Regulation and the Evolution and Capture of the EPA
• Chapter 4 The Burgeoning Role of State and Local Governments
• Chapter 5 The Growing Sophistication of Environmental Advocacy
• Chapter 6 The Greening of Business
• Chapter 7 Re-Emerging Activists
• Chapter 8 Uncertain Science—Uncertain Politics
• Chapter 9 The Media Business
• Chapter 10 Federal Courts: A New Posture
• Chapter 11 Conclusion: A New Environmental Landscape
• Notes
• Annotated Bibliography
• Index