American Politics and the Environment, Second Edition

Byron W. Daynes, Glen Sussman, Jonathan P. West

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781438459349
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Changing our environmental policy has been at the forefront of many political discussions. But how can we make this change come about? In American Politics and the Environment, Second Edition, Byron W. Daynes, Glen Sussman and Jonathan P. West argue it is critical that we must understand the politics of environmental decision making and how political actors operate within political institutions. Blending behavioral and institutional approaches, each chapter combines discussion of an institution along with sidebars focusing on a particular environmental topic as well as a personal profile of a key decision maker. A central focus of this second edition is the emergence of global climate change as a key issue. Although the scientific community can provide research findings to policy makers, politics can create conflicts, tensions, and delays in the crafting of effective and necessary environmental policy responses. Daynes, Sussman, and West help us understand the role of politics in the policy making process and why institutional players such as the president, Congress, and interest groups succeed or fail in responding to important environmental challenges. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to Knowledge Unlatched—an initiative that provides libraries and institutions with a centralized platform to support OA collections and from leading publishing houses and OA initiatives. Learn more at the Knowledge Unlatched website at: https://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/7128.

1

The American Political Setting and the Environment

Environmentalism is one among many complex and technical policy issues that has challenged political leaders and citizens alike since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. As one journalist specializing on U.S. environmental policy observed, “The economic prosperity of the Industrial Revolution—indeed the rise of America—came at a steep price: lost wilderness, contaminated waters, dirty skies, endangered animals and plants.”1 By the mid-1960s, the modern American environmental movement focused not only on domestic concerns but also included transnational environmental policy issues ranging from acid rain to stratospheric ozone depletion to global warming and climate change. In short, it became increasingly clear that the United States and other countries were exponentially threatening the health of the environment at home and abroad.

To what extent have U.S. public officials included environmental issues as a central feature of the public agenda? For some, the question of environmental protection concerns value conflicts between preservation and development, where tradeoffs are demanded of contending forces. While some public officials have advocated that the federal government play a strong role in protecting the environment, a limited number of their colleagues are reluctant to impose governmental authority over business and industry with respect to the environment. Still others argue that state and local governments rather than the federal government should play the primary role in managing environmental affairs.

The history of the environmental policy process in the United States has been associated with state-level politics where policymakers, more often than not, have supported economic development over environmental protection. Over the last half-century, however, the federal government assumed increasing responsibility for managing environmental affairs. At the same time, public opinion informs us that American citizens have supported protecting the environment over economic development.2 Moreover, Americans are more likely to prefer that the federal government take action to protect the environment, rather than rely on business and industry to do so.3

The political struggle regarding the environment is framed within the American constitutional system of government involving the three major institutions of the federal government. A secondary consideration involves federalism and the extent to which the national government and the fifty state governments should play a role in environmental management. The environment as an important public policy issue also includes the debate over the extent to which science should be involved in environmental policymaking. Consequently, environmental management can be viewed as being subject to a variety of influences that have affected the decision-making process.

The American Political System, Public Policymaking, and the Environment

In the American political system, public policy is subject to a variety of political constraints including but not limited to the dispersion of power prescribed by the Madisonian model of separation of power and the system of checks and balances. The federal system of government divides political power between the national government and the fifty states. Moreover, as the framers of the Constitution were well aware when they argued in Federalist #10, the governmental system was subject to pressures exerted by organized interests. This motivated the framers to design a system that would moderate the actions of the myriad political actors within the system.

In the American political setting, the three major national institutions (legislative, executive, judicial) have specific areas of political responsibility yet also exert their influence beyond their respective jurisdictions. Congress has the power to pass legislation, yet the framers of the Constitution gave to the president the ability to negate the efforts of those 535 legislators though the power of the veto. Then again, Congress can override the president’s veto power if it can muster sufficient support (two-thirds of the congressional membership) to oppose the president’s actions. Furthermore, the Supreme Court can exercise its power of judicial review in response to actions taken by the other two institutions.

Congress is a decentralized institution in which political power is fragmented among a variety of committees and subcommittees that can promote, delay, or oppose legislation as well as expand their jurisdiction. For example, several different committees and subcommittees in the House and the Senate have jurisdiction over environmental affairs. Consequently, notwithstanding congressional responsibility for advancing the national interest, members of the legislative branch of government remain committed to protecting state and local interests. In the process of doing so, important issues at the national level may become subverted by subnational pressure. In addition to these considerations, Congress is also influenced by the partisan makeup of the legislative body. Although bipartisanship is evident on some legislation, partisan conflict over public policy is an integral feature of the legislative process. As far as Congress and the environment are concerned, the “golden age” of environmental legislation occurred during the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, as a result of bipartisanship among legislators, important bills (some modest, others substantive) were passed by Congress and signed into law. This legislation, some with subsequent amendments added, included the Clean Air Act (1963, 1970, 1977), Wilderness Act (1964), Endangered Species Conservation Act (1966, 1973), National Environmental Policy Act (1970), Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), Clean Water Act (1972, 1977), Safe Drinking Water Act (1974, 1986), and the Superfund (1980, 1986).

Although certain presidents have used the power resources available to them to take action on behalf of the environment—signing legislation, issuing executive orders, using the veto power—the environment has yet to assume a central place in their legislative agenda. Later in this book, we will discuss the classification of presidents as activist or symbolic in their behavior toward the environment. As an activist, the president can take actions that promote environmental protection or support a developmental ethic over conservation efforts. Or, the president can respond to environmental challenges in a symbolic way, exhibiting only modest to little attention to environmental challenges.

Moreover, just as the president sits atop the executive branch of government and sets the public agenda, executive agencies also play an important role in the policymaking process. The bureaucracy is similar to the legislative branch, in that it is a decentralized institution comprised of numerous agencies, departments, and bureaus sometimes having overlapping jurisdiction. As a public policy area, the environment is under the jurisdiction of a variety of regulatory agencies that either cooperate or engage in turf wars.4

As well, executive agencies, including major players such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Interior, have been politicized as a result of presidential budget priorities and the appointment process. During the 1980s, for instance, both offices received considerable news media attention due to problems arising over political and personal matters. Anne Gorsuch, EPA administrator, resigned and Rita Lavelle, assistant administrator for hazardous waste was fired, due to allegations of mismanagement and lax enforcement of environmental regulations.5 Secretary of the Interior James Watt had what Robert Durant called a “confrontational, arrogant, and badgering style” that “fanned the flames of conflict with congressional oversight committees … and the environmental community.”6 Although Watt eventually resigned in response to mounting pressure from environmentalists, citizens, and members of Congress, Watt’s protégé Gale Norton was later nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as his Secretary of the Interior. On the other hand, Bush’s initial appointment of Christine Todd Whitman to head the EPA was viewed positively since she had a background of being sympathetic to environmental concerns. However, her tenure was relatively short since her views were increasingly at odds with the administration. As Kristina Horn Sheeler informed us, when Whitman accepted the position of EPA administrator, she made reference to Teddy Roosevelt, “our first conservationist president,” who “understood the necessity of striking the right balance between competing interests for the good of all Americans.”7 The notion of Bush employing a balanced approach was quickly forgotten as Whitman was characterized as “shoved to the margins,” “undercut,” “undermined,” “isolated,” “the odd woman out,” “out of step,” and the “lone voice.”8 In contrast, President Barack Obama appointed Lisa Jackson to the head the EPA. Jackson was a strong, committed EPA administrator who used the regulatory process in support of ecological issues especially in the policy domain of climate change and its threat to the environment and to public health.

While Congress, the presidency, and executive agencies are characterized as political institutions, the Supreme Court exercises its authority through the judicial process. The Court, third pillar of the country’s national institutional framework, has an important role in influencing the actions of the other two branches as well as the states. As a result of the 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision, the Court has the power of judicial review, which underlies its ability to interpret the actions of the executive and legislative branches of government as well as events at the subnational level. As far as the role of the Court and the environment is concerned, it is not surprising to say that appointments to the Court make a difference. More importantly, as Rosemary O’Leary has argued, while “[m]ost environmental conflicts never reach a court, and an estimated 50 to 90 percent of those that do are settled out of court,” since the 1970s, the “courts in the United States have become permanent players in environmental policymaking” although their involvement in environmental affairs will “ebb and flow over the years.”9

As we have seen in the discussion above, jurisdiction over environmental affairs has been divided between the major institutions of government. Once legislation is passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, executive agencies establish regulations as the lawmaking process places new responsibilities on the fifty states for implementing federal guidelines. However, as power has shifted from Washington to the states, subnational governments have not necessarily acted consistently in the implementation process. While some states have engaged in innovative efforts to improve environmental quality, others have opposed federal environmental guidelines or have not acted on federal legislation in a timely manner. Almost two decades ago, the research of Evan Ringquist clearly confirmed that the fifty states play an important role in environmental policymaking, James P. Lester reminded us that the actions of individual states are influenced by several factors including the state’s wealth and the severity of its environmental problems compared to other states.10 The value of Lester’s work is that he organized states into policy types defined by their commitment to environmental protection and each state’s institutional capabilities to take action. In doing so, a portrait of subnational government was established, placing the fifty states into one of four policy types.

As the Founding Fathers informed us in The Federalist Papers, the U.S. political system was created to control factions, yet the fragmented system of government also provides numerous access points for organized interests to pursue their causes, supported by the First Amendment right of free expression. Similar to other public policy issues, conflict over the management of the environment has resulted in a proliferation of ecological interest groups. Nonetheless, although these groups share a common commitment to protect the environment, they are characterized by different sociodemographic attributes, size, budget, tactics, and strategies. Moreover, not all ecology groups conduct themselves in politically legitimate ways. For instance, where the National Wildlife Federation is considered a “mainstream” organization that engages in influencing legislation or lobbying efforts, Greenpeace is identified as a “direct action” group whose members are willing to engage in nonviolent but confrontational actions (e.g., challenging whaling ships) while Earth First! has been characterized as a “radical” direct action group due to its willingness to go beyond nonviolent actions. In short, members of environmental groups engage in conventional and unconventional participation, modes of behavior that will be further discussed later in this book. Interest groups are not limited to the environmental movement. They have ample options. The interests of business and industry are also represented by a host of groups ranging from large groups with considerable resources, including the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers, to smaller yet active groups that have focused on specific or narrowly defined issues, such as the National Wetlands Coalition or the Marine Preservation Association. Think tanks such as the Heartland Institute and the Cato Institute push a conservative philosophy that is pro-development/pro-growth, less inclined to support conservation efforts, and opposed to federal and state environmental regulations on business and industry.

While interest groups serve as linkage institutions that connect the public to the political system, public opinion remains an important yet problematic aspect of American politics. On the one hand, in a democratic society the public’s preferences should be expressed in government action. Yet the extent to which this should be done is part of a long-standing debate in American politics. How well is the citizenry informed about political and environmental issues? To what degree should policymakers rely on public opinion as a guide for action? While some observers have argued that the American public is not an informed, rationally thinking body of individuals, others contend quite the opposite.11 Although public opinion data indicate that Americans hold strong views about environmental protection, to what extent do policymakers take these into account? Policymakers must listen to their constituents but are also influenced by other political and economic interests regarding their participation in the environmental policymaking process.

In addition to the role played by a variety of actors in American democratic politics, the United States also has an international role to play. The United States is but one among some two hundred countries whose actions affect the health of the planet, and it is a member of numerous regional and international organizations that engage in environmental policymaking. Similar to political conflict within the domestic policy arena, due, in part, to differing interests, nation-states have shared, as well as distinct, concerns that impact their orientation toward global environmental protection. For example, the United States joined other countries and became a signatory to the 1987 protocol addressing ozone depletion. In contrast, at the Earth Summit in 1992, President George H. W. Bush didn’t seek to unite the United States with other members of the international community in their effort to secure a global commitment to environmental quality. Although global warming and biodiversity were salient issues at the summit, President Bush refused to sign the biodiversity treaty—the only participant to do so—and signed the global warming treaty only after it was revised to reflect voluntary rather than mandatory guidelines.12

Science, Politics, and the Environment

The environment is a policy area in which the well-being of the American people is determined by public officials at different levels of government. In the process of decision making, lawmakers are subject to numerous influences and, for example, they are inclined to reject scientific research that might be contrary to their self- or constituency interests, they might disregard what they don’t understand, or they might hesitate to act when science lacks a consensus. Moreover, opposition to the scientific community can be found among politicians harboring ideological or partisan differences, business and industry leaders who are worried about their economic interests, citizens concerned about tax increases needed to resolve environmental problems, and state governments that might oppose the intervention of “big...