Introduction: The Present Moment in Canada-United States Environmental Relations

Abstract

With the exception of the ongoing salmon controversy on the West Coast, environmental disputes between Canada and the United States during the 1990s have seemed minor when compared to those of the 1980s. (1) Public perception holds that the vexed 1980s acid-rain problem was resolved by the Canada-United States Clean Air Agreement of 1991. The Great Lakes, although always at issue, have been steadily improving under the watchful eye and the continuous government prodding of the International Joint Commission (IJC). At the same time, other issues never really developed into high profile controversy. Such perceptions of a quiet, or even near dormant, environmental relationship belie the true intensity of the myriad of problems faced by the two countries; at the same time, they are evidence of the relative success of crossborder environmental management mechanisms. During the latter half of the 1990s, both governments discussed, debated, and formed agreements on a host of environmental issues. Scientific research required both countries to admit that the Clean Air Agreement signed in 1991, which was to end the threat of acid rain, was not really sufficient to do the job. The Minister of the Environment, Sergio Marchi, and EPA Administrator Carol Browner have agreed to joint plans for reducing transboundary air pollution, particularly smog. A Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy was developed, as well as new agreements to protect shared endangered species. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation, formed as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, came into being and began to formulate working policies for environmental disputes. Indeed, the environmental agenda between Canada and the United States may, at the end of this century, be as busy as at any time since 1900. This issue of ARCS is dedicated to an examination of the environmental relationship between Canada and the United States over the last decade. Its goal is to illuminate the complexity and intensity of many issues that did not make the nightly news. For each of the issues discussed in this volume, the authors were asked not only to present an overview of a particular dispute or controversy but also to speculate on its future developments. Thus, this work is designed to serve not only as a review of today's position but as a prognostication of what the transboundary relationship might look like into the twenty-first century. The topics chosen represent those that present, at the end of this decade, the most immediate problems and, thus, demand the most attention from bureaucrats and international agencies. These issues include Great Lakes water pollution, acid rain and other air quality issues, the Pacific salmon dispute, transboundary problems of the northwest, and environmental issues imbedded in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As has occurred on several occasions in recent years, this theme issue had its beginnings in a conference; in this case, the authors presented draft papers at a conference on the campus of St. Lawrence University in November of 1996. Students at St. Lawrence enrolled in a class on Canada-U.S. transboundary environmental issues served as both discussants and referees for the papers. Using the students' comments as a guide, the authors have revised their papers into the form in which they are herein presented. Perhaps a few words should be said about other issues that might have appeared here. Two that come to mind are the International Joint Commission and the potentially contentious issue of oil development in the Arctic. The history of the IJC and its role in Great Lakes water quality issues are well documented. So, rather than devote one chapter to the IJC, its work is discussed throughout this volume, appropriately linked to the issue under immediate discussion. (2) For example, Rabe's paper on the politics of ecosystem management in the Great Lakes Basin puts the IJC into perspective relative to the states, provinces, and federal governments. …