Environmental Policy Issues Research Articles

Harmonious Principles and Clutters of Expedients: The Environment White Paper

This paper assesses the degree to which the British Government's recent Environment White Paper has changed the country's energy and environmental policies. It is concluded that the process by which the White Paper was produced may be of greater long term significance than the document itself. There has recently been a considerable change in the rhetoric of environmental policy and environmental issues are now taken seriously across all Whitehall departments. However, potential conflicts between environmental objectives and energy issues, notably electricity privatisation, mean that it has been difficult for the Government to establish a proactive environmental policy. Consequently, many challenges remain to be faced during the 1990s.

Coastal zone tourism: A potent force affecting environment and society

As experiences in the popular parts of the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Pacific have shown, coastal and marine tourism have tremendous potential to transform the natural environment and society quickly and permanently. At a time of renewed concern for marine environmental policy issues such as habitat and endangered species protection, resource conservation, and water quality, travel and tourism have emerged as the world’s largest business. However, tourism has been only lightly treated in marine affairs literature. This article focuses on the opportunities and problems inherent in coastal zone tourism development. Major sections address ecological and social impacts of tourism, patterns of travel, and the instltutional framework for tourism management and planning. The article concludes with remarks on the 1990 ‘Congress on coastal and marine tourism’ held in Honolulu.

Telecommunications and Economic Development: The State and Local Role

The telecommunications infrastructure of the U.S. is becoming an increasingly important component of the economy. In many industries, fast and efficient telecommunications is essential for survival in a competitive environment. The relation between telecommunications and economic development is not well understood, at least in terms of the actual or potential effect of public policy on this relationship. Furthermore, federal deregulation of telecommunications has placed greater policy responsibility on state and local governments. A better understanding of the telecommunications industry is important as state and local governments attempt to use telecommunications policy as a tool for economic development. This article serves three purposes: (1) to identify the forces of change in telecommunications policy, (2) to describe the linkages between telecommunications and economic development, and (3) to examine the policy making environment and public policy issues faced by state and local governments.

Economic Growth, Environmental Quality, and Social Services: Mapping the Potential for Local Positive-Sum Strategies

: This study examines how local leaders in Boulder, Colorado, perceive the linkages among environmental quality, economic development, and social policy issues. The objective is to identify the extent to which declining resources create perceptions of a zero-sum situation forcing policy trade offs and the bases for potentially reframing these issues as a positive-sum agenda. The study utilized Q methodology and cluster analysis to identify different dimensions in participant viewpoints. The most notable finding is that there are more points of consensus than of conflict among leaders. These patterns appear relatively stable over time, but the introduction of social program issues fragments existing community coalitions. The local political context now appears more fluid, more complex, and more competitive with some indication of support across sectors for positive-sum policy strategies.

Environmental reform of agricultural policy in 1990 and beyond: Consider the source

AbstractThe environment will be a major issue during the 1990 Farm Bill reauthorization, with environmental reform efforts directed toward strengthening the conservation provisions of the 1985 Farm Bill, and expanding into new areas of water quality and food safety. The process will differ from the 1985 Farm Bill environmental reform experience in several important ways. In 1990, the policy ideas under discussion are more sweeping, the issues are more complex and controversial scientific understanding is more ambiguous, technical capacity in the field is highly limited, and the farm policy environment is more volatile. Key environmental policy issues this year are the future size and purposes of the 1985 Conservation Reserve Program, and the strengthening of sodbuster, swampbuster and conservation compliance provisions enacted in 1985. Commodity program reforms that remove disincentives to crop rotations, and food safety issues will also top the environmental agenda. An Environmental Stewardship Program is proposed as a new approach to source reduction and pollution prevention. An ESP program might consist of 10–15 year contracts under which farmers are compensated to adopt environmentally sound practices such as crop rotations, reduced and more efficient use of agricultural chemicals, integrated pest management systems, and best management practices for water quality and food safety concerns.

Environmental Planning and Management: An Introduction

Initially, planning was seen as a rational process, involving the application of objective methods and data to issues of environmental policy. More recently, the dynamic nature of the planning process has been acknowledged. We argue it is better viewed as an interaction among the planner, the formal political process, and the diverse and often competing interests of various groups in the community. We discuss the implications of this view of planning for planners and psychologists. We then present a case study of water demand management that illustrates how psychologists can contribute to the planning process. Finally, an overview of this journal issue is presented that highlights the major points of each article.

Healthy Public Policy in Canada: A Survey of Ontario Health Professionals

"Healthy public policy" has become a catchphrase of the "new" health promotion. The concept, however, remains vague and lacking in practice. A survey of Ontario public health workers was conducted in June 1988, using the World Health Organization's Second Health Promotion Conference Declaration on Healthy Public Policy as a source of policy statements and action areas. Results are constrained by a low response rate (22.5%, N = 180), but indicate a high degree of support for healthy public policy concepts by senior level public health workers. Social environment policy issues (notably child poverty and unaffordable housing) are highest ranked priority issues, although physical environment (pollution) ranked most important when respondents were asked to choose a single issue. Lifestyle health issues are relatively low-ranked, although they remain priorities for action by respondents and their employers. The Canadian and Ontario Public Health Associations are thought to have the best analyses of healthy public policies, but are not seen as prominent policy actors. Government and media are considered weakest in their analysis of healthy public policy. Respondents' comments indicate a willingness to strengthen their role, and that of their health associations, in advocacy for healthy public policies.

Impacts of Hazardous Technology: The Psycho-Social Effects of Restarting TMI-1.

This book presents an evaluation of the psycho-social impacts of hazardous technology. Using a multiple research strategy, the authors show the possible effects of restarting the undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island. The book includes background information concerning environmental policy, the accident and restart issues, and forecasted impacts and implications for environmental management. The topic, however, extends well beyond that of TMI and nuclear power. Linkages are made with other environmental problems including chemical accidents such as Bhopal and waste disposal problems such as Love Canal.

UNCERTAINTY, COSTLY INFORMATION AND THE OPTIMAL MANAGEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

The paper presents a model of environmental resource management in an uncertain environment with measurement considerations. In particular, the model recognizes uncertainty about the dynamic dispersion relationships and in the measurement of emission rates and pollution levels. Since uncertainty enlarges the environmental resource management problem, actions that reduce uncertainty must be considered by the environmental control manager. Such considerations, however, cannot be pursued independently of pollution control actions. It is thus postulated that environmental policy issues must be analyzed in the context of an adaptive control problem with measurement considerations and a new adaptive environmental control strategy, which is obtained by introducing a function of the one‐period—ahead covariance matrix of the parameter estimates in the objective function, is suggested. This new strategy is shown to exhibit the dual effect of experimentation and caution.

Multi-objective modelling of economic-ecological interactions and conflicts

This paper presents examples of modelling developments in various policy fields where economics and ecology meet, often in conflicting situations, i.e., with conflicting objectives. An overview of nature conservation and economic objectives and policy issues is given and a series of policy fields in which practical applications of economic-ecological modelling exist. This is illustrated by a selection of examples of such applications. One of the emergent conclusions from the paper is that economic-ecological models have rarely been used for explicit trade-off of conflicting objectives, although the resource and environmental policy issues for which they are built generally imply multiple objectives. Most economic-ecological models reviewed in this paper rather analyze the impacts of conflicting objectives on economic and ecological systems respectively.

Municipal wastewater treatment cost

The cost of control for conventional pollutants at municipal wastewater treatment plants is examined. Empirical estimates of the effect of performance measures as well as the flow size of the waste stream are obtained for both the capital and the operation and maintenance components of total facility cost. These estimates are used to calculate the marginal cost per pound of pollution control over the range of effluent concentration beyond secondary treatment. The implications of the results for current environmental policy issues are outlined.

Working Group 1, Adapting Theories of Public Administration to the Emerging Role of Citizens

ROHR: We decided there are at least four models that guided our pleasant and somewhat meandering discussion. One was institutional/structural, the second was system design, the third was organizational learning, calling on Argyris in particular, and the fourth was values and ethics. We did not take up one model after the other in an orderly fashion. Rather, the models surfaced at the end of our discussion when we tried to reflect on what we had done. Early in our discussion we agreed on two points which might serve as our recommendations. They are: (1) Increased public participation in a given program or policy does not necessarily mean there has been increased citizen involvement. Public participation may simply be a legitimate expression of self-interest. This is not the sort of action that is distinctive of citizens. It does not necessarily order the polity or look to the common good. Resident aliens can also participate. (2) We should be cautious about overstating a long-lost golden age of citizenship in American history. There were moments ot widespread civic virtue, but some of the discussion at the conference may have gone too far in idealizing the past. Midway through our discussion Chairman Bill Dunn tried to impose some order on the chaos and offered the following summary of the central themes we were dealing with. One was that current theories of administration lead to an impoverished practice of citizenship. This is because administrative theories do not deal with system design. When systems are designed, they should amplify the variety of choices people can make. The system designer sees the public interest, but part of the public interest is that people should be able to pursue their personal interests. The theory group agreed that it was difficult to reach any kind of general conclusion because of the complexity of the subject matter. This comment is not as bland as it might seem, however, if one considers the following causes of the complexity. (1) Public administration and citizenship are rooted in two very different and perhaps antithetical traditions. One tradition centers on management and the other centers on personal initiative. There are serious problems in trying to put these two traditions together, although one need not despair of practical ad hoc arrangements that hold the two principles together in some kind of tension. (2) The high/ low distinction in citizenship was looked upon favorably, but certain difficulties were noted. One is that the question of who is high and who is low could become quite nasty. An important caveat must be that we do not equate low with bad. Low citizenship is self-interested, but a legitimate pursuit of self-interest needs no apology. Perhaps we should use active/passive or classical/modern to avoid any misunderstanding about high and low. Another difficulty is that the high/low distinction presumes that high is not for everyone. Just how restrictive the term might be was left unresolved, but we agreed we would not want to live in a nation with 200,000,000 high-ethical citizens. On the other hand, we surely would want to live in a nation with 200,000 or 2,000,000 such persons. A third difficulty is that the high/low distinction may be too stark and severe. Perhaps there should be a gradation within high and low. The gradation could be linked to various civic roles. One might be more active on a local issue, such as county roads, than on a national environmental policy issue, for example. Perhaps the chair would allow me at this point to ask some of my colleagues in the working group if they would care to amend or flatly contradict some of the points I have made.

The bottle bill: Perceptions of inconvenience, litter and willingness to pay in Western New York

Returnable container legislation in New York requires that all carbonated soft drink and beer containers carry a minimum five-cent deposit and bans detachable metal tabs and nonbiodegradable plastic loops. A continuing environmental policy issue is whether the benefits of a less-littered environment and reduction of solid waste are greater than the increase in retail prices and inconvenience costs to the consumer. This paper reports consumer estimates of the inconvenience of returning beverage containers to a store, perceptions of the litter problem, and willingness to pay to reduce litter in Wellsville, NY. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents believe that litter is a major problem. Most important, 76% of those interviewed reported they were willing to pay 10 cents, and 42% thought they were willing to pay 15 cents to reduce litter. Nearly one-half of the respondents did not think returning containers to the store would be inconvenient, but 22% stated that the process would be inconvenient. Correlations between the attitudes and income, education, and age are reported. These findings will be of interest to New Yorkers as they evaluate the bottle bill, as well as to individuals in other states considering returnable container legislation.

Book Review: Reappraising the Environmental Revolution: A Review Article The Limits of Altruism by G. HARDIN. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. 1978. pp. 154. £7.00 Current Issues in US Environmental Policy edited by P. R. PORTNEY. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press for Resources for the Future. 1978. pp. 207. £10.50 H/B; £3.50 P/B Environmental Improvement Through

Book Review: Reappraising the Environmental Revolution: A Review Article The Limits of Altruism by G. HARDIN. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. 1978. pp. 154. £7.00 Current Issues in US Environmental Policy edited by P. R. PORTNEY. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press for Resources for the Future. 1978. pp. 207. £10.50 H/B; £3.50 P/B Environmental Improvement Through

Strategies for the Resolution of Environmental Issues

New concepts for describing an individual's resolution of environmental policy issues are developed. The main factor affecting an individual's appraisal of an environmental issue is his or her attitude. Various attitudinal responses to environmental concerns are discussed; these responses are classified as functional, reversal, wedged, and hedged. In general, an individual has more than one way of dealing with any issue. (7 references, 1 table)

The Growth Question and Environmental Policy Issues

The Growth Question and Environmental Policy Issues