My Own Op-Ed

Environmental policy has had a number of changes in the last four decades. Before the 1970’s, government played a very limited role in environmental policymaking. Mostly, environmental policy pre-1970 was focused on preserving national parks; during the mid 1960’s, President Johnson was concerned with planning global population research to combat the scarcity of world resources. Issues such as pollution were considered local matters until federal guidelines were made, such as the Clean Air Act of 1963 and amendments to the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. These set the stages for setting federal guidelines on pollution.

Policy began to escalate in the 1970’s, and Congress set the stage for increasing innovation at the end of 1969 when it passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This act essentially declared that the Federal Government, along with State and local governments, would use all practical means to create and maintain a sustainable environment for present and future Americans. The increase in legislation for this decade was massive, and included water and air pollution control, pesticide regulation, endangered species protection, controls of hazardous and toxic chemicals, ocean and coastline protection, better stewardship of public lands, requirements for restoration of strip-mined lands, cleaning of toxic waste, and setting aside nearly 100 million acres of land in the Alaskan wilderness to varying degrees of protection. National parks grew substantially during this period, as did the national wildlife refuge system. Energy issues in the 1970’s were engaged in a policy stalemate, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations all attempted to create policies for achieving energy independence by increasing energy supplies, but for the most part these were unsuccessful.

During the 1980’s, President Reagan felt that environmental regulation was a barrier to the supply side of economics, he then weakened or reversed many of the policies of the 1970’s. The Economic Recovery Act of 1981 cut income taxes by 25 percent and greatly reduced spending on environmental and social programs, Reagan also greatly reduced the staff on the Council of Environmental Quality as well. The agencies and policies that Reagan could not eliminate were simply weakened by budget and staffing cuts, making them largely ineffective. Reagan did, however, unintentionally strengthen the environmental movement through his lax enforcement of pollution laws and pro-development resource policies. George H. Bush was passive in his presidency, and that was reflected in his environmental policy, although he was more environmentally friendly than his predecessor. The Clean Air Act of 1990 had lofty goals of controlling acid rain, reducing air pollution, and lower emissions of toxic chemicals by huge amounts.

The 1990’s saw two terms of President Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore. Environmentalists were disappointed by Clintons’ lack of progress, however, he and Gore pushed an extensive agenda of environmental policy reform as part of their larger effort to “reinvent government” in order to make it more responsive and efficient to public concerns. Clinton also restored the Florida Everglades and had other initiatives based on ecosystem management, he also reversed many of the Reagan and Bush era executive orders that were unpopular with environmentalists. Clinton and Gore argued that the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection gave a false choice, because environmental cleanup and maintenance creates jobs; as does developing environmentally clean and energy-efficient technologies. They provided incentives and infrastructure projects to promote green technologies, a philosophy President Obama has adopted. The Clinton Administration was largely unsuccessful with its environmental policy, although Clinton did try to implement several new policies and created many new agencies.

The Bush administration did not hold the values of the Clinton administration, and, like Reagan, was concerned with the economic impact of environmental protection and resource conservation. President Bush expanded the powers of the president in virtually every way after the September 11th terrorist attacks, and like Reagan, Bush used executive powers to advance an anti-regulatory, pro-business agenda through most of his tenure.

President Obama seems to be taking environmental policy the way it was handled in the 1970’s. Obama announced a 2.3 billion dollar tax credit program to help start up a clean energy sector, which will create jobs, more sustainable energy, and reduce foreign dependence on oil. President Obama also aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions made by the federal government by 28% by 2020. He also is providing incentives to automobile makers to make more fuel-efficient cars, and is considering allowing individual states set their own, more strict emissions laws for vehicles. All-in-all, President Obama is pushing legislation towards a more sustainable and cleaner future, all while keeping economics in mind. Using solar power, wind power, and reducing the amount of fossil fuels consumed due to new technology will be expensive as an initial investment, but will pay off in the future both financially and environmentally. This is in contrast to the seemingly more short-sighted Reagan and Bush administrations. Obama has a hard road ahead of him with an unpopular war, a massive recession, and a budget crisis. He does seem to be getting legislation going to give the United States a more sustainable and “greener” future.