Environmental Policy Essay Research Paper The Government

Environmental Policy Essay, Research Paper

The Government and Environmental Policy

The purpose of the United States’ public policy law is to implement restrictions

in an effort to solve problems, which can be seen with the Clean Water Act.

Public policy has also been employed to reform the Endangered Species Act of

1973. Although the United States government is noble in it’s efforts to

preserve the environment through these acts, the internal structure of public

policy often retards these acts’ effectiveness. This paper will explore the

many ways in which factors such as horizontal implementation, divided government,

and other forms of public policy affect the environmental legislation involved

with the aforementioned acts. The main factors involved with the Endangered

Species Act of 1973 involve horizontal implementation structure and divided

government. Before one can discuss how these policies affect environmental

legislation, a brief description of each must first be lucidly explained. When

our government was founded, a system of checks and balances was implemented

between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches to ensure that no one

part of government gets too much power. Although this limits the power of any

one person in government, it often slows down the ability of government because

a consensus can be difficult with so many people working together. Another

problem is that there are many subgovernments affecting the legislation as well,

such as interest groups like the Sierra Club, Administrative Agents like the

Environmental Protection Agency, and Congressional Committees. Because these

groups add to the total number of people working on the legislation, the

original noble ideology of making policy for the good of the nation is voided.

Also because there are so many differences of opinion, few drastic changes are

made, instead small incremental changes are made which take up lots of time and

retard the effectiveness and enforcement of the legislation. In addition to

this chaotic turmoil, four steps must be implemented in order to pass a bill.

These are initiation & definition, formulation & enactment (legitimation),

implementation, and evaluation.

The most relevant one of these steps is horizontal implementation when one

considers the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act. This policy is the

process that puts a law into effect after it has been legitimized. Congress and

the President set up the initial regulation of the law, but the direct

responsibility of regulation is turned over to the states involved. And, of

course, workset-like incentives such as taxes, fees, allowances, refunds, and

liability are used to enforce the laws effectively.

Horizontal implementation refers specifically to implementation with the federal

government, as opposed to vertical implementation which is at the state and

local levels. There are several specific concerns with horizontal

implementation which include the breakdown of coordination due to the large

structure of the federal government, language difficulties, lack of control due

to the threat of success by one particular agency, different perspectives, and

direct change of intention due to factors such as voter pressure. It’s amazing

that in the midst of all this that anything can be accomplished at all, but

thanks to the drive to be re-elected, things have to get done on the federal

level or else the person in question will be renounced from power.

So now that a foundation of the processes controlling these acts has been

established, the question arises, what exactly is the Endangered Species Act?

As one author puts it, “The Endangered Species Act of 1973, perhaps more than

any other environmental law, dares to draw an unwavering line in the path of

American progress. It boldly says in essence, ‘Thou shalt not cause any

species of plant or animal to go extinct.’ As the rampart transformation of

natural America for exurban development, water-division projects, and timber

cutting- pushes more and more species to the wall, the act is embroiled in

controversy unparalleled since its passage 19 years ago.” (Horton, pg. 68) A

few other factors of definition come into play when one considers the

intricacies of the Act. An animal is endangered if it is in danger of becoming

extinct throughout all or most of it’s natural range in the wild. An animal is

threatened if it is very likely to fall into the endangered category in “the

foreseeable future”. Endangered species have the possibility of generating

boundless resources for the human race including medical uses, research purposes,

and atmospheric contributions- namely oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis.

The act also sets aside land to protect endangered species. For example, many

acres of old growth forest have been set aside in an effort to preserve the

Northern spotted owl. So far, the act has been successful in helping to re-

establish populations of the American alligator, the California condor, the

Black-footed ferret, and many species of endangered sea turtles. But hundreds

of other species are waiting to be helped by the act, at a prospective cost of

$4.6 billion. The reasons for the inefficiency of the act are as numerous as

the numbers of threatened & endangered species involved in the controversy. Much

of the criticism has been directed toward the Fish and Wildlife Service for not

setting up an effective program. “The agency ‘has underestimated the size of

the job and been backward about asking for enough resources,’ says Bill Reffalt,