PSCI 3201 Environmental Policy 11/13/07

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PSCI 3201 Environmental Policy11/13/07

• Critiquing Risk Assessment
• The Precautionary Principle
• National Environmental Policy Act, 1970 (NEPA)
• Historic importance
• Contemporary significance Environmental impact
  statements (EIS)

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Wildlife Bird covered in oil Last Updated by
Marcus Chan, San Francisco Chronicle 3 days ago
                                                  
                                   
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Assessing Quantitative Risk AssessmentProblem 1

• It assumes that the science is there.
• Scientific assessments of risk tend to
• ignore bioaccumulation
• narrowly define negative outcomes
• overlook multiple pathways of exposure
• ignore synergistic interactions between
• chemicals
• Further, the system for testing risky substances
  is overwhelmed. In other words, this problem is
  difficult to overcome.

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Assessing Quantitative Risk AssessmentProblem 2

• It assumes that usage/damage should be allowed
  until a harm is proven.

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Assessing Quantitative Risk AssessmentProblem 2

• It assumes that usage/damage should be allowed
  until a harm is proven.
• Innocent until proven guilty

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Assessing Quantitative Risk AssessmentProblem 2

• It assumes that usage/damage should be allowed
  until a harm is proven.
• Alternative ignored Avoid use/damage until it
  is proven harmless.

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Alternative The Precautionary Principle

• When an activity raises threats of harm to human
  health or the environment, precautionary measures
  should be taken even if some cause and effect
  relationships are not fully established
  scientifically. In this context the proponent of
  an activity, rather than the public, should bear
  the burden of proof.

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Alternative The Precautionary Principle

• When an activity raises threats of harm to human
  health or the environment, precautionary measures
  should be taken even if some cause and effect
  relationships are not fully established
  scientifically. In this context the proponent of
  an activity, rather than the public, should bear
  the burden of proof.
• Further, the process of applying the
  Precautionary Principle must be open, informed
  and democratic and must include potentially
  affected parties. It must also involve an
  examination of the full range of alternatives,
  including no action.
• -- 1998 Wingspread statement
  (similar
• statement adopted by the
  European Union)

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• Under the precautionary principle, When the
  health of humans and the environment is at stake,
  it may not be necessary to wait for scientific
  certainty to take protective action.

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• Four Parts to the
• Precautionary Principle
• Anticipatory action People have a duty to
  anticipate and prevent harm.
• 2. Burden of proof Those using the substance
  must prove the harmlessness.
• 3. Examine full range of alternatives
  Obligation to look at what might be used instead.
• 4. Democratic decision making Decisions must be
  informed and must include affected parties.

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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure. Better safe than sorry. Look before
you leap.(The wisdom of the precautionary
principle)
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Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let the
devil take the hindmost.(The wisdom more
common under optimistic free market principles)
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Assessing Quantitative Risk AssessmentProblem 3

• The burden of risk assessment decisions falls
  disproportionately on disadvantaged groups
• (the environmental justice problem).

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Assessing Quantitative Risk AssessmentProblem 3

• The burden of risk assessment decisions falls
  disproportionately on disadvantaged groups
• (the environmental justice problem).
• The environmental justice problem There are
  double regulatory standards for occupational
  exposures.

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The environment and uncertainty establishing
procedures for good decisions, taking into
account

• Science
• Justice/equity

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The environment and uncertainty establishing
procedures for good decisions, taking into
account

• Science
• Justice/equity
• Approaches considered
• Risk assessment
• Precautionary principle

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The environment and uncertainty establishing
procedures for good decisions, taking into
account

• Science
• Justice/equity
• Approaches considered
• Risk assessment
• Precautionary principle
• Add in
• NEPA

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• National Environmental Policy Act
• of 1969 (NEPA)
• Public Law 91-190
• January 1, 1970

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• National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
• Major Elements in the Historic Enactment
• Title I, Congressional Declaration of National
• Environmental Policy
• Sec. 101. Policy Statement
• Sec. 102. Environmental Impact Statement
• (EIS) required for all federal
• actions affecting the human
• environment
• Title II, Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)

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• NEPA Title I
• CONGRESSIONAL DECLARATION OF NATIONAL
  ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
• Sec. 101 42 USC 4331. Policy statement.
• (a) The Congress, recognizing the profound
  impact of man's activity on the interrelations of
  all components of the natural environment,
  particularly the profound influences of
  population growth, high-density urbanization,
  industrial expansion, resource exploitation, and
  new and expanding technological advances and
  recognizing further the critical importance of
  restoring and maintaining environmental quality
  to the overall welfare and development of man,
  declares that it is the continuing policy of the
  Federal Government, in cooperation with State and
  local governments, and other concerned public and
  private organizations, to use all practicable
  means and measures, including financial and
  technical assistance, in a manner calculated to
  foster and promote the general welfare, to create
  and maintain conditions under which man and
  nature can exist in productive harmony, and
  fulfill the social, economic, and other
  requirements of present and future generations of
  Americans.

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• NEPA Title I
• CONGRESSIONAL DECLARATION OF NATIONAL
  ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
• Sec. 102 42 USC 4331. Environmental Impact
  Statements.
• Required environmental assessments of all federal
  projects

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• NEPA Title I
• CONGRESSIONAL DECLARATION OF NATIONAL
  ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
• Sec. 102 42 USC 4331. Environmental Impact
  Statements.
• Required environmental assessments of all federal
  projects
• An EIS would
• utilize a systematic, interdisciplinary approach,
  including natural and social sciences
• consider presently unquantified environmental
  amenities and values (ie, qualitative in
  addition to quantitative)
• Consider a wide variety of impacts and
  alternatives to the proposed action

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• NEPA Title II
• COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
• Establishment of the CEQ
• Sec. 201 42 USC 4341. Environmental Quality
  Report
• Sec. 202 209. Established the CEQ in the
  Executive Office of the President

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NEPA Historically significant for

• National environmental policy statement
• Environmental Impact Statements (EIS)
• Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)

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Most important aspect of NEPA today?
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Most important aspect of NEPA today?

• Environmental impact statements

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• Contemporary Significance of NEPA
• Environmental impact statements (EIS)
• The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
  requires federal agencies to integrate
  environmental values into their decision making
  processes by considering the environmental
  impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable
  alternatives to those actions. To meet this
  requirement, federal agencies prepare a detailed
  statement known as an Environmental Impact
  Statement (EIS). EPA reviews and comments on EISs
  prepared by other federal agencies, maintains a
  national filing system for all EISs, and assures
  that its own actions comply with NEPA.
• From the EPA website http//www.epa.gov/co
  mpliance/nepa/index.html

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Assessing NEPA

• EISs designed as an antidote to the lack of
  science in decision making

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Assessing NEPA

• EISs designed as an antidote to the lack of
  science in decision making
• However, EISs seen as cumbersome not very
  valuable as decision tools
• Why?

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Assessing NEPA

• EISs designed as an antidote to the lack of
  science in decision making
• However, EISs seen as cumbersome not very
  valuable as decision tools
• Why? Interest groups learned to use the process
  to their purposes

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Assessing NEPA

• EISs designed as an antidote to the lack of
  science in decision making
• However, EISs seen as cumbersome not very
  valuable as decision tools
• Why? Interest groups learned to use the process
  to their purposes
• Science (or the assessment of environmental
  impacts) not decisive

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MODELS OF POLITICAL BARGAINING (Or what we can
learn from arm wrestling) Win-Lose
Model Stalemate Model Win-Win Model
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• Getting to Yes Negotiating Agreement Without
  Giving In
• (Harvard Negotiation Project)
• Arm wrestling positional bargaining
• Participants are adversaries
• The goal is victory
• Demand concessions
• Demand one-sided gains
• Insist on your position
• Try to win a contest of will
• Apply pressure

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• Getting to Yes Negotiating Agreement Without
  Giving In
• (Harvard Negotiation Project)
• Arm wrestling positional bargaining
• Alternative negotiating on the merits (or
  principled negotiation)
• Separate the people from the problem
• Focus on interests, not positions
• Generate a variety of possibilities before
• deciding what to do
• Insist that the result be based on some
• objective standard

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Limitations of the SystemUnderstanding the way
politics usually operates

• Agenda setting waiting for the right time
• Problems
• Solutions
• Politics

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Limitations of the SystemUnderstanding the way
politics usually operates

• Agenda setting waiting for the right time
• Policy design designing a feasible solution
• Goals
• Targets
• Agents
• Strategies

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Limitations of the SystemUnderstanding the way
politics usually operates

• Agenda setting waiting for the right time
• Policy design designing a feasible solution
• Policy process incremental versus innovative
  change