Environmental Issues: Air Pollution - Research Paper Example

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: AIR POLLUTION INTRODUCTION Public opinion polls in the United s over the years consistently have d a high level of concern over implementing air pollution controls to guarantee healthy air. The Clean Air Act of 1963 was an early Congressional response to the public demand for a federal assistance to solve a policy issue that originally was considered to be a state and local problem. By 1970, the public insisted that the federal government deal with the unhealthy air problem that had grown beyond the capacity of the states to resolve. Congress authorized the newly formed United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to administer the Clean Air Act as a national air program to protect the health of all citizens. Proponents and opponents of air pollution control policy now accept the protection of the public health as a political reality. The need for clean air is considered to be “a uniformly agreed-upon problem” or a “valence issue” (Baumgartner and Jones 1993, p.150). Nobody can be against the public good of clean air. Despite general agreement of the public, legislators, regulators and the regulated that clean air is important, many urban areas in the United States struggle to meet national air quality standards as the EPA continues to set stricter emission thresholds. The EPA has tracked emission levels of six criteria pollutants deemed harmful to human health - nitrogen dioxide, ground level ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and lead - since 1970. However, the persistence of the ground level ozone pollutant (commonly called either smog or ozone) troubles those who wish to protect the public health. The adverse health effects of acute and chronic exposure to ozone are more fully documented each year. While levels of some criteria pollutants (i.e. lead and carbon monoxide) have declined significantly, levels of ozone and particulate matter have not (Smith 2004). The EPA determined in 1997 that 122 million Americans, or 46% of the population, lived in smog-plagued areas (Doyle 2000, p. 348). The EPA reported in 2004 that 112 million people across the nation still lived in 68 metropolitan areas classified in nonattainment of the national air quality standard for ozone. Regulators describe long-term exposure to ozone levels above the threshold set by law as extremely hazardous to human health (Smith 2004). From the contemporary perspective, air pollution control policy constitutes a continuously controversial political and public dilemma. This particular paper aims to discuss, criticize and analyze air pollution as a pressing environmental issue and air pollution control as an ineffective governmental policy. The primary role of government addressing this political and public problem is to bring air pollution implementation on a national level, to achieve consensus among all parties involved on problem recognition and need to comply, and provide adequate funding to assist state governments in financing air pollution control policy implementation. POLLUTION OF AIR: RECOGNITION OF A PROBLEM Failure to define dirty air as a concern to the public health did not rally the public support necessary for coherent and effective government efforts in individual cities. Instead, local efforts to control dense smoke pollution in cities after World War II “were fragmented, uneven in quality and of limited effectiveness” (Bair 1992, p.233). Officials tried to mitigate the worsening air pollution problem through the existing framework of local common law nuisance ordinances. However, the nuisance laws that were in place proved too limited in scope and lacked the coercive element needed in an effective legal and regulatory mechanism to abate rising levels of pollutants and to provide protection from their adverse effects on the public health (Morag-Levine, 2003). At the same time, scientists and public officials recognized a need to deal with the growing understanding of the migratory nature of polluted air and its detrimental effects across contiguous towns, counties, and states. In California, for example, early attempts by cities to enforce nuisance laws were defeated by the “irrelevance of political boundaries to air pollution control” (Krier and Ursin 1977, p.55). The limited success of air pollution control efforts at the local level made the need more urgent for public policymakers to find a timely and viable solution to the “dirty air” problem. The wider public first became aware of ineffectual local efforts to solve the complex problem when dense concentrations of polluted air over urban areas began to occur with regularity after 1945. In October 1948, a disastrous smog episode in the small town of Donora, Pennsylvania sickened 5,910 people and caused 20 of them to die. Despite the publicity surrounding the disaster, Pennsylvania waited to enact statewide air pollution control measures until 1960 (Jones 1975, p.27). Why did the state fail to act for so many years? In part, the delay was attributed to a belief that Donora was an isolated, freak occurrence. As such, it did not call for immediate state intervention. Epidemiological evidence on dirty air of that period showed that, in the short term, a smog inversion could severely harm the health of and kill people. But the long-term, injurious effects of smaller exposures to the unseen air contaminants that constitute industrial smog took decades to prove undeniably. Davis (2002) argues that, despite the mounting evidence in scientific and medical studies of the dangers to people, animals, and plants from acute and chronic exposure to polluted air, American industry pursued an active and persistent strategy of stalling tactics, litigation, and negotiations with the federal and local governments to dismiss any connection between lower levels of air pollutants and chronic health problems that might affect how business was conducted in the United States. The public increasingly was restive about what dirty air actually meant in the life of the nation and individuals, but business interests continued to equate dirty air with economic prosperity. Since business and industry interests recognized the financial costs of air pollution control on them would be substantial, they wanted to delay compliance as long as possible. Neither private nor public interests fully comprehended the magnitude of the air pollution problem. The uncertainty resulting from the inability to link definitive, scientific evidence of adverse impacts on health to air pollution enabled policymakers to “move slowly and incrementally” in constructing a regulatory solution (Smith 2004, p.87). State and local governments were reluctant to relinquish their enforcement powers to federal administrators. Yet, the public came to believe that only federal control could bring uniformity of regulations and enforcement to clean air policy. Nevertheless, the first national program consisted of little more than gradual and limited intervention, because policy makers still viewed air pollution control as a local or regional problem (Cook 1985, p.92) that had not developed into crisis proportions. The role of the federal government in the initial national air pollution law of the 1950s was that of an advisor and a dispenser of small sums of money to states and cities, who were left to clean up their own polluted air. GOVERNMENT PROBLEMS IN AIR POLLUTION REGULATION From the critical perspective, after having endured continuous assaults, contemporary air pollution legislation enacted back in the 1990s remains fundamentally unchanged. A level of complexity and orientation to detail distinguishes the 1990 Amendments. The 47-page 1970 amendments “mostly set goals and left it to industry and the Environmental Protection Agency to determine how to achieve them” (Cohen 1992, p.175). The 800-page 1990 amendments are filled with requirements and timetables that limit the discretionary power of federal judges and EPA regulators. Of particular note is the specificity of over 200 rules the EPA must implement in cooperation with state and local air pollution agencies (Bair 1992, p.234; Cohen 1992, p.175). The Clinton, Bush and Obama’s administrations have shifted more of the burden to administer and fund the Clean Air Act onto the states. Therefore, as federal funding for environmental programs declines, the states - whether they are willing or not - clearly are “leading the way to a better environment” (The Council 1999, p.36). Total state air quality expenditures for the 50 states during the fiscal years 1986 to 1996 rose from approximately $226 million to $644 million (The Council 1999, p.32). The fragmented structure of the federal system makes it virtually impossible for the EPA to operate in any other than a remote-control manner with the state and local proxies that actually implement what is becoming more and more an unfunded federal mandate. The 1990 amendments require the EPA to build consensus and to achieve compliance among jurisdictions in a federal hierarchy in which governance is inherently uncooperative. Additionally, EPA efforts to pressure its proxies to enforce the CAA are frequently thwarted by the requirement to control air pollution in the jurisdictions through the use of market mechanisms, rather than through a “top-down” rule-guided approach (Henderson 1992, p.60). An agency accustomed to using a stick must offer states the carrot of “cost-effective, market-based programs” (Bair 1992, p.234) that provide incentives to seek air pollution solutions without the threat of federal sanctions. The EPA may impose progressively severe sanctions on industries, states, and localities that do not demonstrate documented progress toward attainment of NAAQS (Clean, 1990, pp.242-45). Nonattainment areas may suffer penalties that include reducing levels of authorized industrial emissions, raising gasoline prices, limiting or halting highway construction, restricting barbecuing and lawn mowing, and demanding that businesses offer employees incentives to drive less. An especially sensitive point with state authorities is the EPA’s authority to withhold federal highway funds. The EPA takes enforcement of violations very seriously. Blocking highway funds reminds state administrators and legislators that coercion is a tool the EPA will use when a state fails to provide acceptable written intent of compliance by deadlines. Having the authority to impose sanctions for violations does not mean that the EPA will use it. The agency mandate is to seek consensus and conciliation, rather than conflict, with areas in nonattainment of NAAQS. The agency currently pursues a market-based approach to promote the public health. Allocation of clean air credits to states in violation of federal standards is a popular and preferred market incentive. The EPA grants credits for each approved section of a written state pollution-reduction plan. With enough credits, a state with an urban area in nonattainment of clean air standards can avoid sanctions. A Congressional aide remarked that, “States are more worried about how they can get credits to satisfy the law than they are about actually cleaning the air” (Henderson 1992, p.60). Management by market incentives exemplifies how negotiated good faith acts and a constructed process on paper become the measure of compliance with the law. The EPA relies on paperwork submitted by participating jurisdictions to show proper implementation and appropriate progress toward compliance. Local and state air pollution officials rely on paperwork submitted by industry and business to show local progress. Regulators at all levels move in lockstep with the rules and constraints of the federal law. As the many jurisdictions coordinate with the EPA, the documentation becomes vital to demonstrate regulatory activity on behalf of the public welfare. A standard of cleaner air on paper, rather than clean air, satisfies the public. In effect, the process the paperwork embodies becomes the measure of compliance with the law, rather than the figures which air monitors record. CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR AIR POLLUTION POLICY The continuing political controversy surrounding compliance with the provisions of the Clean Air Act suggests that the problem of national air pollution control is not going away either quickly or easily. Solutions to this challenging policy problem often appear partial and ineffectual. Four reasons for impaired policy effectiveness are suggested. First, the way in which federal regulators define and measure compliance with the law may not achieve consensus among the disparate participants in the implementation process. Absence of an underlying consensus results from the general uncertainty about the ability of government to deliver the outcomes envisioned in the Clean Air Act. Even when participants do work together, gamesmanship among players who do not see themselves as equals on a level playing field may interfere with moving toward the same goal. The lack of consensus may continue until all the key players hold to some expectation of a common outcome (Bardach 1977, p. 85). The inability to work for a common goal can widen the gap between the expected promise in the law and actual performance that leads to impaired and ineffective policy implementation. A second reason policy effectiveness may be impaired is due to the many participants in the fragmented federal hierarchy who represent multiple decision or veto points in the policymaking process. These multiple decision or veto points cause the implementation process to undergo continual rounds of bureaucratic and political negotiations over rules that include bargaining and litigation every step of the way to compliance. The requirement for “a long string of clearances by actors with different perspectives” arguably is the greatest obstacle to building the consensus and agreement that can eliminate frustrating delays in compliance (Pressman and Wildavsky 1984, p.47). Federal and state legislators, regulated industry and business, and the general public do not object to the goal of clean air that protects the public health. They can and do object to an implementation process whose substantial costs to comply appear unreasonable. Environmental groups intensify the controversy by insisting in public, in the media, and through lawsuits that the EPA and its delegated state and local agents must carry out the precise letter of the law without delay or deviation. Third, although the Clean Air Act is a national law, it is implemented regionally and locally. Regional and local implementers face the same problem as do federal regulators of how to interpret the meaning of and measure compliance with the law. The ability of legislators and administrators within the federal hierarchy to agree on how to achieve the clean air goal may collapse under the pressure of systemic conflict. State implementers who cannot meet the specific requirements in the national law may shift the blame for their failure to comply onto nameless and faceless federal legislators and bureaucrats. Federal officials become targets of blame for placing what are felt to be burdensome rules and regulations onto state implementers and legislators and, by an extension of the argument, the local constituents. The federal government can serve as the scapegoat for the inability of a region or state to comply with the law. Objections to the federal government telling a state what to do without understanding the local needs is powerful political symbolism for a public conditioned to view the federal-state relationship as “them versus us.” Such a characterization may help get state implementers and elected officials “off the hook” for a time, because it thrusts the burden of proving the value of compliance back to the federal government. Fourth, state-level implementation requires states and localities to invest funding, personnel, and other resources in a long-term effort to comply with a partially funded federal mandate and to solve a problem that may or may not originate within their jurisdictions. The need to balance the normative values of economic growth and protecting the public health can never be ignored. Although the EPA may not consider costs of compliance when setting each NAAQS, business and industry and many citizens do not let elected and appointed officials forget the bottom line is the critical factor in their support of environmental protection. The need to protect the health of some citizens and the environment may run afoul of the need to prevent job loss and an economic downturn if business and industry threaten to leave or do leave a jurisdiction because they either do not want to or are unable to comply with strict federal clean air standards. Balancing the risks of adverse health conditions for some members of the population against continued economic productivity for other members may be neither politically palatable nor feasible. A state’s avoidance of unpalatable choices may demonstrate a lack of political will and public interest in committing limited state resources to environmental protection. The political assessment that air pollution control policy is an unreasonable and under-funded federal mandate with the potential to compromise the overall economic progress of a state or locality may lead to the failure to comply as the law requires. REFERENCES Bair, Frank E., ed. (1992). The Weather Almanac. 6th ed. Detroit: Gale Research. Bardach, Eugene. (1977). The Implementation Game: What Happens After a Bill Becomes a Law. Cambridge: MIT Press. Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones. (1993). Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Clean Air Act: Law and Explanation. (1990). Chicago: CCH Incorporated Cohen, Richard E. (1992). Washington at Work: Back Rooms and Clean Air. New York: Macmillan. Cook, Kenneth F. (1985). "Pollution Control and Intergovernmental Relations: Is the Federal Stick Necessary?" In Public Policy Across States and Communities, edited by Dennis R. Judd. Greenwich: JAI Press. 91-107. Davis, Devra. (2002). 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