Objectives for Week Fifteen

1
Objectives for Week Fifteen

• Discuss Environmental Federalism
• Brownfields Policy
• Brief Review of Course
• Course Evaluations

2
Growing Role of State Government in Environmental
Policy

• Increase in spending, staff, and responsibility
• One source -- 2 billion in 1986 to 10 billon in
  1996 another source thought it was over 40
  billion today
• 60 percent increase in staff
• 90 percent of environmental data gathered by
  states
• How can we explain such trends?
• Should we be surprised that states have become
  more active in this policy area?

3
Why We Might Not Expect State Activity in
Environmental Policy

• Interstate competition
• Political obstacles
• Complexity of determining cause liability
• Not a traditional policy area

4
Trends in IGRs and Environmental Policy

• 1970s 80s enhanced federal regulatory role
• Voluntary activity
• Federal mandates
• Rising enforcement costs to states
• Inconsistency in oversight of state programs and
  in state rule-making role
• Recent years, greater support for state
  discretion
• "The States and USEPA are committed to a
  partnership to build locally and nationally
  accessible, cohesive, and coherent environmental
  information systems that will ensure that both
  the public and regulators have access to the
  information needed to document environmental
  performance, understand environmental conditions,
  and make sound decisions that ensure
  environmental protection."
• 
  -Denise Scherble

5
Brownfields Policy

• Abandoned, idled, or under used industrial and
  commercial facilities where expansion or
  redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived
  environmental contamination
• Lower liability stakes
• Provide incentives for redevelopment
• Lower contamination thresholds for development
  purposes
• New orientation for environmental policy
• Different set of organizational incentives and
  values
• Difficulty of achieving intergovernmental
  cooperation and coordination at times
• Emerging Issues
• Area-wide projects
• When do you need to use public dollars ?
• How can you incorporate citizens in a meaningful
  way?

6
Key Course Concepts

• Fluidity of the federal balance of power
• Access points in decentralized system
• Economic and demographic constraints on
  subnational government policy-making
• Scope of conflict
• Competition, adaptation, learning
• Assigning policy responsibility
• Explaining differences and similarities in
  policy-making activity across subnational
  government