EDITORIAL
The search for alternatives Editor: Russell F. Christman Associate Editor: Charles R. O’Melia WASHINGTON EDITORIAL STAFF Managing Editor : Stanton S.Miller Associate Edito, Julian Josephson Assistant Editor: Lois R . Ember MANUSCRIPT REViEWlNG Manager: Katherine I. Biggs Editorial Assistant: Karen A. McGrane Editorial Assistant: Sheila M. Kennedy MANUSCRIPT EDiTlNG Assistant Editor: Nancy J. Oddenino Assistant Editor: Gloria L. Dinote GRAPHICS AND PRODUCTION Production Manager: Leroy L. Corcoran Art Director: Norman Favin Designer: Alan Kahan Artist: Linda M. Mattingly Advisory Board: Robert J. Charlson. Arthur A. Levin, Roger A. Minear, James J. Morgan, Sidney R. Orem, Frank P. Sebastian, C. Joseph Touhill, Charles S. Tuesday, William E. Wilson, Jr. Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 1155 16th Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 872-4600 Executive Director: Robert W. Cairns BOOKS AND JOURNALS DIVISION D. H. Michael Bowen. Director
Charles R. Bertsch, Head Editorial DeDartment Bacil Guiley, Head, Magazine and Production Department Seldon W. Terrant, Head, Research and Development Department Marion Gurfein, Circulation Development ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT Centcom, Ltd. For offices and advertisers, see page 1034
Please send research manuscripts to Manuscript Reviewing, feature manuscripts to Managing Editor. For author’s guide and editorial policy, see June 1977 issue, page 575, or write Katherine I. Biggs, Manuscript Reviewing Office €S& T
It is easy to be critical of the environmental cleanup strategy the US. Congress has imposed upon responsible administrative agencies at the Federal, State, and local levels. This regulatory strategy centers on a standard settingmonitoring-enforcement process coupled with uniform effluent and emission requirements. A July 1977 report by the US. General Accounting Office notes that this process ( a )requires complicated interactions among Congress, administrative agencies, and the courts, ( b ) denies individual citizens free choice of levels of environmental quality, (c) requires sound scientific research, and (d)relies too heavily on political and administrative simplicity in the form of uniform control requirements. This strategy is only one of several that might be used, and is undeniably impractical and costly. Alternative economic strategies such as subsidies and tax incentives may help alleviate immediate pollution problems, but are less effective for controlling production than outright charges or waste disposal fees paid by polluters. In the latter case the increased production cost is passed on to the consumer at the marketplace in a more internally consistent manner. Specific charges for each polluter could be set by permitting dollar values to be determined by the market mechanism. This process has long been advocated by resource economists as an effective alternative strategy for allocating limited resources among competing uses. At least two factors prevent this process from being useful at this time. First, the general level of environmental degradation that would be acceptable to people of the United States is unknown. Second, a sufficiently powerful central agency would have to be given clear authority to manage the fundamental rights to air and water resource use and thus function as a trustee for the public good. Environmental law is a rapidly changing field and substitute concepts for “property” and “ownership” are evolving but, in general, our legal and social systems do not presently accommodate the role of such a trustee. It is safe to say that without implementation of the current strategy we would presently have no cleanup. It’s tempting to criticize politicians but in a major sense they, more than anyone, have done their jobs. They have listened to the public outcry and responded accordingly. More enlightened strategic responses will require more enlightened research findings, more sophisticated legal concepts, and a more welldefined set of environmental values than present public attitudes indicate.
Volume 11, Number 10, October 1977
943
