J By Stonton Miller Change is inevitable in all processes, including the process the United States uses to improve the environment. Innovative economic incentives are the new approach, a change from the former commandand-control process of the past 20 years. The new National Commission on the Environment is an independent, bipartisan, private organization. The commission plans to review the environmental policies of the United States. Russell E. Train is chairman, and Terry Davies is executive director. The commission’s first meeting was March 11. At a press briefing that day Train said that there have been commissions on water and air pollution, but that this new commission will look at the links between U.S.environmental policy and the health of the global environment. A final report that will represent the core value of main stream America on environmental improvement is due in 18 months, after the general elections in mid-fall 1992. EPA administrator William Reilly spoke at the briefing, announcing the new commission and answering questions. He said that the problem of the interstate transfer of hazardous waste was discussed at a White House session earlier that morning. Reilly mentioned international and domestic problems. What’s important to work on are the unaddressed environmental problems such as pollution prevention, cross-media pollution, and nonpoint source water pollution, he stated. The international issues Reilly cited were global warming, stratospheric ozone destruction, and hazardous waste transfers among countries. Some of the EPA administrator’s goals are cited here: Clarify the links between environmental policy and free trade. Increase debt-for-nature swaps. Address the problems of climate change.
Conserve energy; 25% of the energy used in the United States is for lighting, 90% of which is commercial lighting. Find incentives for introducing new fuels to reconcile automobile use with the environment. Reduce waste; such reduction only scratches the surface now. Find new technologies for Superfund, such as biotechnology and bioremediation; in Alaska bioremediation reduced the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup time by one-half. Increasing incentives The United States has not reconciled economic growth with environmental policy, according to Reilly. The EPA report “Economic Incen-
0013-936W91/0925-B33$02.50/00 1991 American Chemical Society
tives-Options for Environmental Protection,” dated March 1991 and released at the briefing, points out that the agency has used economic incentives for a number of years, for example in its emissions trading policy. More recently, the Clean Air Act of 1990 contains a market-based acid rain program that allows utilities to buy or sell emission “allowances” at reduced cost. The report points out that incentive-based policies leave the ultimate choice of action to the affected parties, based on their own evaluation of the cost and benefits of the action. A variety of market-based measures can be used to promote environmental goals, the report continues. These measures address four concerns mentioned in the report: municipal waste management, global climate change, water resources, and multimedia concerns. According to the report summary, incentives include use fees, labeling, marketable rights, deposit/ refund systems, reduction of federal subsidies, and procurement programs. A section in the report asks, “Is the environmental problem significant?” And answers: “Generally, policy action is the expenditure of government resources to develop and enforce the policy. If an environmental problem is not significant, a policy action to address that problem is unlikely to generate significant benefits. Consequently, even if the cost of compliance for the private sector is relatively modest, the policy is unlikely to promise positive net benefits because of the policy development costs.” Therefore, the greatest effort to develop ideas for economic incentives ought to be focused on the most significant cases of environmental contamination, where one is most likely to find the greatest net benefit. Stanton Miller is rnanoging editor of ES&T. Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 25, No. 5, 1991 833
