About 30 years ago, the quality of the environment became a leading concern of national policy makers in the United States. The National Environmental Policy Act, requiring the writing of environmental impact statements for major federal actions, was signed into law on New Years day, 1970. Congress subsequently enacted a series of major laws designed to protect and improve the quality of the air, water and other features of the environment. These laws included the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (better known as Superfund).

Other areas of United States environmental policy were subject to equally sweeping changes. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 and the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act of 1976 rewrote the foundations for the management of federal lands, representing 25 percent of the United States and containing much of the nation's wilderness and biodiversity. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the wetlands provisions of the Clean Water Act imposed new limits on the use of many private lands in the service of broader environmental goals. "Ecological management" became a guiding objective for many government agencies.

The environmental legislation of the past 30 years has had major impacts on American society. It has yielded significant improvements in the quality of the environment. Complying with environment regulation has become an important concern of businesses in many industries. The direct costs of meeting environmental requirements exceed $100 billion per year and the indirect costs may be just as great. The rules and regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency arguably have more impact on the American economy than those of any other federal agency.

Given its wide impacts, it should be no surprise that U.S. environmental policy has been controversial. There are debates about whether the gains to the environment are large enough to justify the costs. Have environmental laws encouraged government agencies and the private sector to find the least expensive way to achieve environmental goals? Have levels of risk to human health and to ecological systems been adequately limited? Have such risks been accurately understood before devising means to limit them? Have the costs of environmental improvement been distributed among workers, businesses, taxpayers, property owners, and others in American society in a fair and equitable way?

This course will examine these and other issues in U.S. environmental policy. It will cover the history of how the major environmental laws came to be enacted and the specific requirements of each law. Scientific, economic, legal and ethical issues relating to the development and implementation of environmental legislation over the past 30 years will be taken up. The course will explore a number of case studies in environmental policy, as well as the general policy problems and concerns that have emerged. Because a number of key environmental laws will be under review in the current session of Congress, it will be possible to relate these discussions to an ongoing public debate concerning the possible provisions of new laws.

A term paper (about 15-20 pages double spaced) will be required of each student, analyzing a specific area of environmental controversy (e.g., the regulation of a particular chemical, the recovery plan for a particular species). A one-page proposal for a topic will be due on February 6.

If class size permits, students will be expected to present briefly their findings and conclusions at one of the scheduled classes. Topics and time frames for completion of drafts of the papers should be worked out with the instructor, in order to coordinate topic areas with the schedule of classes. Comments will be provided by the instructor on each paper to assist in rewriting it. Final papers will be due May 8.

The instructor will work with the students scheduled for each class session to organize the discussion. Each student should complete his or her draft of the paper one week prior to the class discussion for which the student is scheduled.

The class will be a mixture of lecture and discussion. It is important that readings be done prior to each class. Students should come prepared to discuss the relevant materials.

Themes and issues that will run throughout the course will include:

1. Have environmental laws worked effectively to improve the quality of the environment?

2. How can society go about establishing environmental policies when there are large scientific uncertainties?

3. How useful are concepts and methods such as risk analysis, benefit-cost analysis, cost effectiveness, and others in addressing environmental policy problems?

4. To what degree is the making of environmental policy an exercise in deciding social values, perhaps even dependent on ethical beliefs of a cultural or quasi-religious character?

There will be a mid term and a final exam. Grading will be based on the following considerations and weights:

Mid-term Exam -- 20%

Term Paper -- 25%

Final Exam -- 35%

Class Discussion -- 20%

Readings

The readings will come from three books available for purchase at the book store and a diverse set of articles, government reports, newspaper columns and other materials. Many of these materials will be available on the web. Materials not available on the web will be provided in a set of copies available in three locations: the School of Public Affairs student mailboxes; the reserve desk at McKeldin Library; and the conservation biology offices. Materials on the web can be obtained by using cross links set up at a Puaf 740 web site (www.puaf.umd.edu/puaf740).

The books to be purchased are:

Daniel J. Fiorino, Making Environmental Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

Paul R. Portney and Robert N. Stavins, eds., Public Policies for Environmental Protection (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 2000).

Terry L. Anderson, ed., Breaking the Environmental Policy Gridlock (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1997).

 Class Discussion

Class discussion will be an important part of the course. The readings identified by a "*" below will be the initial focus of class discussion. Other readings provide needed background and will come up for discussion as well.

I can be reached by telephone at my office at 301-405-6345 or at home at 301-656-3339 (I often work at home, so feel free to call there). My email address is rn29@umail.umd.edu. Each student is encouraged to set up an appointment in my office (Van Munching, 3131) to discuss their paper topic or any other matter of concern.

*Eric T. Freyfogle, "Five Paths of Environmental Scholarship," University of Illinois Law Review (No. 1, 2000), pp. 115-134. Available on web (Lexis -- http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/form/academic/s_lawrev_more.html?_m=31e3a33c580d366c2c3b738fcfc8c387&wchp=dGLStS-lSlzV&_md5=6d6476591c914e505b444ab3589546f2).

*Oliver A. Houck, "The Water, the Trees, and the Land: Three Nearly Forgotten Cases That Changed the American Landscape," Tulane Law Review (June 1996), pp. 2279-2309.

William H. Rodgers, Jr., "The Most Creative Moments in the History of Environmental Law: The Whos," Washburn Law Journal (Fall 1999), pp. 1-27.

*Terry L. Anderson, "Conservation – Native American Style," in Anderson, ed., pp. 1-18.

Fiorino, pp. 1-60.

February 6 -- Players and Issues

Fiorino, pp. 61-99, 116-132, 159-225.

*William D. Ruckelshaus, "Stopping the Pendulum," Environmental Forum (November/December 1995). Available on web (csis.org/).

*National Academy of Public Administration, "Executive Summary" and "Chapter 1: Innovate for the Environment" of Environment.gov: Transforming Environmental Protection for the 21^st Century (November 2000), pp. 10-29. Available on web ( ).

Regulating Air and Water Quality

Paul R. Portney, "Air Pollution Policy," in Portney and Stavins, 77-121.

Gary C. Byner, Blue Skies, Green Politics: The Clean Air Act of 1990 and Its Implementation (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1995), pp. 96-152.

*R. Shep Melnick, Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1983), pp. 299-342.

*Robert E. Litan, et. al., Amici Curiae of AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies (with other economists), in the U.S. Supreme Court case of American Trucking Associations v. Carol Browner, July 21, 2000, pp. 1-12.

*Randall Lutter and Howard Gruenspecht, Assessing Benefits of Ground-Level Ozone: What Role for Science in Setting National Air Quality Standards? (Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, May 2001), pp. 1-11.

James Boyd, Alan J. Krupnick, and Janice Mazurek, Intel’s XL Permit: A Framework for Evaluation, Discussion Paper 98-11 (Washington, D.C.: Resource for the Future, January 1998), 1-23.

*Daniel Dudek, et. al., More Clean Air for the Buck: Lessons from the U.S. Acid Rain Emissions Trading Program, Environmental Defense Fund, New York, N. Y., November 1997, pp. i-iii, 1-20.

Michael J. Sandel, "It's Immoral to Buy the Right to Pollute," New York Times, December 15, 1997, p. A29. Available on web (Nexis).

Letters to the Editor (Response to Sandel piece), New York Times, December 17, 1997, p. A34. Available on web (Nexis).

Environmental Defense, Building on 30 Years of Clean Air Act Success: The Case for Reducing No_x Air Pollution (New York, December 2000), pp. 1-51.

*Ward Elliot, "Greenbacks Uber Gridlock: REACH Task Force Shows How to Save Billions in Smog and Congestion Costs," Planning and Markets (No. 1, 2000), pp. 1-18. Available on web (http://www-pam.usc.edu/volume3/v3i1a1print.html ).

National Academy of Public Administration, "Transforming Regulation," and "Using the Market," Chapters 2 and 3 of Environment.gov: Transforming Environmental Protection for the 21^st Century (November 2000), pp. 32-91.

Myrick Freeman, "Water Pollution Policy," in Portney and Stavins, pp. 169-209.

Angus Phillips, "Alexandria's Potomac a Secret That Mustn't Be Kept," Washington Post, November 5, 1995, p. D4. Available on web (Lexis).

David E. Ervin, et. al., "Agriculture and the Environment: A New Strategic Vision," Environment (July/August 1998), pp. 9-15, 35-39.

NRDC, Stormwater Runoff

*Robert W. Adler, "Integrated Approaches to Water Pollution: Lessons from the Clean Air Act," 23 Harvard Environmental Law Review (1999), pp. 203-295. Available on web (Lexis).

John Cushman, "Courts Expanding Effort to Battle Water Pollution," New York Times (March 1, 1998). Available on web (Nexis).

Jim Boyd, "Unleashing the Clean Water Act: The Promise and Challenge of the TMDL Approach to Water Quality," Resources (Resources for the Future, Spring 2000), pp. 7-10.

Rutherford H. Platt, Paul K. Barten, and Max J. Pfeffer, "A Full, Clean Glass?: Managing New York City’s Watersheds," Environment (June 2000), pp. 8-19.

National Academy of Public Administration, "Protecting Watershed’s: A New Confluence," Chapter 4 of Environment.gov: Transforming Environmental Protection for the 21^st Century (November 2000), pp. 93-133.

Paul Faeth, Fertile Ground: Nutrient Trading’s Potential to Cost-Effectively Improve Water Quality (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 2000), pp. 1-44.

*Ann Powers, "Reducing Nitrogen Pollution on Long Island Sound: Is There a Place for Pollutant Trading?," Columbia Journal of Environmental Law (1998), pp. 137-167, 185-216. Available on web (Lexis)

Eric Schiller, "The Oregon Water Trust," Center for Private Conservation, Competitive Enterprise Institute (Washington, D.C., November 1998), pp. 1-12. Available on web (cei.org).

March 13 -- Mid Term Exam (first half of class)

Hillary Sigman, "Hazardous Waste and Toxic Substance Policies," in Porney and Stavins, pp. 215-251.

Josh White and Maria Glod, "Cost of Replacing Underground Tanks Sinks Some Gas Stations," Washington Post (January 4, 1999), p. B1. Available on web (Nexis).

*Environmental Defense Fund, Toxic Ignorance (1997), pp. 7-51. Available on web ( ).

John Hird, Superfund: The Political Economy of Environmental Risk (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 3-32.

W. Kip Viscusi and James T. Hamilton, "Cleaning Up Superfund," The Public Interest , Summer 1996, pp. 52-60.

Sebastian Mallaby, "Saving Statistical Lives," The Washington Post (March 5, 2001), p. A19. Available on web (Nexis).

General Accounting Office, Superfund: Proposals to Remove Barriers to Brownfield Redevelopment (March 4, 1997), pp. 1-5. Available on web (www.gao.gov).

Richard L. Stroup, "Superfund: The Shortcut That Failed," in Anderson, pp. 115-135.

Molly K. Macauley and Margaret A. Walls, "Solid Waste Policy," in Portney and Stavins, pp. 261-281.

Eric Lipton, "As Imported Garbage Piles Up, So Do Worries," Washington Post (November 12, 1998), p. A1. Available on web (Nexis).

*Paul Portney, "The Price is Right: Making Use of Life Cycle Analysis," Issues in Science and Technology (Winter 1993-94), pp. 69-75.

*John Tierney, "Recycling is Garbage," New York Times Magazine (June 30, 1996), pp. 24-29, 44, 48, 51, 53. Available on web (Nexis).

*Natural Resources Defense Council, Too Good to Throw Away: Recycling’s Proven Record ( ), Introduction and Chapter 1. Available on web ( ).

Hird, Superfund , pp. 33-58.

John Rennie and Kicki Rusting, "Making Headway against Cancer," Scientific American (September 1996), pp. 56-59.

"Testing for Carcinogens with Rodents," editorial in Science (Summer 1990).

Bruce N. Ames and Lois Gold, Environmental Pollution and Cancer: Some Misconceptions," in Kenneth R. Foster, David E. Bernstein, and Peter W. Huber, eds., Phantom Risk (MIT Press, 1993), pp. 153-180.

Committee on Comparative Toxicity of Naturally Occurring Carcinogens, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Carcinogens and Anticarcinogens in the Human Diet (National Academy Press), 1996, pp. 1-18.

Devra Davis -- ?

*Tammy O. Tengs, et. al., "Five Hundred Life-Saving Interventions and their Cost-Effectiveness," Risk Analysis, No. 3 (1995), pp. 369-384.

*W. Kip Viscusi, "A Survey of Values of Risks to Life and Health," Chapter 4 of Viscusi, Fatal Attractions: Public and Private Responsibilities for Risk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 51-74.

James D. Wilson and J. W. Anderson, "What the Science Says: How We Use It and Abuse It to Make Health and Environmental Policy," Resources (Resources for the Future, Summer 1997), pp. 5-8.

Ellen K. Silbergeld, "Risk Assessment: The Perspective and Experience of U.S. Environmentalists," Environmental Health Perspectives (June 1993), pp. 100-103.

Managing U.S. Land and Natural Resources

Robert H. Nelson, "Ineffective Laws and Unexpected Consequences: A Brief Review of Public Land History," in Robert H. Nelson, Public Lands and Private Rights: The Failure of Scientific Management (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), pp. 5-35.

*Samuel Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920 (Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 261-276.

*Stephen Fox, The American Conservation Movement: John Muir and his Legacy (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 138-147.

Mark Reissner, Cadillac Desert (Viking, 1986), pp. 151-176.

Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 220-236.

T.H. Watkins, "One Man's Recreation is Another's Desecration," Washington Post (December 13, 1998), Outlook Section, p. C1. Available on web.

William Cronon, "Getting Back to the Wrong Nature," Utne Reader, May-June 1996, pp. 76-79.

Donald Worster, "John Muir and the Roots of American Environmentalism," in The Wealth of Nature (Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 184-202.

*Donald Ludwig, Marc Mangel, and Brent M. Haddad, "Ecology, Conservation, and Public Policy," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics (2001), pp. 481-506.

Charles C. Mann and Mark L Plummer, Noah’s Choice: The Future of Endangered Species (New York: Knopf, 1995), pp. 3-146.

*Holly Doremus, "Adaptive Management, the Endangered Species Act, and the Institutional Challenges of ‘New Age’ Environmental Protection," Washburn Law Journal (Fall 2001), pp. 50-89.

H. Josef Hebert, "Endangered Species Act: Praised, Despised as Conflicts Go On," The Washington Post (December 28, 1998), p. A14. Available on web (Nexis).

*David S. Wilcome, Michael J. Bean, Robert Bonnie, and Margaret McMillan, "Rebuilding the Ark: Toward a More Effective Endangered Species Act for Private Land," Environmental Defense Fund, December 5, 1996, pp. 1-13. Available on web (edf.org).

Barton H. Thompson, Jr., "The Endangered Species Act: A Case Study in Takings and Incentives," Stanford Law Review (January 1997), pp. 305-354. Available on web (Lexis).

*Karin P. Sheldon, "Habitat Conservation Planning: Addressing the Achilles Heel of the Endangered Species Act," New York University Environmental Law Journal (1998), pp. 279-340.

Charles C. Mann and Mark L Plummer, Noah’s Choice: The Future of Endangered Species (New York: Knopf, 1995), pp. 212-238.

*Randy T. Simmons, "Fixing the Endangered Species Act," in Anderson, pp. 82-110.

Roger Sedjo, "Forest Resources: Resilient and Serviceable," in Kenneth D. Frederick and Roger A. Sedjo, America's Renewable Resources: Historic Trends and Current Challenges (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1991), pp. 81-115.

*Jeffrey D. Brawn, Scott K. Robinson, and Frank R. Thompson, III, "The Role of Disturbance in the Ecology and Conservation of Birds," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics (2001), pp. 251-269.

*General Accounting Office, Western National Forests – Catastrophic Wildfire Threaten Resources and Communities Statement of Barry T. Hill, Associate Director, Energy, Resources and Science Issues, September 28, 1998, pp. 1-12. Available on web (gao.gov)

Ecosystem Management, MacCleery -- ?

Second Century: Options for the Forest Service, A Report to the American People by the Forest Options Group, January 1999, pp. 1-22. Available on web (www.ti.org/2c.html)

Charles F. Wilkinson, Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water and the Future of the West (Island Press, 1992), pp. 75-113.

Edward Abbey, "Even the Bad Guys Wear White Hats: Cowboys, Ranchers and the Ruin of the West," Harpers (January 1986), pp. 51-55.

Tom Kenworthy, "Grazing Laws Feed Demise of Rancher's Way of Life," Washington Post (November 29, 1998), p. A1. Available on web.

*Robert H. Nelson, "How to Reform Grazing Policy: Creating Forage Rights on Federal Rangelands," Fordham Environmental Law Review (Symposium 1997), pp. 645-690. Available on web (Lexis).

Jacob Goldstein, "At Auctions, Environmental Activists Buy Leases on Public Lands to Keep Ranchers From Using the Acreage for Grazing," Christian Science Monitor (January 8, 2002).

Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal, "Rekindling the Privatization Fires: Political Lands Revisited," in Anderson, pp. 53-79.