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The States Are The Best Guardians Of The Environment Bozeman Daily Chronicle As the clock ticks down on the Clinton administration, political appointees have shifted into regulatory overdrive. With the pedal to the metal, Clinton's cronies are pushing a number of controversial environmental policies that they believe will ensure a lasting environmental legacy for the president. Carol Browner, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, recently rushed through a contentious water quality rule. She signed on the dotted line just hours before the president was cornered into approving a critical appropriations bill with an attached rider that would have halted further EPA action on the issue. Besides hamstringing the next president with bad public policy, these Amidnight regulations also harm the environment by consolidating more power under federal management. In the current rush to legislate, we should all pause and ask ourselves if the best environmental policy emanates from Washington, D.C. or from individual states. Becky Norton Dunlop, who served as Virginia's Secretary of Natural Resources during the mid-1990s, is unequivocal in her view. "It is in the nature of government, and even the environment, that decisions made close to the point of impact are likely to be the best," she writes in her new book, Clearing the Air. Proponents of devolving power to the states like Dunlop cite three major advantages that state control has over the current entrenched central authority. First, local managers are more knowledgeable about local environmental problems than Washington bureaucrats, and they are better informed about how conditions differ from one region to the next. The result is more applicable and effective policies. Dunlop's first meeting as a member of the Ozone Transport Commission in February of 1994, provides an apt example. At that time, the EPA mounted an aggressive campaign to force eastern states to adopt the California Car, a costly electric vehicle designed to reduce air pollution. The car may have worked for California, but made little sense for the Northeast. Parts of California had the worst air quality in the nation often caused by unique geographical and weather conditions. The Northeast did not share its problems. In 1993, the Lost Angeles basin exceeded the ozone limit 128 times, while Washington, D.C., the dirty-air capital of the East Coast, had but a single infraction. Dunlop points out the absurdity of this one-size-fits-all remedy: "Requiring northeastern states to take the California cure was like treating the common cold with chemotherapy." Better accountability is a second key benefit of returning policy making to the states. As power is devolved to smaller and smaller regions, those who make the rules are more likely to have to answer to those who are governed by the rules. Dunlop notes that after Virginia's victory in the battle over the California car, she took satisfaction in knowing that, while the decision meant that the EPA and the commission couldn't impose a car policy on Virginia, nothing in that decision prevented states that wanted to from adopting the California car for themselves. And if state politicians chose to adopt those policies, she points out, they would do so with the clear understanding that their constituents would hold them accountable on election day. The final major benefit of decentralization is the proliferation of ideas all directed at finding the best solutions. Instead of one central policy, there are fifty different state policies, each searching for the right answer. Dunlop chronicles how when given the chance, states can and do develop creative ways to clean up their environment. Ohio came up with a voluntary program so that private parties can clean up contaminated sites. Michigan amended its laws so that owners are only responsible for clean-up costs if the contamination occurred under their ownership. These changes fly in the face of rigid federal laws like the Superfund program. Finally, Illinois followed Virginia's lead to help small businesses comply with government regulations, a measure that paints a stark contrast to federal laws like the Clean Water Act where a company can be fined as much as $25,000 per day for a paperwork violation even when no environmental harm has actually occurred. Without people like Dunlop fighting increased federal control, these states could not have cultured such successful experiments. For the environment's sake, hopefully the era of big government will draw to a close in the next administration. But for that to happen, our newly elected president must realize the error and arrogance of past one-size-fits-all federal policies. Otherwise, the environment may be doomed to a Clinton legacy that is more red tape than green grandeur.
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