Environment

Pollution Control vs. Cost Control
• The Clean Air Act: (CAA) regulates industrial smokestacks and other sources of smog, acid rain, and other air pollutants. The CAA uses numerous market incentives, including ‘pollution permits’ that are traded on open markets, to minimize costs.
• The Clean Water Act: (CWA) regulates ‘point-source’ (sewage pipes) and ‘non-point-source’ (land and road runoff) water pollution. The EPA’s approach since the early 1990s is ‘watershed-based,’ which means cooperating across political boundaries.
• CAFE standard: The ‘Corporate Average Fuel Economy’ requires that all automobile manufacturers maintain an average of 28 miles per gallon (mpg) for all vehicles sold.
• Command-and-control: Standardized regulations with central enforcement (usually by EPA), as opposed to market-based incentives.

Federal Lands
The federal government owns 27% of all US land (more than the combined area of Alaska, Texas, & California).
1. BLM: The Bureau of Land Management owns 270 million acres of cattle grazing land.
2. USFS: The US Forest Service owns 185 million acres of timber land.
3. FWS: The Fish & Wildlife Service owns 90 million acres of waterways and surrounding lands.
4. NPS: The National Park Service owns 75 million acres of national parks and national rivers.
5. States: State and local governments own 200 million acres of land (another 9% of total US land area).

Land Use Buzzwords
• Devolution: Some candidates believe that land use decisions should ‘devolve’ from the federal government to state or local government, to encourage community involvement.
• Wise Use: A code word which means ‘stop federal land use restrictions.’ It comes from the Forest Service’s founding doctrines, which say that wise land use includes commercial use plus recreational use.
• Land Trusts: Privately-held land which has restrictions on development (e.g., wildlife sanctuaries).
• Suburban Sprawl: Uncontrolled development that fosters automobile usage rather than mass transit.
• Urban Redevelopment: Restoring inner-city ‘blighted’ communities via ‘empowerment zones,’ etc.
• Brownfields: Locating industrial development on former waste sites (versus wide-open ‘greenfields’).
• Superfund: EPA cleanup of toxic waste sites.

Amendment V to the US Constitution
...nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.(1791)

More Headlines

 Nuclear Power WIll End the Energy Crisis

 Destruction of the National Parks from Oil Drilling

 Check out the Top 10 most sprawl-threatened cities and vote for what you think should be done to fight sprawl.

 Growth Boundaries: The Wrong Fix for Urban Sprawl?

 Has the Threat of Global Warming Been Overstated?

 Are SUVs Destroying The Environment?

 Sprawl: Are the Suburbs Consuming the Country?

 Can Wind Power Meet Our Energy Needs?