Environmental Policy Analysis For Decision Making

1. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ANALYSIS: WHAT AND WHY? Why environmental policy analysis? Environmental issues are growing in visibility in local, national, and world arenas, as a myriad of human activities leads to increased impacts on the natural world. Issues such as climate change, endangered species, wilderness protection, and energy use are regularly on the front pages of newspapers. Governments at all levels are struggling with how to address these issues. Environmental policy analysis is intended to present the environmental and social impacts of policies, in the hope that better decisions will result when people have better information on which to base those decisions. Conducting environmental policy analysis requires people who understand what it is and how to do it. Interpreting it also requires those skills. We hope that this book will increase the abilities, both of analysts and of decision-makers, to understand and interpret the impacts of environmental policies. Policy analysis books almost invariably begin by pointing out that policy analysis can take many forms. This book is no different. As you will see in Chapter 1, we consider policy analysis to be information provided for the policy process. That information can take many forms, from sophisticated empirical analysis to general theoretical results, from summary statistics to game theoretic strategies.

This timely book provides a wealth of useful information for following through on today's renewed concern for sustainability and environmentalism. It's designed to help city managers, policy analysts, and government administrators think comprehensively and communicate effectively about environmental policy issues.The authors illustrate a system-based framework model of the city that provides a holistic view of environmental media (land, air, and water) while helping decision-makers to understand the extent to which environmental policy decisions are intertwined with the natural, built, and social systems of the city. They go on to introduce basic and environment-specific policy-analytic models, methods, and tools; presents numerous specific environmental policy puzzles that will confront cities; and introduces methods for understanding and educating public opinions around urban environmental policy.The book is grounded in the policy-analytic perspective rather than political science, economic, or planning frameworks. It includes both new scholarship and synthesis of existing policy analysis. Numerous tables, figures, checklists, and maps, as well as a comprehensive reference list are included.

Federal agencies have taken steps to include the public in a wide range of environmental decisions. Although some form of public participation is often required by law, agencies usually have broad discretion about the extent of that involvement. Approaches vary widely, from holding public information-gathering meetings to forming advisory groups to actively including citizens in making and implementing decisions. Proponents of public participation argue that those who must live with the outcome of an environmental decision should have some influence on it. Critics maintain that public participation slows decision making and can lower its quality by including people unfamiliar with the science involved. This book concludes that, when done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively. This book recommends that agencies recognize public participation as valuable to their objectives, not just as a formality required by the law. It details principles and approaches agencies can use to successfully involve the public.

With the growing number, complexity, and importance of environmental problems come demands to include a full range of intellectual disciplines and scholarly traditions to help define and eventually manage such problems more effectively. Decision Making for the Environment: Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities is the result of a 2-year effort by 12 social and behavioral scientists, scholars, and practitioners. The report sets research priorities for the social and behavioral sciences as they relate to several different kinds of environmental problems.

This volume probes practical dilemmas and competing re- search perspectives in environmental policy analysis. Scholars working in different fields, research traditions, societies, and policy domains offer significant insights into the processes and consequences of environmental policy making. Part 1, "Coping with Boundaries," describes present-day conflict between experts and greater public participation in environmental policy. It shows that the institutionalization of increasingly complex environmental problems has led to a conflict between technocracy and democracy. Part 2, "The Transnational Challenge," examines modes of cooperation between grassroots movements, scientists, and regional authorities in the United States and Canada. These and other modes of cooperation laid the foundations for the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, increased the effectiveness of air pollution treaties, and increased climate change. Part 3, "Bio-Hazards: Policies and Paralysis," deals with environmental prob-lems closest to the everyday concerns of the public at large because they have immediate implications for food safety and other values. Part 4, "The Citizens' Perspective," focuses on citizen vis--vis environmental policy, noting that in order to make policies work citizens must be willing and able to participate in policy-making and cooperate in implementing environmental choices. Part 5, "Confronting Ordinary and Expert Knowledge," explores opportunities and constraints affecting public participation in evaluation of science. Part 6, "Developments in Research Programming," addresses such questions as whether scientists still have opportunities to do the research they want without being interrupted or disturbed by policy makers and other stakeholders. Part 7, "Policy Sciences' Aspirations," explores different avenues for improving environmental policy. Volume twelve in the PSRA series should inspire further investigations of the relations among knowledge, power, and participation in environmental policy. It will be of timely interest to environmentalists, policy-makers, scholars, and the general public. Matthijs Hisschemller is senior researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies of the Free University in Amsterdam. Rob Hoppe is professor and chair of the Policy Studies unit of University of Twente's Faculty of Public Administration and Public Policy. William N. Dunn is professor of Public Policy and Management in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. Jerry R. Ravetz is director of the Research Methods Consultancy Ltd., in London.

Environmental assessment and management involve the production of scientific knowledge and its use in decision-making processes. The result is that within these essentially rational, political assessment frameworks, experts are creating and applying scientific knowledge for decision and management purposes that actually have strong ethical and aesthetic dimensions. Yet these rational political frameworks lack the tools to provide guidance on ethical and aesthetic issues that affect the wider public.This revolutionary work argues that ethical and aesthetic dimensions can only be brought into environmental politics and policies by citizens actively taking a stand on the specific matters in question. The author draws on Habermas trisection of rationality as cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical and aesthetic-expressive, to suggest that truly effective environmental policy needs to activate all three approaches and not favour only the rational. To achieve this objective, the author argues that public participation in environmental policy and assessment is necessary to counteract the dictatorship of technical and economic instrumentality in environmental policy - the failure to take ethical and aesthetic rationalities into account - and, more importantly, how such policy is applied on the ground to shape our natural and material world.