Carol Browner (right) discusses issues with members of her audience after her talk.

More attention to the environment
is needed, EPA administrator says

Americans do not have to sacrifice a thriving economy to have a safe and healthy Earth, said Carol Browner, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection (EPA) during a campus visit. Browner spoke on the topic "Protecting Public Health and the Environment into the Next Century" before a large crowd at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Her visit came as Earth Day and the EPA celebrate their 30th anniversaries, and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (F&ES) marks its 100th year. Browner's talk focused on the importance of sustaining public awareness of environmental issues and the need for a bipartisan effort on the part of Congress to enact environmental legislation. The EPA, Browner noted, was created by President Richard Nixon, largely in response to the first Earth Day. "It was a time," she said, "when our country, our people, our government vigorously confronted a set of enormous environmental challenges." It was during this dawning of environmental conscience on a mass scale that "we placed the protection of our air, our water, our land on the front burner of the national agenda," she claimed. At that time, Americans' commitment to meet the environmental challenges of the moment paid off in the successful resolution of many difficult issues, Browner said. In her talk, she examined the accomplishments of that era with a view to figuring out how they might be replicated. Looking back on the public mood at the time, the critical environmental issues of the day and other factors that may have contributed to enormous strides in environmental protection, Browner said she had three useful observations. First, she said, "There was a profound feeling in this country that something had to be done about pollution. ... Clearly the situation was getting out of hand and it seemed to be getting worse by the day," she claimed. Dramatically deteriorating conditions led Americans to be concerned about "pollution, about public health, about the quality of life that their children would actually inherit." Galvanized by the effect of pollution and toxic waste on general health, Americans were committed to "protecting our environment, our health without regard to cost. ... It really was a sea change in our nation's approach to environmental protection," Browner said of this dramatic shift in national priorities. A second factor that had profound influence on the progress of environmental protection was a spirit of bipartisanship. "Environmentalism was not the preserve of one political party of one region of the country," she said. Rather, elected officials heeded the almost universal call for reform from their constituents. Browner lists not knowing "exactly how we would actually address these daunting environmental problems" as the third major asset in the burgeoning environmental movement. Focusing on the goals of containing and preventing pollution and toxic waste proved a better taskmaster than concentrating on the solutions themselves. "We set ambitious environmental goals; we set the tough public health standards, and then we worked to find a way to meet them," she explained. Out of the concerted effort of businesses, government and a broad cross-section of the American population, Congress created the Nation's War on Environmental Degradation -- a wide array of public health and environmental laws -- which through the next two decades was upgraded, strengthened and refined. Among the critical environmental issues that Congress acted on during those 20 years was banning lead in gas, addressing depletion of the ozone layer and acid rain, and developing new ways to uncover toxic waste sites like Love Canal, said Browner. Working on tackling environmental problems with a consensus of concerned citizens, business leaders and elected officials at the state and local level, the EPA became, according to Browner, "a work in progress." Among the lessons learned from the input of all sectors of the population and the economy was that implementing sound environmental policy could actually be a bottom-line boon to business, she noted. "Today we have many corporations who want to be 'green,' simply because it is good business for them -- not because of a regulation, but because that's what their consumers are asking of them," she said. "We know that protecting the environment doesn't mean sacrificing the country's economic progress," she continued. "We don't have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment ... in many ways the two are inextricably linked." Contrasted to the first 20 years of sweeping environmental reform, "today, we find ourselves in a bit of a problem," Browner warned her audience. That problem, she claims, is first and foremost the collapse of bipartisanship. Fully acknowledging her own political allegiance and conceding that members of her party (the Democrats) are not always nor universally pro-environment, she maintained that the Republican-majority Congress has put an undue burden of cost-effectiveness on proposed environmental regulations. In the past 10 years, Browner noted, progress in environmental protection has stalled. Modern technology has been largely passed over in the effort. "It's been a full decade since we have had the last real congressional debate on the Clean Air Act," she reported. "It has been 13 years since Congress took up the Clean Water Act, and 14 years since they addressed toxic waste cleanup in this country." As confirmation that the public's concern for environmental issues has not lessened, Browner noted that a recent Gallup poll shows that 58% of Americans want stricter enforcement of environmental standards. In addition, a recent Roper poll reveals that 60% of Americans believe environmental progress is fully reconcilable with economic progress and that, when given a choice, 70% favor environmental protection over development. Given this overwhelming support for stricter environmental controls, it is incumbent on Congress to "reengage with the people," Browner stated. And the people need to reengage with issues that have become increasingly complex and subtle, she said. Browner said that it is much easier to get the public to pay attention to environmental problems when it can see actual images of damage. Global warming, for example, has been amply corroborated by scientists, yet it lacks the dramatic impact of a thick cloud of smog or black soot belching from a smoke stack. Likewise, she said, the damage to the health of children from various chemicals is not immediately apparent. According to Browner, Congress has adopted a "one size fits all" approach to very complex problems. "We see cost-benefit considerations being swept into every single argument, indeed into the very definition of 'protection'," she said. "I have no problem with cost-benefit informing the debate. I do have a problem with cost-benefit dictating the level of the health and environmental protection that the American people will be afforded." Browner ended her talk on a note of optimism. She pointed out that the EPA website gets 52 million visitors a month, certainly an indication that many Americans still have a passionate interest in protecting the environment, and perhaps, that they want be personally engaged in that cause. Addressing the students in the audience interested in embarking on careers in the environmental sciences and who may someday lead an agency like EPA, Browner confided, "I didn't have a career plan. I only did what I care about." She advised, "Pursue what you care about and devote yourselves to public service." 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