As Hurricane Katrina vividly revealed, disaster policy in the United States is broken and needs reform. What can we learn from past disasters—storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and wildfires—about preparing for and responding to future catastrophes? How can these lessons be applied in a future threatened by climate change?
In this bold contribution to environmental law, Robert Verchick argues for a new perspective on disaster law that is based on the principles of environmental protection. His prescription boils down to three simple commands: Go Green, Be Fair, and Keep Safe. “Going green” means minimizing exposure to hazards by preserving natural buffers and integrating those buffers into artificial systems like levees or seawalls. “Being fair” means looking after public health, safety, and the environment without increasing personal and social vulnerabilities. “Keeping safe” means a more cautionary approach when confronting disaster risks.
Verchick argues that government must assume a stronger regulatory role in managing natural infrastructure, distributional fairness, and public risk. He proposes changes to the federal statutes governing environmental impact assessments, wetlands development, air emissions, and flood control, among others. Making a strong case for more transparent governmental decision-making, Verchick offers a new vision of disaster law for the next generation.
Giving particular attention to intergovernmental working relationships, this revised edition of Federalism and Environmental Policy has been significantly updated to reflect the changes that have taken place since the highly praised first edition. Denise Scheberle examines reasons why environmental laws seldom work out exactly as planned. Casting federal-state working relationships as "pulling together," "coming apart," or somewhere in-between, she provides dozens of observations from federal and state officials. This study also suggests that implementation of environmental policy is a story of high stakes politics—a story rich with contextual factors and as fascinating as the time the policy was formulated.
As four very different environmental programs unfold—asbestos (updated to include the fallout from the World Trade Center), drinking water, radon, and surface coal mining—Scheberle demonstrates how programs evolve differently, with individual political, economic, logistical, and technical constraints. The policy implementation framework developed for the book provides the lens through which to compare environmental laws.
Federalism and Environmental Policy goes beyond the contents of policy to explore the complex web of federal-state working relationships and their effect on the implementation of policy. It is unique in how it portrays the nuts-and-bolts, the extent to which the state and federal offices work together effectively—or not. Examining working relationships within the context of program implementation and across four different environmental programs offers a unique perspective on why environmental laws sometimes go awry.
In A Fierce Green Fire, renowned environmental journalist Philip Shabecoff presents the definitive history of American environmentalism from the earliest days of the republic to the present. He offers a sweeping overview of the contemporary environmental movement and the political, economic, social and ethical forces that have shaped it. More importantly, he considers what today's environmental movement needs to do if it is to fight off the powerful forces that oppose it and succeed in its mission of protecting the American people, their habitat, and their future.
Shabecoff traces the ecological transformation of North America as a result of the mass migration of Europeans to the New World, showing how the environmental impulse slowly formed among a growing number of Americans until, by the last third of the 20th Century, environmentalism emerged as a major social and cultural movement. The efforts of key environmental figures -- among them Henry David Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh, Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, David Brower, Barry Commoner, and Rachel Carson -- are examined. So, too, are the activities of non-governmental environmental groups as well as government agencies such as the EPA and Interior Department, along with grassroots efforts of Americans in communities across the country. The author also describes the economic and ideological forces aligned against environmentalism and their increasing successes in recent decades.
Originally published in 1993, this new edition brings the story up to date with an analysis of how the administration of George W. Bush is seeking to dismantle a half-century of progress in protecting the land and its people, and a consideration of the growing international effort to protect Earth's life-support systems and the obstacles that the United States government is placing before that effort. In a forward-looking final chapter, Shabecoff casts a cold eye on just what the environmental movement must do to address the challenges it faces.
Now, at this time when environmental law, institutions, and values are under increased attack -- and opponents of environmentalism are enjoying overwhelming political and economic power -- A Fierce Green Fire is a vital reminder of how far we have come in protecting our environment and how much we have to lose.
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