The Government And Environmental Policy Essays -- essays research pape

The Government and Environmental PolicyThe purpose of the unify States public policy equity is to devour restrictionsin an effort to solve problems, which can be seen with the lily-white Water Act.Public policy has also been employed to reform the Endangered Species Act of1973. Although the United States government is noble in its efforts topreserve the environment through these acts, the internal structure of publicpolicy often retards these acts effectiveness. This paper will explore themany ways in which factors such as horizontal implementation, divided government,and other forms of public policy affect the environmental legislation involvedwith the aforementioned acts. The main(prenominal) factors involved with the EndangeredSpecies Act of 1973 involve horizontal implementation structure and dividedgovernment. Before one can discuss how these policies affect environmentallegislation, a brief description of each must first be lucidly explained. Whenour government was founde d, a system of checks and balances was implementedbetween the executive, judicial, and legislative branches to ensure that no onepart of government gets likewise much power. Although this limits the power of anyone person in government, it often slows down the ability of government becausea consensus can be difficult with so many people working(a) together. Anotherproblem is that there are many subgovernments affecting the legislation as well,such as interest groups like the Sierra Club, Administrative Agents like theEnvironmental Protection Agency, and Congressional Committees. Because thesegroups add to the total number of people working on the legislation, theoriginal noble ideology of making policy for the good of the nation is voided.Also because there are so many differences of opinion, few drastic changes aremade, instead small incremental changes are made which take up lots of time andretard the effectiveness and enforcement of the legislation. In addition tothis topsy-tu rvy turmoil, four steps must be implemented in order to pass a bill.These are initiation & definition, formulation & picture (legitimation),implementation, and evaluation.The most relevant one of these steps is horizontal implementation when oneconsiders the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act. This policy is theprocess that puts a law into effect after it has been legitimized. Congres... ...ne." (Adler, pg. 1)The Acts goals as set forth by Congress was to eliminate toxic discharge intosignificant bodies of weewee by 1985, improve water quality for marine andfreshwater life by 1983, and for all "toxic pollutants in toxic amounts" intowater. Of course that act has had mediocre success, and only through actcooperation of the governments branches will further progress be made. Inconclusion, it has been shown how different branches of government, differentadministrations, and different policies all worked together to retard theimplementation of the Endangere d Species Act and the Clean Water Act of theearly 1970s. Although these processes do act in a system of governmentalchecks and balances as the founders of this country wished, the effectiveness ofthe acts take many old age of careful compromising to become significant.REFERENCES1. Adler, Robert W., et. al. The Clean Water Act 20 Years Later      Island Press Washington, D.C. 19932. Horton, Tom "The Endangered Species Act Too tough, too weak,      toolate."      (1992) Audubon Vol. 94 pgs. 68-74