Preserving U.S. Fisheries: A Bipartisan Pipe Dream?

President Obama’s call in his 2012 State of the Union address for a new spirit of bipartisanship brought to mind a recent Washington Post article on current federal efforts to preserve U.S. fisheries. In what qualifies as a rare “good news” story involving federal environmental policy, that article reports that the Obama Administration is poised to impose catch limits for 528 different fish species federal regulatory agencies are charged with managing in U.S.-controlled waters under existing law. Even more surprising is the fact that–to date, at least–this groundbreaking regulatory initiative has proceeded with precious little publicity or political controversy.

This extraordinary process is being carried out under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act, enacted by Congress in the 1970′s and quietly reauthorized five years ago. Little noticed in the recent reauthorization legislation was a provision–supported by a bipartisan coalition of legislators, environmental organizations, scientists and some fishing groups–requiring federal regulators to establish annual catch limits for each U.S. fishery. This new mandate, in turn, was prompted by the well-chronicled overfishing of many fish species that have caused numerous commercial and recreational fish populations to plummet.   According to Joshua Reichert of the Pew Environmental Group, this new provision of the Magnuson-Stevens Act “is probably the most important conservation statute ever enacted into America’s fisheries law.”

The federal process to set broad catch limits was initiated by the George W. Bush Administration, and has continued apace under the Obama Administration. One of the key features that distinguishes this process (and which may account for its relative lack of political controversy) is that development of the fisheries catch limits has been a “bottoms-up” process: those limits have been established by decentralized, regional management councils representing a diverse set of local interests.

Nevertheless, ultimate responsibility to ratify and enforce the newly-established catch limits rests with federal officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and elsewhere. And those officials have indicated they plan to have annual catch limits in place for all 528 targeted fish species by the end of 2012.

Unsurprisingly, the transition of national catch limits from aspiration to reality threatens the fragile, bipartisan political support that has previously characterized the regulatory process.

Urban Form and Public Health

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a very nice story about UCLA’s Dick Jackson.  To quote this article;  ”In 2001, while still at the CDC, Dr. Jackson was a co-author of an article published by Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse that contended that poorly planned built environments had adverse effects on air quality, physical activity, and public safety, among other things.”

So, my colleague is making a strong causal statement that the same person would be much healthier if he/she lived in a “new urbanist” setting rather than in the types of suburban settings that many people current live in.    As an empiricist, I ask myself — how do we rigorously test this hypothesis? It is an important hypothesis to test.  

There is one high quality study done by economists to examine the relationship between sprawl and obesity.   These authors studied the weight dynamics for individuals who moved from center cities to suburbs.  Under the Jackson hypothesis, this group should gain weight relative to observationally similar people who do not move.  These authors reject that hypothesis.   To really test causal claims about the role that urban form plays in determining outcomes, we need a randomized control trial.  Since we choose (i.e self select) our locations , there are fundamental selection vs. treatment issues that need to be disentangled here.  This is an exciting research field with opportunities for methodological advance and it is important public policy question as we think about what are the consequences of policies such as California’s SB375.

 

Energy and the State of the Union

There’s quite a bit about energy in the State of the Union, including a discussion of the potential for natural gas and this about clean energy:

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I will. I’m directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history – with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

Rebound Redux

I’ve posted  previously about the rebound effect.  Improving energy efficiency frees up money, which can be used to purchase more of the same product or different products that use energy.  This “rebound” cuts away at the energy savings and correspondingly at the carbon reduction achieved through energy efficiency.  Everyone seems to agree that the rebound effect is real; the big dispute is over its size and significance.  Blake Hudson pointed me toward a new study of the issue on CO2 Scoreboard that concludes that critics of energy efficiency have exaggerated the extent of rebound.

Economists are found of paradoxical arguments, like the rebound effect or the claim that safer cars cause more deaths. (I’m not making up the auto safety claim.) Sometimes economists seem to be living n a kind of Bizarro World, where the best way to accomplish any goal is always to do the opposite. Making these claims takes a certain ingenuity, because there’s nearly always some feedback effect that tends to push back against the direct effects of a policy.  There are also feedback effects that strengthen the impact of a policy, but those are less fun to point out.  For instance, energy efficiency makes people better off economically, and the environmental Kuznets Curve holds that more affluence produces greater demand for pollution regulation, which will result in less use of dirty fuels such as coal and thereby cut carbon emissions.

The big issue is the size of the feedback effect, and that’s very difficult to establish empirically.  The problem is that determining the effect of an event such as a policy or technological change requires holding everything else constant.  Since other things rarely are constant, an empirical study has to estimate what would have happened in a world in which everything except the policy change was the same.  Not easy to do!

I’d like to suggest the relevance of two economic axioms to this debate.  One is familiar: there’s no free lunch.  Even something as seemingly desirable as improved energy efficiency does not come without some price.  The other is less familiar (because I just made it up): you can’t lose weight by eating more.  Call that the “no miracle diet” rule.  This means that the direct effects of an action are rarely completely negated or reversed by feedback effects.  Rarely does not mean never, but there’s a strong burden of proof on anyone who wants to argue for such exceptionally strong feedback.  In the case of energy efficiency, that means that the presumption should be in favor of the common sense conclusion: greater energy efficiency means less energy use.

Attention K-Mart Shoppers! Get With the Program

I’ve blogged before about Asia Pulp & Paper, which has one of the worst records on destroying critical species habitat in its logging operations and abusing human rights in the process.  (Not surprisingly, it also has a fake certification from greenwahser Programme for the Endorsement of Forestry Certification).  Well, the tigers (and humans) have some good news: Kroger — the largest seller of APP products in the US — recently put out a public statement saying it will stop sourcing from APP.  Kroger’s very brief statement noted that it had decided to take this action because of its concerns about deforestation and after an “independent review.”

Now, Greenpeace is trying to get K-Mart to ban AP&P products from its shelves.  You can sign the petition here.

I don’t always agree with Greenpeace’s positions and tactics, but they are absolutely right on this one.

A Subtle New Paper; “How Not to Save the Planet” by Thom Brooks

Thom Brooks has written a thoughtful new paper.  Here is his abstract:

Abstract. Climate change presents us with a pressing challenge. A global consensus accepts that
human activity is responsible for climate change and its associated dangers. However, there is
disagreement on how best to address this challenge. The essay argues that leading proposals are
unsatisfactory, such as the ecological footprint and polluter pays principle. The reasons include
that they do not effectively manage climate change and may contribute to further problems. We
require a new approach to address climate change.

He reproduces a couple of quotes from my Climatopolis and I would like to add a couple of thoughts.

My book focuses on the micro economics of climate change adaptation and the role that urban growth will play to help us to adapt.   I do not view adaptation to be a substitute for mitigation.  In the book, I talk about my support for $10 a gallon gas. I would love to see a carbon tax of $50 per ton of CO2 right now but I am a realist.  Such policies will not be enacted and the stock of GHG emissions will continue to rise. I hope that the Green Guinea Pig efforts such as California’s AB32 teach us new lessons that then broadly diffuse but we face the challenge of climate change.

I argue in my book that free market capitalism will greatly help all of us to adapt to many of the challenges of climate change.  During this time when we focus on income inequality, some of us have forgotten the benefits of free markets.  Capitalism is an amazingly adaptable system for organizing activity.  Price signals (whether it is scarce water, or the desire for renewable power) will direct human ingenuity to get to work on the  hard problems that climate change will cause. From a law of large numbers, we will find many solutions.  Ideas are public goods .  Once we have Facebook, we can all benefit from it.   We only needed one guy to produce it.  Our future entrepreneurs will focus on climate change challenges.

I am well aware that some geographical areas (especially in poor nations) will be hammered by climate change.  Migration will be required and land owners and those who can’t move will suffer.  For more on LDC migration and climate change read this.    The imperative to support economic growth and poverty reduction in LDCs is enhanced by the climate change challenge.

Obama Administration Rejects Keystone XL

Here:

Obama laid the responsibility for the rejection of the pipeline on political gamesmanship by Republicans.

“As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment.” Obama said. “As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied.  And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.” 

TransCanada Corp. shares slid more than 3 percent after reports early Wednesday that rejection was imminent.

Rejection of the pipeline had been expected in Washington after Obama tried to delay the decision until 2013 but Congress forced his hand as part of a popular tax cut measure.

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people, Obama said. ”I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.”

The GOP will try to tie an extension of the payroll tax-cut to an approval of Keystone XL.  Given that the payroll tax cut actually does create jobs while Keystone XL is marginal, that makes little sense as public policy, but it’s probably smart politics for Republicans.  If Obama rejects the deal and the payroll tax goes up, then it help deflate the economy, which helps Republicans, and if Obama accepts, it will demoralize the Democratic base.  Since Pravda Fox News is still pushing discredited jobs numbers for the pipeline, the GOP might just get away with it.

City of Light – City of Magic

While writing yesterday about Charles Haar’s work as a special master on the Boston Harbor cleanup, it occurred to me that in our list of great environmental songs, we (although not our commenters) missed an obvious one: The Standells’ Dirty Water, which of course is all about that:

It might not be the best dirty water song ever, though: that honor goes to Randy Newman’s classic Burn On, about the Cuyahoga River.  Not a great performance of it, but here it is.

Get the original version on the record.

The Lord can make you tumble/

The Lord can make you turn/

The Lord can make you overflow/

But the Lord can’t make you burn.

The CEQA Streamlining “Slippery Slope” May Help Rail Transit

A steep slope needs a good train

Whenever proposals come along to exempt or streamline environmental review for certain projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), CEQA defenders fear the slippery slope. Even if the target projects are environmentally benign, the concern is that once the CEQA armor has been pierced, special interests will be able to exploit the opening to secure favorable treatment for their bad projects. Eventually, the exceptions could swallow the law, and the whole system of environmental protections would collapse. To some extent, Eric described these concerns in a recent post.

But what if a little bit of slippery slope leads to some good environmental outcomes? Case in point: Assemblyman Mike Feuer’s newly introduced legislation AB 1444, which expands the circle of eligibility for the CEQA streamlining provisions of AB 900 to public rail transit projects. (AB 900, as you may recall, created a special club for certain $100 million projects, subject to the Governor’s review, to be eligible for fast-track approval process at the state Court of Appeal for any CEQA challenges.)

Public transit is the poster child for the kind of environmentally benign development that CEQA should be encouraging, not discouraging, if the law is truly about better environmental outcomes. Transit gets people out of cars, serves low-income constituents who might otherwise drive gas-guzzling clunkers, and provides a critical alternative to road and highway construction. While some rail transit may chew up open space or farmland, most urban rail transit serves existing neighborhoods, concentrating development where we need it. Of course, rail transit can create major impacts worth analyzing in advance, such as the potential to destroy historical resources, gentrify neighborhoods, or create safety hazards. But taking years to study these impacts, while driving up costs and gerrymandering routes based on lawsuits, seems like a very un-environmental outcome. However legitimate the criticism has been of CEQA reforms like AB 900, it’s a good deal for California if we can help speed construction and lower the cost of rail transit. In this case, CEQA streamlining may not be such a bad place to slip to.

Charles M. Haar, 1920-2012

Charles M. Haar

Harvard Law School’s Charles Haar, a pioneering land use scholar, passed away last Tuesday at the age of 91.  Dan Filler notes that

He was an expert in land use, urban development and property law.  Among his various achievements,  Haar was one of the key draftsmen responsible for developing four of President Johnson’s important urban policy initiatives: the Demonstration and Model Cities Act of 1966; the Safe Streets and Crime Control Act of 1968; Title IV of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (New Communities); and the Section 236 Affordable Housing Guarantee Program.

This description comes out something like a backhanded compliment (although I am sure Filler didn’t mean it that way), because the regnant conventional wisdom has declared the War on Poverty a failure.  The problem with this view is that the War on Poverty was never really fought.  The largest annual budget of the Office of Economic Opportunity never reached $2 billion, and the Nixon Administration moved to strangle it in its crib: the White House ordered OEO appointee Donald Rumsfeld – yes, that Donald Rumsfeld – essentially to end the effort soon after taking office.  (In 1973, Nixon tried to impound appropriated OEO funds, a move that the courts ruled unconstitutional).

Instead, Haar is better seen as an important scholar of land use and urban planning.  His book on the Mount Laurel saga – Suburbs Under Siege – is a classic work on the subject.  Long after many law professors became convinced that nothing useful could be done in the area, Haar maintained the faith, backed by research, that creative land use planning could actually improve cities.  Later, Haar served as a special master for the cleanup of Boston Harbor, an environmental task made infamous in the 1988 Presidential campaign.  His book on the subject, Mastering Boston Harbor, is very useful reading in considering not only the complexities of environmental regulation and cleanup, but the often-overlooked issue of judicial management of environmental problems. 

Harvard Law School’s press release on Haar’s death is here.  He will be missed.

The Bain-ality of Romney’s Capitalism

John Muir, They Ain't

Trying to be fair and balanced, Dan says that we should be at least a little heartened by Bain Capital’s environmental posture.  I try to be fair, but in modern politics that rarely means being balanced (cue joke here), and I am somewhat less impressed.

Look, I like recycling as much as the next guy (although maybe not as much as the next gal), and I think it’s great that Bain says it wants to be carbon-neutral in its own operations.  If there are some firms that want to reduce their carbon footprint, and Bain can come up with some ideas to help them do that (for a very high fee, of course), then more power to them (so to speak).  But let’s remember what Bain does.  It invests in companies, and tries to restructure them in order to make a profit for its shareholders.

The real test for Bain’s environmental friendliness is not whether it builds a fancy new green building for itself, but whether it decides to forego certain profit opportunities in order to help preserve the planet.  I see no evidence that it would do so, in the same way that it would not try to preserve jobs if doing so would reduce its profit margin.  Does that mean that Bain is some sort of environmental villain?  Not necessarily.  It is playing by the rules established by the government.  (If it lobbied to make those rules less environmentally-friendly, then that would make it a villain, but I have no evidence of that, either).  But none of this mean in the least that Bain is helping the planet.  It makes profits for its investors — no more, no less.

Part of the perversity of contemporary conservative ideology is that we are not only supposed to see big businesses as profit centers, but as representing the best and the brightest of the American Dream, the savior of American jobs, the avatar of the American spirit, the generator of All That Is Good And True.  That is why, of course, we can never, ever, ever interfere with the workings of the Free Market (except to bail out banks, of course).

This is nonsense.  Businesses exist to make money for their shareholders.  Sometimes that is good for the rest of the country and sometimes that is not good for the rest of the country.  Let’s not get confused by vague claims crafted by PR professionals that leaving them unregulated will somehow also magically preserve the environment.  Because it won’t.

Bain and the Environment

We’ve been hearing a lot about Bain Capital because of the Romney connection.  I thought it would be interesting to see what I could find about Bain and the environment.  I thought I might find that Bain shared Romney’s (current) anti-environmental views, but apparently not.  Here’s what it says on Bain’s webpage:

We have worked with clients involved in all forms of renewable energy generation, fuel production and associated services. Our work is growing rapidly at over 75% since 2002. We advise clients across industries who are looking to reduce their impact on the planet.. . .

It is our goal to be carbon neutral by 2012 – the first of our competitors. We are reducing our carbon footprint through efforts such as increased use of video teleconferencing and design of green offices, and the firm will offset the carbon it cannot eliminate through four major projects and credits.

Almost all offices have reduced paper consumption, begun waste recycling programs, and reduced dependence on disposable utensils and consumables. Our carbon footprint reduction achievements include launching the green case team program which extends Bain’s impact beyond the office to actions such as carpooling, hotel use and travel, the movement to use of recycled paper – 100% in some offices, and the use of green power in its biggest offices.

Indeed, Romney has been attacked by some conservatives on the basis of Bain’s position on climate change.

Of course, you can’t necessarily judge a company’s actual conduct from the claims it makes on its webpage.  It’s interesting, however, that Bain wants to position itself as pro-environmental.  That’s rather different from Romney’s current message.

Where does NOAA belong?

Cross-posted at CPRBlog.

Clearly I need to slow down Rick’s internet connection to get him to stop scooping me.

Rick reported earlier today that the President has floated a proposal to reorganize the Commerce Department and related agencies which would apparently include moving NOAA (all of NOAA, according to OMB’s Jeffrey Zeints, not just its ESA functions) into the Department of Interior.

Actually, although that’s the way the story is being spun out in the media, it’s not exactly what’s going on. What the President has really proposed is that Congress give him the authority that presidents routinely enjoyed before 1984 to reorganize and streamline government agencies. That proposal makes all kinds of sense, both substantively and politically. Substantively, of course as circumstances and societal priorities shift, government agencies should not permanently remain static. But the current Congress is so shameless and so obsessed with micromanaging the executive branch that it refuses to confirm presidential appointees if a minority objects to the agency those appointees will oversee and holds sham sessions at which no business may be conducted to try to prevent the President from making recess appointments. This Congress is not going to give President Obama what he’s asking for, which makes the proposal a smart political move. It gives Obama a concrete way to campaign against the Congress, and to put the Republicans on the defensive.

No doubt to maximize that political benefit, or perhaps just to tweak his most dedicated congressional opponents, the example the President is offering is the merger of a number of agencies, including many functions of the Department of Commerce, focused on business and trade. Those, of course, are typically viewed as higher Republican than Democratic priorities. Obama asserted in his remarks today that the changes he wants authority to make respond directly to feedback that what businesses really hate in dealing with government is not the fact of regulation but “a system that [is] too much of a maze.”

Today’s proposals, therefore, are more about political theater than anything else. And they are much more focused on the business angle than anything else. NOAA is an afterthought, and an incomplete one at that.

Obama Administration Proposes Merging NOAA’s Endangered Species Act Functions Into Department of the Interior

As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, President Obama has proposed a major government reorganization merging into a single, cabinet-level agency federal trade and commerce responsibilities currently dispersed among a number of different agencies and departments. These reforms, which would require the consent of Congress to implement, would increase government efficiency and reduced federal expenditures. Hard to argue with that, at least in principle.

Buried within the proposal are some specific reforms of direct interest to environmental policy and advocates. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), currently housed within the Department of Commerce, carries out a number of key environmental functions, including weather forecasting. But its most politically-controversial role is administering the federal Endangered Species Act as it relates to marine species. Under the President’s proposal, NOAA’s ESA-related duties would be transferred to the Department of the Interior, which already has jurisdiction over terrestrial-based species under the ESA.

Early media reports indicate that some environmental organizations have expressed opposition to the proposed shift of NOAA’s/Commerce’s ESA responsibilities to Interior. They argue that NOAA’s demonstrated, 40-year expertise in administering the ESA with respect to marine species may be eliminated, and worry that NOAA’s duties may get lost within the larger DOI bureaucracy.

I personally believe those concerns to be rather overstated and, at least conceptually, I support the Obama Administration’s proposal. Truth be told, I’ve never understood the wisdom of dividing responsibility to implement the ESA between two different federal agencies, each within different cabinet agencies. If we’re really concerned about fiscal savings and government efficiency, we should support efforts to reform and correct such regulatory balkanization.

Department of the Interior

One cautionary note, however: in recent years, Interior’s administration of the ESA has been subject to political influence and interference, to a greater degree than has NOAA’s. But I chalk that up to the appointed folks involved–especially in the George W. Bush administration–rather than to institutional structure, and to the fact that Interior’s ESA-related duties are considerably more extensive than NOAA’s. It’s hard to argue that the organizational structure of NOAA, vis-a-vis Interior, makes it inherently less susceptible to unprincipled ESA decision-making.

Now, if the Obama Administration would only consider undertaking another environmental reorganization effort: moving the U.S. Forest Service out of the Department of Agriculture and into the Department of Interior, where (in my view) it’s always belonged. After all, doesn’t it make more sense to think of our nation’s forests as valuable, complex natural ecosystems rather than agricultural crops to be harvested?

Ninth Circuit Upholds Oregon’s Measure 49 Against Takings Challenge

Seven years ago, Oregon’s voters enacted Measure 37, a ballot initiative that essentially threatened to end all land use controls in the state.  Measure 37 stipulated that any land use control that reduces someone’s property values must be compensated by the state, an extraordinary principle that threw the state’s land use system into chaos.  Three years later, realizing what they had done, the voters enacted Measure 49 by an even wider margin, which substantially cut back Measure 37′s scope, although it still provides important remedies for those seeking to build on residentially-zoned land.

So of course many of those who had filed compensation claims under the old Measure 37 filed suit, arguing that Measure 49 itself constituted a taking.  The argument was that Measure 37 gave them vested rights; Measure 49 took them away; thus, Measure 49 was a Taking.

Just yesterday, a Ninth Circuit panel rejected this argument in Bowers v. Whitman, holding quite properly that none of the Measure 37 rights had vested if the owners had not received a final decision from the state’s land use control board.  The decision was authored by N. Randy Smith, a 2007 George W. Bush appointee, and joined by Marsha Berzon (a Clinton appointee) and David Ebel (a 1988 Reagan appointee on senior status visiting from the 10th Circuit).

How Oregon, which before 2004 had one of the most progressive and effective statewide land use systems in the country, will adopt to the Measure 37 and 49 mess remains to be seen.  If we’re lucky, we might even find that the enhanced property protections left in Measure 49 will mesh well with the state’s system.  But at least we don’t have to deal with the complete craziness of Measure 37 anymore.  Unless the Supremes are even more plutocratic than even I suspected.