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Energy crisis
Us government public policies
Creation of public policy
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Public policy is defined by Webster’s as the “The basic policy or set of policies forming the foundation of public laws, especially such policy not yet formally enunciated.” The United States Government has many policies in the area of the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in 1970 to help identify environmental problems in our nation, and to set policy on how to deal with those problems. Yet, with so much money spent by the government to deal with problems with the environment, it must be noted that problems still exist, even within the bureaucracy that was meant to help in the first place.
During the presidential campaign of the last election, an issue arose concerning the “energy crisis” that was driving gasoline and oil prices up throughout our country. Vice President Al Gore supported President Clinton’s ideology of waiting for the proper legislative initiatives to pass through Congress, and when the situation merited, provide some limited releases of oil from the national oil reserve. Candidate George W. Bush, on the other had, favored drilling in the government protected lands of Alaska to find future oil reserves so that America would no longer be so dependent on foreign oil. The problem with Bush’s plan, according to Gore, was that this could be devastating to the environment of the scarcely populated Alaskan wilderness. Regardless of the political, legal or moral implications of such drilling, there are problems dealing with multiple types of rationality in this issue.
In his book “Reason in Society,” Paul Diesing describes six major types of rationality. These include technical, economic, social, legal, political and ecological rational. It is easy to comprehend that this environmental issue involves each one of these types of rationality.
First of all, the technical rationality is demonstrated through the question of whether or not oil can be found in Alaska, and if it could, would there be enough present to really make a dramatic difference for the consumer? It must also be considered as to how this drilling may effect the environment of this area. Technical rationality also questions whether or not there are ways to drill that can possibly leave the natural resources of this area with as little human interference as possible. Engineers and scientists can try to come up with ways to create a process with which the area will not be devastated by the involvement with man in those areas.
In his essay “Being Green at Ben and Jerry’s,” George F. Will lays out his argument against the environmentalists who hypocritically prevent coal mining and oil drilling in or near foreign soil. Despite the United States having enough oil and coal to be self dependent for years, tree huggers want to save our earth and import instead. However, letting places like Iraq do all of the resource extraction and the United State buying it from them is not much better. These environmentalists then call for a decrease in energy consumption, but no politician in his right mind would go against the Americans who love their big, gas-guzzling cars. Mostly, energy conservatives make policies that help them sleep well at night, rather than anything of actual
The environment needs protecting because even before the drilling started hunting was rapidly decreasing the amount of animals in the area. So if drilling occured in Alaska the animal count would go down even more. Drilling is gonna need space, and because Alaska is a mountained and woodland area they will have to make space by destroying trees etc. Destroying trees means destroying animals’ homes. According to document E ‘just look 60 miles west to Prudhoe bay- an oil complex that has turned 1,000 square miles of fragile tundra into a sprawling industrial zone containing, 1,500 miles of roads and pipes’. Also the document states that the would be
Although industrialization revolutionizes America, it possesses devastating effects on nature. In 2003, The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was threatened by plans of oil drilling and the construction of roads and pipelines. In response, former United States President Jimmy Carter crafted a speech, found in the foreword to book written by Subhankar Banerjee, with the intent of protecting the reserve. By utilizing diction, imagery and pathos, President Carter was effective in convincing America to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
...nerations” if things go unregulated. Fortunately science provides policy makers with the information needed to make informed regulations to benefit the future. It seems that environmentalism is becoming the stewardship of the Earth.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates air pollution through various policies passed through the Supreme Court. The scope of this paper is to investigate the Clean Air Act of 1970, and to analyze the impact it has on businesses and society. It provides a rationale for the policy, and contains a brief overview of governmental involvement in regulating air pollution. Further investigation identifies key stakeholders in business, government, and society, and assesses the pros and cons of regulating air pollution. Finally, the paper concludes with limitations of this analysis and recommendations for future action.
..."Alaska Oil Spill Fuels Concerns Over Arctic Wildlife, Future Drilling." National Geographic News. 20 Mar. 2006. Web. 3 July 2010.
The EPA operates from a number of laws and regulations designed to function as its foundation for protecting the environment and the health of the public. Congress allows the EPA to write regulations in order to support the ideas for implementing these regulations. For that reason they are known as a regulatory agency. These regulations fall under two categories: Laws and Executive Orders (EOs) that influence environmental protection and Laws and EOs that Influence the Regulatory Process.
Throughout the past three decades, energy has been a perennial issue in United States politics, economics, and media. The main concern surrounding this topic is the idea of energy independence and how the United States should proceed into the future. Energy independence relates to the goal of reducing United States dependence on importing foreign oil and other foreign energy sources. This desire aims to maintain energy dependence domestically so the United States can avoid reliance on any unstable countries and be detached from global energy supply distribution. It is currently being speculated that the United States might not be too far off from this goal. America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since 2007. In 2010, the U.S. imported less than 50 percent of the oil the country consumed -- the first time that’s happened in 13 years -- and the trend continued in 2011 (Zhang.) Experts credit new technology as the reason the United States is within several years of again becoming the biggest oil producer in the world, and perhaps two decades away from full energy independence. Hydraulic fracturing, fracking, is the “lead” technology in this technological revolution. Fracking is an economically more feasible way of drilling for oil or gas in harder to reach geological formation. Within the past decade or so, combining hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling has opened up shale deposits across the country. It has brought large-scale natural gas drilling to new regions that may not have had accessible deposits in the past. These areas have greatly benefited from the addition of this industry to their local economies. Certain are...
When does protecting one’s well-being and those of others for the sake of using natural gas become a priority? This is just one of the questions asked when hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, grew in notoriety here in the United States. The United States should stop using this form of drilling if it truly wants to protect its citizens. It must be stopped because it is putting our health at risk by poisoning the water that we drink, wasting billions of gallons of fresh water, and polluting the air that we breathe.
For these reasons, global warming stands as one of the most daunting policy issues facing our world today. This is compounded by the debate over the very existence of climate change. While countless sources of empirical evidence testify to the very real presence of climate change the world over, considerable denial of the phenomenon still exists. The argument has been made that evidence about climate change is a gross overstatement, or in some cases, a complete fabrication. Despite the evidence to the contrary, many interest groups with considerable political clout have successfully perpetuated the argument that documented changes in the environment are a product of natural cyclical changes in climate, and are not associated with human activities. However, even the acceptance of this particular brand of reality is no grounds for the disregard of environmental consciousness. Even if one accepts the premise that recent climate change is not resultant of human activity, the rationale behind environmental conservation remains ...
An environmental policy refers to the commitment of an organization to the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues and sustainability. These environmental issues can pertain to anything from air and water pollution to deforestation and solid waste management. Today, we live in a world full of developing countries that face environmental issues and degradation every day. Yemen, known to be one of the least developed countries, is facing various environmental issues, as well as social and political challenges while on its way to development and becoming a much more stable country.
In Title I of NEPA, our government recognizes the immutable link between mankind's dealings and the impacts on the environment. People have an individual responsibility to the world around them. The Constitution assures us "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." However, "life" is undefined. We, as human beings, have the superiority to nurture and preserve all forms of life. Transitions in population growth (or decline), urban spread, industry expansions and technological advances are critical in determining and modifying the ever-changing needs of the environment. Extensive research and planning with State and local government allows NEPA to anticipate, possibly even predict, an environmental disaster before it occurs. These measures are to insure the most beneficial use of our natural resources, to preserve our Nation's history as well as encourage individuality, to search for improvements in recycling our resources and the discovery of new ones. These goals are sought after in a systematic manner to include the most recent available data that could promote or reject proposals for changes t...
“Unless humanity is suicidal, it should want to preserve, at the minimum, the natural life-support systems and processes required to sustain its own existence” (Daily p.365). I agree with scientist Gretchen Daily that drastic action is needed now to prevent environmental disaster. Immediate action and changes in attitude are not only necessary for survival but are also morally required. In this paper, I will approach the topic of environmental ethics from several related sides. I will discuss why the environment is a morally significant concern, how an environmental ethic can be developed, and what actions such an ethic would require to maintain and protect the environment.
United States being a federal system, large number of decisions is not only made by the Federal, but also by state and local governments. Government uses various tools like Law, services, money, taxes, other economic instruments and suasion to influence policies. These tools are unique to the Government and may not be available to private parties. Peters suggest that a huge amount of money flows through the government and it gets redistributed to different people in forms of goods and services (Peters, 2013). Since governments have the resource and rights to influence social agendas, Government has to be involved in policy making. Since public policies are results of collaborations between various groups and backgrounds, the environmental factors contribute as an uncontrollable attribute to policy making. These environmental factors that affect policy making
The world today is vastly different from what it was before urbanisation and industrialisation had taken its toll on the world. Since the turn of the new millennium the issue of the environment has suddenly evolved into a widespread issue which is greatly discussed throughout the world. No longer are humans living in a world where the environment is serene or stable but much rather becoming unrecognisable and diminishing before our eyes. The plants, trees and flowers are life forms which God has created for us to enjoy its beauty but it is now solely up to us and many other organisations to protect preserve and respect how fragile our environment really is.