PS 3480, Environmental Politics, October 8, 2012

   

 

Urban Land

Urban land is the most intensely used land in developed nations

 

 

  •  American Land use regulation:
    Zoning
    • : American land use regulation that specifies that specific parcels of land be used for residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, or open space uses.




     
  • Urban sprawl: sprawl occurs when the rate at which land is converted to non-agricultural or non-natural uses exceeds the rate of population growth

     


        Costs

     

     

  • What Public Policies Contribute to Sprawl?

    • Housing, Transportation, Special Districts, Competition among cities and states



     

How does the United States Govern Its Water?

1. Water and the DSP Economic development

   

      

        Water used for transportation, power, mining, waste disposal, and irrigation

 

 

                East versus west

 

                Federalism: The Problem of watershed cooperation

 

2.  Water Pollution

 

  • A wider range of pollutants can be carried by water than air

 

  • Two sources of pollution:· Point  &  Non point


     

 

3.  The Politics of Water
 

        Access to water can be controlled more easily than access to air

 

                Water can be cleaned before people use it

 

       

         Many water projects are expensive public construction projects that have high stakes, for developers, industries, and construction interests.

 

        Dams, levees, harbors, sewers, water filtration plants

 

Water projects are local - so that elected politicians have strong incentives to seek and claim credit for them

 

        Dams, levees, harbors, sewers, water filtration plants

 

4.  Water Policy
 

a.  The Conservation Era 

 

St. Louis

 

Federal responsibility

   

        1899: Rivers and Harbors Act

 

 

b.  The Environmental Era 

 

         Policy succession: from information to grants and command and control

        · 1948: Republicans put forward a federal water pollution policy proposal

 

        · 1956: Water Pollution Control Act; grants to the cities
                          for wastewater treatment

 

        · 1965: Water Quality Act

 

        · 1972: Clean Water Act

 

        1989: The Issue Attention Cycle: the Exxon Valdez &
          Oil Pollution, Prevention, Response, Liability and Compensation Act

 

 

How Does the United States Govern Energy?

1.  Energy in the United States - an overview

     Monthly Energy Review

 

 

2. The Politics of Energy

 

 

  Economic wealth requires energy -

  but coal, oil, and nuclear power have had extensive environmental costs

 

 

Different Types of Energy have different types of politics

 

 

3.  The Politics of Coal 

 

 · Coal and the Clean Air Acts

 

· the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977

 

"Clean" Coal?

 


4.  The Politics of Oil

 

· Oil in the American economy

 

· The central problem for the industry:
  How to control production and prices after a new pool is discovered

 

· Solution 1: The Large Corporation

 

        The Standard Oil Company and the Governing of Oil

 

The History of the Standard Oil Company by Ida Tarbell, 1904

 

 

· Solution 2: Government Regulation 

 

    The Texas Railroad Commission

 

 

· OPEC, the Oil Crises of the 1970s and the environmental agenda