Section 4 Final

What is sustainable development?

Economic growth that is compatible with natural environmental systems as well as social goals.

When did most of the major federal environmental policies originally get enacted?

1969-1976, which was a historic period of rapid federal legislation on the environment. This period gave birth to the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and Superfund.

Why were so many federal environmental laws passed in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s?

The federal government started taking an increased interest in environmental protection due to economic, moral, and political reasons. Pollution became recognized as a market failure (negative externality), and there became a greater need to protect common-pool goods. There were also changing values about what the government should and shouldn’t intervene on, and there was greater public demand for government action on the environment. There was also a wealthier public, new scientific discoveries about dangers to the environment, and the creation of environment-focused special interest groups like the Sierra Club.

The shift in environmental politics from consensus to polarization

There was an overwhelming bipartisan consensus on environmental protection in the 1960s and 1970s that then gave way to partisan polarization that persists today. This shift was due to the polarization between the two parties, to the point where the parties fundamentally disagreed on issues like the legitimacy of government regulation to protect public welfare or whether environmental problems posed a real and substantial risk to the public’s health at all.

Current federal policies and Trump administration changes concerning the EPA and the environment

The current era is defined by inconsistent environmental policy based on partisan control of the White House and Congress, including the Obama administration’s EPA Clean Power Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, and Trump stopping EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in February of 2026. Current Trump-era EPA changes include reducing government regulations on businesses and energy producers, maximizing economic and energy production growth, and shifting the focus from combatting climate change to addressing local pollution issues throughout the country.

Command and control policies

This is the traditional approach to environmental and other regulation (also called direct regulation) in which the government sets and enforces standards within a policy or program area, such as for air quality or automobile safety. They’re also called direct regulation. This requires tradeoffs and consideration of specific costs, benefits, and risks.

Effectiveness of environmental policy in the United States

There has been significant effectiveness in environmental policy in reducing pollution since the 1970s, although there are still significant gaps in implementation/effectiveness that disadvantage minority communities. The policies dealing with toxic waste and hazardous chemicals have also been the least effective.

What are the two main foundations of natural resource policy?

Environmental stewardship and multiple use. Environmental stewardship is a philosophy of governance based on the belief that the natural environment should be protected for future generations, and that the government is the steward of such protection. Multiple use is the principle that any natural resource, such as public forestland, can be used simultaneously for multiple purposes or uses, such as timber harvesting and recreation. This is a long-standing element of federal land and forest policies.

The state of energy policy in the United States