We currently have a lot of moving parts relative to how environmental issues might be shaped in the coming months and years. A new administration, a new Justice at the Supreme Court, energized environmental groups, ongoing environmental challenges and as always, emerging environmental issues.
New administrations (especially when political parties change) always translate to policy changes. These changes may be amplified under the current political climate.
What follows is merely my personal opinion/observations as it relates to environmental protection (in the United States) and the direction of environmental issues in 2017 and beyond.
Change at the EPA
First, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will likely change, but environmental protection will continue. We have already seen proposals to eliminate the EPA (H.R.861 – To terminate the Environmental Protection Agency). Elimination of the EPA may seem extreme, but we’ve previously seen similar efforts. In 2011, Senator Richard Burr introduced a bill to combine the EPA and Department of Energy to form the Department of Energy and Environment or DOEE.
I don’t believe this current effort to eliminate the EPA will get any real footing.
Further, the EPA should, and does, change. After all, we are not the same country we were in the 1970s. Our manufacturing base has changed, we don’t generate nearly the same volume of wastes, and our environmental management practices are substantially more protective of human health and the environment.
An example of different approaches used by the EPA includes the use of economic incentives, rather than command and control, to reduce emissions. In discussing economic incentives, the EPA states, “Market-based approaches or incentives provide continuous inducements, monetary and near-monetary, to encourage polluting entities to reduce releases of harmful pollutants.”
Groups such as the Property and Environment Research Center have long pushed for more market-based approaches to environmental management.
So, while I don’t believe the EPA will be eliminated, the EPA will continue to change and, perhaps, be more effective in fulfilling their mission to protect human health and the environment.
Environmental Issues Needing Attention
Second, there is likely a general consensus of environmental professionals, including the regulated community, that there is no shortage of environmental issues that require our attention. These issues include orphaned industrial sites, leaking underground storage tanks, combined sewer overflows, and eutrophication to name just a few. Solving these issues is typically a regional, state, or local matter. Further, the local communities stand to gain the most when these issues are solved…quickly (see Federal Environmental Cleanups: Community Control Can Be the Solution).
There are also regional groups, such as the International Joint Commission (IJC), whose focus is on issues in the Great Lakes Region (microbeads, algal blooms, PBDE, and more). The IJC’s reports look at issues that, again, can be address by local states and provinces who stand to gain when they are addressed.
Third, as our ability to understand human health and environmental issues is constantly evolving, there will continue to be new issues to understand and, if warranted, address. For example, vapor intrusion wasn’t even in the conversation just a few short years ago. Now, virtually every environmental assessment has to, to some degree, consider this pathway. The science and subsequent regulations are in the relative early stages of development.
And, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago, there is an emerging environmental issue related to per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). As we pointed out, potential incoming EPA director, Scott Pruitt, believes this is an important environmental and human health issue.
Environmental Groups
Fourth, environmental groups seem to be energized. According to an article in Bloomberg BNA in reference to record fundraising efforts by environmental groups, they state, “Another environmental group spokesman, who requested personal anonymity and anonymity for his organization, said they had already met online fundraising targets for the 2017 fiscal year.”
Could well-funded environmental groups translate to forthcoming litigation?
When the dust settles, and when the new appointees are in place, we should expect change. But there has always been change. Perhaps I’m just a Billy Mumphrey cockeyed optimist, but I believe we can continue our remarkable environmental progress and stimulate the economy at the same time.
If you need assistance with an environmental compliance, assessment, or remediation issue, please call us at 248-932-0228 (US office) or 519-979-7300 (Canadian office). And as always, you can send me an email, ahahn@dragun.com.