SPRING   2005

LECTURE:

   Mon. & Wed.   2:30-4:00pm

    Bldg & Room:   32-124

                        Recitation Sections:

    TBA

LECTURE INSTRUCTOR:

     Professor Stephen M. Meyer
          Department of Political Science

          E53-402
          Phone: 253-8078
          Email: smmeyer@mit.edu

RECITATION INSTRUCTORS

        Dana Brown

           Email: dlbrown@mit.edu

 

     Pia Kohler

Email: pkohler@mit.edu

COURSE OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE

This course has three basic goals. First, it is an introduction to the politics of U.S. environmental policy making. We explore how conflicting political, economic, and social interests and values contend for influence and exert power in the realm of environmental policy. We look at the ways in which local, regional, and national governmental institutions, non-governmental organizations and interest groups, and the public interact in defining environmental problems, and formulating and implementing solutions.

Second, we investigate how, where, and when science and engineering enter the environmental policy process and how they compete with other, frequently more powerful, policy-shaping forces. The cases illustrate how politics often dictates acceptance of tradeoffs and compromise among divergent values and interests, where purely science-based and engineering-based analyses would suggest more "elegant" solutions. In essence we try to explain how and why solving real-world environmental problems differs from solving engineering problem sets.

Third, the course explores how applying different analytic frameworks -- or, conceptual lenses -- to view a given environmental problem can produce very different perceptions of the problem and its solutions. If market economists and radical ecologists both understand the same science, why are their solutions so different?

ORGANIZATION:

Criteria for HASS CI Subjects: Communication intensive subjects in the humanities, arts, and social sciences should require at least 20 pages of writing divided among 3-5 assignments. Of these 3-5 assignments, at least one should be revised and resubmitted. HASS CI subjects should further offer students substantial opportunity for oral expression, through presentations, student-led discussion, or class participation. In order to guarantee sufficient attention to student writing and substantial opportunity for oral expression, the maximum number of students per section in a HASS CI subject is 18, except in the case of a subject taught without sections (where the faculty member in charge is the only instructor). In that case, enrollments can rise to 25, if a writing fellow is attached to the subject.

The course is organized into lectures and recitation sections. There will be two weekly lectures each of 1-1/2  hours duration. The lectures will delve into the primary topic for the week, covering theoretical and analytical issues as well as the substantive questions raised in the reading material. In particular, the lectures will emphasize alternative ways of examining a given topic. Students are encouraged to ask questions and offer comments in lecture class.

There will be a weekly recitation session of 1 hour, with several sections to choose among. The recitation sections will explore lecture and reading topics in greater detail, provide the opportunity for broad discussion among the students, and correct the mistakes made in lecture class by the lecturer. Some recitation sessions will focus more explicitly on topics implied, but not directly covered, in the lectures.  No recitation section will have more than 18 students.

READING MATERIALS:

Required readings for this course fall into three categories:

(1) The two required course books:

which may be purchased at the MIT COOP.

(2) Electronic reserve (E-reserve) readings, denoted by an * in the syllabus, which are posted on the course's STELLAR website.  Only students officially registered for the class will have access to these materials.

(3) Students are also required to follow  environmental news by monitoring the GREENWIRE news service.  GREENWIRE can be accessed from any computer with an MIT IP address at http://www.greenwire.com.

All the readings assignments relevant to a given week's class discussion must be read prior to that class.

REQUIREMENTS & GRADING

Grades will be determined by student performance on all of the following:

Students are required to attend both the weekly lectures and a weekly recitation. Failure to regularly attend lectures and recitation sections will result in automatic failure of the course regardless of other grades. Regular attendance means no more than one unexcused absence from lecture or one unexcused absence from recitation section. Permission to miss class for good cause shall be given at the discretion of the instructor, but it is the student's responsibility to obtain permission prior to class.

Both lecture and recitation section will involved extensive student oral participation, commenting, questioning, and probing arguments and ideas.  Students will be required to prepare one or more oral presentations for lecture/recitation class.

Specific due dates for each paper are noted in the syllabus and late papers will be reduced 1/2 grade per day.

LECTURE SCHEDULE
&
READING ASSIGNMENTS
(To be Read for class on the Assigned Day)

 A Brief 300 Year History of American Environmentalism

This introduction to the course reviews the evolution of environmentalism in the U.S. since the colonial era.   

Required Reading:

Recommended Reading

The Environmental Impact of Human Activity: Is there a Problem?

We begin with a very basic question: How severe are the environmental problems we are facing?  Is the earth facing a looming environmental catastrophe? These authors believe we are approaching a planetary crisis.

Required Reading:

Perhaps we have passed the peak of the environmental crisis.  Are we already well on the way to balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs?

Recommended Reading

Feb. 16

 The Institutional Setting of U.S. Environmental Policy

Who are the key players in environmental policymaking? How does the environmental policymaking process work?

Required Reading:

NEPA & the Environmental Movement

National Environmental Policy Act, Environmental Impact statements (THinking about the environment ahead of time)

This class examines the driving forces behind the rise of environmental legislation that poured out of the Congress beginning in 1970s. The legislative surge in American environmentalism – the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in particular -- ushered in an era of "command and control" regulation setting the stage for political conflict between private enterprise and the public interest.

Legislating Clean Air

The government had to do something about America's unbreathable air. And it did: the Clean Air Act of 1970.  Congress set air standards, set deadlines, and ordered the air to be cleansed.

This class examines the driving forces behind the rise of environmental legislation that poured out of the Congress beginning in 1970s. The legislative surge in American environmentalism – the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in particular -- ushered in an era of "command and control" regulation setting the stage for political conflict between private enterprise and the public interest.

Required Reading: (80 pages)

Recommended Reading

Commanding Clean Water 

The Clean Water Act of 1972 was supposed to make all the waters of the U.S. clean by 1985.  What happened and why?

Congress, concerned that government environmental agencies might become "captive" of the very industries they were supposed to monitor and regulate, put citizen enforcement provisions in the Clean Water Act. Quickly, environmental litigators and the courts became major players in environmental policy.

Required Reading:

This class explores how the reach of a law can expand beyond what its original creators intended.  We look at how a series of court cases broadened the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act and forced the US Army Corps of Engineers to protect wetlands -and then two decades later forced it to "unprotect" them.

Required Reading 

Endangered Species & Biodiversity

Americans have always had a schizophrenic "environmental" attitude toward wildlife and the landscape.  An unstable mix of values: -- romanticism, utilitarianism, dominionism (fear), and liberty (common property ownership)--  has made preservation and protection of America's natural landscape a policy rife with internal contradictions, reversals, and too-little too-late reactions.

The Endangered Species Act (1973) suggests that American policy-makers were prepared to make tough decisions favoring biodiversity over the economy.  Was this true?  And if so, how do we explain it?

We also explore the role of the courts in environmental policy making.

Required Reading ( 37 pages):

Recommended Reading:

Of Toxic Wastes and Government Failure

This lectures examine how mass politics extended the environmental mandate, bringing about stringent regulations and standards for hazardous waste control. What mobilizes public participation in environmental policy and how does that participation affect policy? How does the public grapple with complex scientific and technical issues? How do government and media organizations respond to public pressures?

Required Reading (84 pages):

Recommended Reading

  The Reagan Revolution: Rethinking Environmental Policy

The Reagan administration comes to power critical of "big government" in general and government regulation in particular -- especially environmental regulation.  Arguing that environmental regulation was hobbling the economy the administration tried to dismantle the environmental framework that had been established the previous decade.  One of its more lasting efforts was to require cost-benefit analysis for environmental regulations.

Regulatory Reform & Cost Benefit Analysis  

General dissatisfaction with big government and the seeming stagnation of environmental policy opens the door for advocates of regulatory reform.  Cost-benefit analysis is pushed.

Required Reading:

  Recommended Reading

Environmental Equity & Justice

There can be no doubt that 30 years of environmental policy has lessened the pollution burden on the nation, slowed the loss of ecological communities and species, and improved our quality of life.  But not all Americans have benefited equally.  Some Americans -- minorities and the poor, in particular -- may have enjoyed no benefit at all.  Is this "unfair" distribution of environmental benefits just an artifact of policy or does it reflect racial and class biases in our society? 

Required Reading (39 pages):

Recommended Reading

Environmental Protection & Wise Use of Public Lands

This lecture explores the rise of anti-environmentalism in the western revolt against federal control of public lands and its spill over to environmental policy in the rest of the country. It investigates relationships among the Presidency, Congress, federal agencies, and interest groups and how those relationships determine public lands policy.

Focus on the collision between public and private interests and values.

Required Reading (93 pages):

Recommended Reading

Part IV:      1992-2002: More Questions Than Answers

Economic Tools for Environmental Policy

General dissatisfaction with big government and the seeming stagnation of environmental policy opens the door for advocates of economic mechanisms to guide environmental policy choices.  Markets, taxes, subsides, etc. can be employed to elicit voluntary environmentalism.

Required Reading (69 pages):

  Recommended Reading

Risk Assessment & the Public's Right to Know

Risk assessment is an important tool in environmental policymaking.  We examine its use in providing safe drinking water. We look at how public information and collaborative/voluntary approaches can reduce environmental risks and improve environmental quality.

Property Rights and Suburban Sprawl

This class focuses on suburban "sprawl" and its impacts on landscape: development, habitat fragmentation, etc.

Energy & the Environment

Cheap energy drives the American economy; indeed, it drives the global economy. But cheap energy carries a heavy environmental price tag. Extracting fossil fuels despoils the landscape.  Burning fossil fuels  pollutes the air.  Hydropower devastates river ecology, while nuclear power leaves deadly wastes behind.  How do we decide these tradeoffs?

Required Reading (42 pages):

Recommended Reading

Sustainable Economics

Other Approaches: State-Based and Community-Based Environmental Protection

To this point our discussions have looked at environmental policy as conceived and implemented by national and state governments. Some argue that the "next wave" of progress in environmental policy will be place-based local environmentalism. Others argue that the Earth cannot be saved until humans recognize that they are a minor player in the natural world. Putting the Earth first -- well ahead of human greed and desire -- is the path of deep ecology.  Can chaining yourself naked to trees or blowing up shopping malls save the earth?

Required Reading:

Recommended Reading

Comparing Environment Policymaking Around the World

For the past few months we have looked at how institutions, interest groups, elected officials, , etc. define and shape solutions to US environmental problems. In this lecture we look briefly at other countries and their experience with acid rain. We consider whether different political institutions result in different outcomes, or if cultural, economic, or demographic factors are more important for explaining differences among national environmental policies.

Required Reading:

End of term regulations require that the last assignment (other than the final exam) be due no later than May 9, Friday.  Your paper may be submitted by hard copy or EMAIL to your TA.

Bio-homogenization, alien species, climate change

Required Reading:

Recommended Reading

Climate Change and Other Global Environmental Issues

Required Reading: