Environmental policies require special legislative attention in order to further the Green Movement. While, federal oil pollution guidelines seek to prevent companies from haphazardly contaminating the environment, further regulations and procedures are needed to guarantee safety from pollution and ensure the health of any American that pollution comes in contact with. Oil spill prevention guidelines are just one type of public policy geared towards reducing the environmental and health related impacts of careless corporations.
Understanding Policy
American environmental policy has changed over the years. As a result of rising gas prices plaguing Americans, public policy-at the urging of the American population and environmental lobbyists-have begun to place an increased focus on alternative energy funding both to ease the pocketbooks of Americans but also to decrease America’s dependency on Middle Eastern oil. Furthermore, the Industrial Revolution provided few-if any-guidelines on air pollution. But as American’s knowledge and fear of global warming increased, new policies were introduced. While not always implemented, these policies have been gaining ground in the realm of public policy. One such policy is the Kyoto Protocol, which creates a carbon credit trading system among the signatories, including allies such as the EU. While traditionally rejected for Article 11, Section 2, which indicates an intellectual property violation, this environmental policy will be instrumental in curbing carbon emissions and global warming.
Budgeting Limits
When multiple problems present themselves in the same timeframe, Congress must often prioritize policy demands in order to allocate resources to solve those problems accordingly. Thus a policy which impacts a greater number of individuals may be favored over a policy that only affects a few. In order to effectively budget, policy makers must understand the impacts of their spending and allocate accordingly. But furthermore, in order to determine how much to spend when and where, policy makers must be conscientious of their projects and policy demands.
In order to make environmental policies competitive, they must be characterized in terms of broader issues, namely public health and economic productivity in order to have a fair chance of receiving funds from a finite Congressional budget.
Policy Transitions
Often, a single policy or spending venture is often not enough to solve for the problem at hand. Professor Charles Lindblom argues that large policy changes must be gradual, instead of instantaneous. The transition has been labeled ‘muddling through’ old policies in order to reach new ones. In order to be effective, policies can never be singular actions, but rather building blocks that build upon one another to create a new outlook on public policy. This transition is often inefficient and serves as a testing ground for new policies to ensure their effectiveness and desirability.
The need for carefully researched environmental policies has been necessary to ensure that the best policies are implemented for the general population. Despite a large bureaucracy of lobbyists, politicians and citizens, in terms of social institutions, environmental policies and economic practices, the process of public policy is of crucial importance.
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