The Future of the EPA

In a speech delivered at the Kennedy School Forum on Monday, April 17, the longest-serving administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Carol Browner described the convoluted history of federal responsibility for protecting public health through the assurance of a safe physical environment. So far, the success story has been defined by the national mediation of parochial arguments between the industrial sector and determined environmental activists, with occasional but costly lawsuits filed against the EPA by both sides. This trend will likely continue far into the term of the next EPA administrator whose style and mandate will be determined, in part, by either Al Gore '69 or Texas Gov. George W. Bush. As. Browner suggested, "the challenge of environmental protection, like the unfailing collection of taxes, ought to transcend political party affiliations but, unfortunately, this is still a dream."

Nevertheless, every opportunity should be seized to notify the two Presidential candidates, while they are still campaigning, that a fundamental redefinition of environmental issues and the rearmament of environmental stakeholders looms large on the horizon of national consciousness. The roots of the new environmentalism can be found in the recognition, at the national level, of sub-populations that are particularly vulnerable or susceptible to the impacts of environmental deterioration. Vulnerable groups, including the poorest of the poor, suffer from various combinations of natural geographical factors, insensitive zoning laws and/or uncouth sociopolitical maneuvers that increase their exposure to detrimental environmental factors.

The increasing recognition by mainstream science that individual genetic composition, age, gender and behavioral attributes contribute greatly to human susceptibility to diseases of known environmental causes gives strength to grassroots movements to improve Federal standards and increase the stringency of regulations for the protection of the most susceptible among us. Yes, it will be expensive, and yes, industry and employers will probably fight against it. But the vision of differential vulnerability and unequal susceptibility can be erased no sooner than the unanimously accepted vision of environmental protection as a justified right of free citizens. These national issues of environmental justice and equity are sufficient to keep an EPA administrator and the President busy for two terms of office, but the increasing globalization of environmental quality and health adds an even more challenging dimension to the responsibilities of the next U.S. President.

For starters, the Kyoto protocol on global warming is awaiting ratification. Browner made an astute observation that one of the main difficulties experienced by the Clinton administration in ratifying the Kyoto protocol is the inadequate coverage of interests represented by developing countries. If China, India, Brazil and most of Africa still consider national action plans for mitigating global warming as an unaffordable luxury in the context of a lopsided global trade and development establishment, then substantial environmental peddling remains to be done by the U.S. Unfortunately, the U.S.-sponsored Country Studies Program, the highly successful multi-agency program dedicated to assist developing countries in mitigating and adapting to global climate change is facing discontinuation as a result of budget cuts.

In a sense these are the same local issues of variegated vulnerability and susceptibility that have now been projected into the global theater. Only here, the opposing concerns are the abortion of national economies and the likely demise of millions of poor people crammed into overpopulated coastal cities. So, it is among the vulnerable and the susceptible that the next EPA administrator must make a mark on national environmental conscientiousness and global environmental conscience. The two presidential candidates will do well now to consider carefully the credentials of their choice for the successor to Browner.

An administrator who is as passionate about "brown-fields" as he or she is about "greenhouse" gases. An administrator who truly understands the epidemiological intricacies of individual susceptibility and group vulnerability that ultimately turned A Civil Action into a blockbuster movie. And an administrator whose commitment to public service is as boundless as the environment he or she will swear to protect.

Dele Ogunseitan, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a Global Environmental Assessment Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government.