Editors' Summary: Environmental issues often involve collective choice about the kind of society we want. Choosing a President and a Congress on November 3 is one way we make that choice.

With that in mind, the Environmental Law Reporter called the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee. ELR asked each for the environmental platform positions adopted at the 1992 conventions. Reprinted below is what each party sent. ELR has not edited the text.

No matter what happens on November 3, government will face difficult environmental issues beginning in January 1993. Elected candidates are not always locked in to their platforms, of course, and several different platform positions can bear on a single policy issue. Still, the environmental positions reprinted here are a starting point in facing up to the environmental challenges of 1993 and beyond.