Environmental issues, like much of the nation's domestic agenda, are in equilibrium, a condition unlikely to change until the next presidential election. By "equilibrium," I mean that while the views of stakeholders are polarized, and much time is spent engaging in damaging guerrilla attacks on the other side, little has changed in the big picture. The first generation statutory framework remains on the books, implementation remains erratic in the states, and experiments with such "second generation" approaches as emissions trading have a mixed track record.¹ Neither the right nor the left ends of the political spectrum² has accomplished its stated goal of fundamental, structural reform, and the infamous "pendulum" that William Ruckelshaus described so vividly swings back and forth with a steady rhythm but narrow trajectory.³

To be sure, the Bush Administration has a decidedly right-wing tilt, especially within the White House and among the House and Senate leadership. Yet Christine Todd Whitman and her senior managers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are all moderates and unlikely to launch extreme policies with lasting effects at the administrative level. The Governor, as she prefers to be called, has as little in common with the House Republican leadership as her predecessor did, and is unlikely to set EPA on fire in either the positive or the negative sense. This posture means that incremental progress on worsening problems may be possible, although it is also likely that the White House will demand reversal of some of the affirmative changes made in previous Administrations.