The Environmental Challenge

Al Gore

Editors' Summary: One of the most serious tasks Americans face in the near future is electing a president to lead the nation into the 1990s. Environmental law and policy are heavily influenced by the decisions made by elected officials and their senior appointees, and environmental issues should command close attention as voters and opinion leaders approach the 1988 election.

The Environmental Law Reporter has invited several leading presidential candidates to present their views on environmental law and policy. This month, Al Gore describes the nation's traditional commitment to environmental protection, but concludes that the Reagan Administration gutted these programs during its early years. Even now, he says, the Environmental Protection Agency lacks true top-level support, and the next president must move vigorously to make up for lost time. Mr. Gore outlines areas on which to focus: law reform, hazardous waste, enforcement, better science, radon, wetlands, international issues such as ozone and the greenhouse effect, and land conservation and solid waste disposal. Central to environmental success, he observes, is presidential leadership with vision that reaches internationally and long into the future.

Al Gore has been a United States senator from Tennessee since 1985, and before that served eight years as a member of Congress. He is presently Senate chairman of the congressional Environmental and Energy Study Conference. Senator Gore is a candidate for the 1988 Democratic nomination for president.

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The environmental movement, led by thousands of grassroots activists and organizations around the country, has made remarkable progress in the 25 years since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. Our nation has a tradition of bipartisan support for conservation, going back at least as far as Theodore Roosevelt, who built our national forest system in the early years of this century.

But in 1981, the country was suddenly confronted with a president who blamed trees for air pollution, and declared that if you'd seen one redwood you'd seen them all. The Reagan Administration policies were no laughing matter. They were the work of men and women who put the demands of the few who would pollute our environment before the dreams of the many who would protect it.

Conservationists are conservatives, in the best sense of the word. They value our irreplaceable national heritage, and want to conserve it for generations yet unborn. But President Reagan and his people were radicals, and their attack on the environment was unprecedented in our history.

James Watt and the Reagan radicals gutted environmental programs and budgets at the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and related agencies.¹ What they could not do legally, they often attempted illegally. I took part in the investigations into the EPA scandals that led to the resignations of Anne Burford and more than 20 other senior EPA officials, and to the criminal conviction of Rita Lavelle, manager of EPA's hazardous waste program, for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Look at the record. From 1973 until 1979, the number of EPA enforcement actions increased each year, and that increase produced a parallel decline in pollution. But in 1981, hazardous waste enforcement came to a virtual halt, as civil cases referred from EPA to the Justice Department dropped by a shocking 82 percent.

EPA has returned to better management and integrity under Administrator Lee Thomas, but it remains underfunded, and lacks true top-level support. The next president must move with vision and vigor to make up for the lost opportunities and wasted time of the Reagan years. He must understand the urgency of the problems we face and move boldly to reassert presidential leadership, both in America and in the world.

I intend to provide that leadership.

The Challenges We Face

Let's look at some of the challenges awaiting the next president.

First of all, we must revive and reinvigorate the Environmental [18 ELR 10004] Protection Agency. I intend to put it once again at the cutting edge of environmental progress. Specifically, as president I will submit cross-cutting legislation to strengthen and unify the research and enforcement powers of EPA, so it can move swiftly and surely to meet the challenges of the 1990s and beyond.

Its first mandate must be to put the Superfund program in gear.² Superfund and its amendments gave us the tools, but they have not been adequately used. After seven years, only 13 of 951 abandoned chemical waste sites on the National Priorities List have been cleaned up — and there are at least a thousand more not on the list. Years ago, during my first term in the Congress, I chaired the investigative hearing that uncovered hazardous waste disposal practices in little-known Love Canal, New York. That was the first of 20 hearings we held on the problem of hazardous wastes in the United States. In 1980, I was one of the principal authors of the Superfund program, which is intended to clean up the thousands of abandoned chemical waste sites that befoul our nation. As a member of the House, I helped write the Superfund law — as president, I intend to see it vigorously enforced.

The federal government must set an example by moving against the thousands more potentially hazardous waste sites located on federal property and under its direct jurisdiction, not by ignoring the "federal facility" menace in its own backyard.

Enforcement: More Coverage, Not Simply More Money

We need to recognize that toxic wastes threaten not only individuals but entire communities — and it is working-class families who are most likely to suffer. We have seen children grow mysteriously ill, entire communities' water supplies become contaminated, and people forced from their homes. We need the dedication, the technology, and the basic human concern to stop these tragedies.

The need is not simply more money, but more courage. I helped write the laws that give the Environmental Protection Agency the tough enforcement powers it needs to crack down on those guilty of illegal dumping. We want to work cooperatively with companies when we can, but when necessary we must use EPA's enforcement powers without fear or favor. The polluters must learn that the days of a wink-and-a-nod are over. The government shouldn't play politics with environmental safety, or make enforcement a bargaining chip for political favors.

The cheapest and quickest way to clean up toxic waste dumps is to obtain voluntary settlements with the responsible parties. Such efforts have moved far too slowly.³ We need to apply the doctrine of joint and several liability, so that recalcitrant polluters cannot hide from their responsibilities, and we must give EPA the investigators and legal tools it needs to achieve far more voluntary settlements. Quicker cleanups also require the confidence and full participation of the citizens and communities affected.

Development of New Technologies

But enforcement is not all. EPA must take the lead in environmental science, in developing new technologies to minimize and treat waste. We must remember that our successes have come where we eliminated pollution at the source. To cite one notable example, we saw the annual air emission of lead reduced 86 percent between 1975 and 1985.

Both enforcement and technology are needed to cope with our polluted air. Some 70 major cities, including Los Angeles, New York, and Houston, cannot meet federal standards for clean air, and pollution remains a serious public health threat to millions of Americans.

Radon, Wetlands

We need to deal with the hidden menace of deadly radon gas — linked by EPA to as many as 20,000 lung cancer deaths per year. Americans need to know how serious a threat radon can be, but they also need to know that solving the problem may require no more costly a solution than opening a basement window.

We must act to stop the coastal wetland erosion that has reached crisis proportions — our wetlands have been lost at an average rate of 20,000 acres per year for the past 25 years, with the problem most acute in California, Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, and Texas. I will support new legislation to direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other federal agencies, to work with the states to develop immediate action plans to save our wetlands.

Ozone

The threats posed by ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect have finally gained widespread popular understanding. For six years, I chaired hearings in the House and Senate that called attention to these problems. Until recently, many people — particularly those in the Reagan Administration — dismissed these issues. Now, virtually everyone accepts that they are deadly serious threats to the health and well-being of men, women, and children all over the world.

The ozone problem may have begun 60 years ago when chemists developed compounds called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that came to be used as coolants and propellants in aerosol sprays. Millions of tons of CFCs were used before traces of them were found in the atmosphere in the early 1970s. By 1974, scientists had concluded that CFCs in the upper atmosphere were destroying the ozone layer that protects the earth by blocking the sun's ultraviolet radiation.

By 1978, the United States banned the use of CFCs in spray cans. But that was not enough, as long as other countries continued to use them. In 1985, British scientists discovered a mysterious hole opening in the ozone layer over Antarctica. It became increasingly clear that CFCs were a major factor in this alarming development. What is not yet clear is whether the ozone depletion over the Antarctic is an isolated occurrence or the first phase of a larger, worldwide breakdown of the ozone system. Scientists say [18 ELR 10005] such a breakdown could lead to millions more cases of skin cancer.

In May 1987, some Reagan officials began to fear that governmental action against this threat might offend the President's laissez-faire philosophy. Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel was quoted as saying the answer to ozone depletion might be for people to wear sunglasses and floppy hats! Fortunately, wiser minds prevailed, and Lee Thomas recently helped negotiate a 24-nation international treaty to limit the production of CFCs.⁴

This treaty is an important first step. It should be ratified immediately. But we must do much more. Even under the terms of the agreement, over the next 80 years ozone depletion may cause an estimated seven million cases of cancer in the United States — and 131 million cases worldwide. That is simply not acceptable.

Greenhouse Effect

Even worse, the greenhouse effect, caused by increased carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other trace gases in the atmosphere, is trapping heat and causing a long-term warming of the earth.

In 1981, I chaired the first of a series of congressional hearings that focused on the greenhouse effect and the upper atmosphere. In 1985, I introduced the first legislation specifically directed at the greenhouse effect. At our first hearing, Professor Roger Revelle of the University of California testified that the greenhouse effect was no longer a hypothesis, but had become a reality. In 1982 hearings, Dr. James Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Professor George Kukla of Columbia University testified that the rise in carbon dioxide levels could be closely correlated with a rise in the earth's mean temperature, a shrinking of glacial ice, and the rise of the sea level.

The more we learned, the more we realized that the greenhouse effect is too vast and its causes too elusive for any scientific quick-fix. It will require major international scientific study and action.

What can America do?

In 1985 and 1986, I sponsored legislation to create an International Year of the Greenhouse Effect, to focus international attention on the problem, as was done with the successful International Geophysical Year of 1957.⁵ I have joined other senators in urging Secretary of State George Shultz to include the greenhouse effect on the agenda of the next U.S.-Soviet summit meeting.

We can't stop there. As president, I will convene an international summit devoted to the related problems of the ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. I will give personal attention and personal leadership to these issues. I will appoint a White House Science Advisor, with Cabinet rank, to coordinate our government's efforts to solve these problems.

International Cooperation

Are not these classic examples of problems on which we, the Soviet Union, and other world leaders should work together, pooling our scientific skills to benefit humankind, rather than devoting them to a costly and destructive arms race?

I will challenge General Secretary Gorbachev to join with us and other nations in an all-out, coordinated, and cooperative attack on these urgent threats to the environment of this planet we all share and love.

We must be prepared also to work with the United Nations, the World Bank, and other international organizations on these issues. The greenhouse effect appears to be a direct by-product of resource consumption — for example, of forests, fossil fuels, and CFCs. Certain less-developed nations are rapidly destroying their tropical rain forests, the major oxygen and carbon dioxide conversion mechanisms in the world. Twelve of the 17 most heavily indebted nations, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and the Philippines, are destroying their forests at an alarming rate.

The entire world has a huge stake in these tropical forests, so great that certain international debts should be eased in exchange for forest conservation. We need also to standardize acceptable limits for toxic substances in the developed and developing world.

Energy

And if we are to make progress against domestic and international environmental problems, we must also have a national energy policy that is serious about conservation.

We were caught off guard by two major energy crises in the 1970s, and we must be ready for the next one if it comes. We need to emphasize incentives to keep stripper wells in operation, not drilling new offshore wells.

The use of methanol instead of gasoline makes especially good sense in cities like Los Angeles, where it can reduce both oil use and air pollution. Automobiles that use methanol can be manufactured now, and we need to stimulate their development.

Land Conservation

We must stress land conservation and the related problem of solid waste disposal. We must invigorate the land and water conservation fund that was gutted in the early days of the Reagan Administration. We must double the size of our conservation reserve in farm programs, to encourage sound practices in planting.

We must severely limit the amount of waste we plow back into the earth, by developing new waste-conversion technologies, like ultra-high incineration and the application of biotechnology to convert wastes to natural elements.

We must confront, too, the problem of solid waste. We have made progress on two of the greatest solid waste problems of a decade ago, open dumps and ocean dumping, but waste-generation rates continue to be high. Many communities are running out of places to dispose of their waste, cannot find new landfills, and need help with recycling programs that might ease the strain.

New Leadership

Finally, it is time for presidential leadership that will give environmentalism the international dimension it must have to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

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The twentieth century has been one of extremes, almost simultaneously one of remarkable progress and terrible tragedies. It is the century of Einstein and Hitler, of Gandhi and Stalin, the century that saw two world wars of unprecedented violence, and also saw diseases conquered, human life spans vastly increased, and the conquest of space begun.

What will this planet be like 50 or 100 years from now? Will we avert nuclear war, only to be undone by ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, ocean pollution, global overcrowding, contaminated groundwater, or polluted air and acid rain? That polar ice could melt, the seas rise, and the breadbasket become a desert is not science fiction — the world's best scientists are telling us these things can happen unless we act.

The enduring symbol of the Reagan Administration's environmental failures will be a barge filled with garbage, slowly drifting out to sea.

But responsible men and women cannot let these problems drift. Starting in January of 1989, we must have leadership that understands our past and cares about our future. That is the leadership I intend to provide.

1. See generally A. Burford, Are You Tough Enough? (1986) (autobiographical account of Anne (Gorsuch) Burford's experiences in the Reagan administration).

2. Superfund is the popular name of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601-9675, ELR STAT. 44001.

3. See Miller, EPA Superfund Enforcement: The Question Isn't When to Negotiate and When to Litigate, But How to Do Either and How Often, 13 ELR 10062, 10063 (1983) (analysis should "look at the number of enforcement cases EPA is handling, regardless of whether it sues or negotiates first…. On this measure, EPA enforcement appears dangerously close to becoming a paper tiger.").

4. The protocol is described at 17 ELR 10447 (1987).

5. S. CON. RES. 96, 99th Cong., 131 Cong. Rec. S17695, S17699 (daily ed. Dec. 16, 1985). S. CON. RES. 96 is described at 16 ELR 10053 (1986).