Environmental and Energy Policy:

Cap and Trade Policy

A policy action that relies on market-based mechanisms in which an overall cap or ceiling is set and trading of permits or allowances is allowed within that cap. The cap may be lowered over time.

Ecosystem-Based Management

A comprehensive approach to natural resource management that emphasizes the integrated treatment of entire ecosystems and their functions. Contrasted with efforts to deal with a specific species of body of land or water.

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) -

A form of impact assessment in which government agencies must provide details on the environment consequences of major actions, such as highway construction, and make them public prior to a final decision on the project.

Environmental Stewardship

A philosophy of governance based on the belief that the natural should be protected for future generations - that is, that the government is the steward of such protection.

What is a carbon tax?

A policy that implements a higher tax on gasoline and other fossil fuels to curb their use.

Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)

A report published each year and that can be accessed on the EPA's website and elsewhere. The TRI describes toxic chemicals that industrial facilities release to the air, water, and land in communities across the country.

What is ecosystem-based management?

A shift in emphasis toward principles of protecting habitat and maintaining biological diversity.

Carbon Tax

A tax on gasoline or on all fossil fuels, often proposed as a revenue-neutral tax in which other taxes are lowered by the same amount as the new tax on carbon.

Direct Regulation

Also called command and control, or simply regulation. Government regulates or controls or controls environmental, health, and safety performance of industry or other facilities through the setting and enforcement of standards and sometimes through requirements for certain technologies to be used.

Collaborative Decision Making

An approach to environmental or resource neutral tax in which industry and other stakeholders work cooperatively with government officials. Thought to be more effective and less conflict ridden than more conventional regulation.

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

An association of oil-producing and exporting nations that was established to help fuse their mutual interests, particularly the price of oil on the world market and the stability of oil production and consumption.

Which best describes a cap-and-trade program?

An emissions-control policy and market incentive that limits an industry's emission allowance and allows it to purchase emission permits from other lower-emitting industries.

Intergenerational Equity

An ethical principle that emphasizes fairness or equity among generations. Important for environmental policies that have substantial effects far into the future, such as actions on climate change.

Which of the following policies is considered a market incentive?

Cap and Trade

With regard to environmental policy formulation, in the 1970s, was the norm in the United States, while was the norm in the 80s and 90s.

Consensus, Disagreement

Sustainable Development

Economic growth that is compatible with environmental systems and social goals.

What is the best definition of sustainable development?

Economic growth that is compatible with natural environmental systems and social goals.

Developing alternative energy is likely to be an effective policy action to reduce carbon emissions. However, alternative energy is costly to develop yet produces less energy (than fossil fuels) for the investment. Which evaluative criteria would reflect this high cost-to-benefit ration?

Efficiency

Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards

Federal program that mandates achievement of an average level of fuel efficiency for a given automaker's line of vehicles. That is, sets minimum fuel economy standards, but only for the average of all vehicles produced.

The national Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969

Focused on regulating the process of making local decisions protect the environment. Required developers to conduct an environmental impact statement. Was enacted because states were not protecting the environment sufficiently.

Resource Subsidies

Government policies that provide financial incentives (subsidies) to develop and use specific resources, such as land, water, minerals, and forests. Traditionally a major component of federal natural resource policies.

Environment Protection Agency (EPA) -

Independent federal regulatory agency charged with enforcement of most environmental protection (such as pollution control) laws.

What is meant by multiple use when discussing natural resource policy?

Natural resources should be managed in a way that encourages economic development but also protects the environment.

Hydraulic Fracturing

Rapidly expanding oil and gas drilling in shale rock formation in which water, sand, and chemicals are injected under pressure to release the oil and natural gas.

User-Fees

Specific fees or charges that the use of a natural resource pays. Could be fees for entering a national park, harvesting timber from public lands, or mining minerals on public lands.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The United Nations' scientific body charged with periodic assessment of global climate change and its effects. Its reports are widely considered to reflect scientific consensus on the subject.

Kyoto Protocol

The major international treaty that commits signatory nations to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by a specified amount as a way to reduce the risk of global climate change or global warming.

Multiple Use

The principle that any natural resource, such as public forestland, can used simultaneously for multiple purposes or uses, for example, timber harvesting and recreation. A long-standing element of a federal land and forest policies.

Command and Control

The traditional approach to environmental regulation (called direct regulation) in which government sets and enforces standards for air, water quality, and other resources.

Which statement best summarizes the effectiveness of U.S. environmental policies enacted over the past 30 to 40 years?

They have had mixed results: while point source pollution has declined and urban air quality has improved, other conditions have no improved.

A cap-and-trade program is an emissions-control policy and market incentive that limits an industry's emission allowance and allows it to purchase emission from other lower-emitting industries.

True