Presidents And The American Environment

Download or read book American Environmental Policy, updated and expanded edition written by Christopher Mcgrory Klyza and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-08-30 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated investigation of alternate pathways for American environmental policymaking made necessary by legislative gridlock. The “golden era” of American environmental lawmaking in the 1960s and 1970s saw twenty-two pieces of major environmental legislation (including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act) passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by presidents of both parties. But since then partisanship, the dramatic movement of Republicans to the right, and political brinksmanship have led to legislative gridlock on environmental issues. In this book, Christopher Klyza and David Sousa argue that the longstanding legislative stalemate at the national level has forced environmental policymaking onto other pathways. Klyza and Sousa identify and analyze five alternative policy paths, which they illustrate with case studies from 1990 to the present: “appropriations politics” in Congress; executive authority; the role of the courts; “next-generation” collaborative experiments; and policymaking at the state and local levels. This updated edition features a new chapter discussing environmental policy developments from 2006 to 2012, including intensifying partisanship on the environment, the failure of Congress to pass climate legislation, the ramifications of Massachusetts v. EPA, and other Obama administration executive actions (some of which have reversed Bush administration executive actions). Yet, they argue, despite legislative gridlock, the legacy of 1960s and 1970s policies has created an enduring “green state” rooted in statutes, bureaucratic routines, and public expectations.

Download or read book Presidents and the American Environment written by Otis L. Graham, Jr. and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1891 Benjamin Harrison, the first president engaged in conservation, had to have this new area of public policy explained to him by members of the Boone and Crockett Club. This didn’t take long, as he was only asked to sign a few papers setting aside federal timberland. But from such small moments great social movements grow, and the course of natural resource protection policy through 22 presidents has altered Americans’ relationship to the natural world in then almost unimaginable ways. Presidents and the American Environment charts this course. Exploring the ways in which every president from Harrison to Obama has engaged the expanding agenda of the Nature protection impulse, the book offers a clear, close-up view of the shifting and nation shaping mosaic of both “green” and “brown” policy directions over more than a century. While the history of conservation generally focuses on the work of intellectuals such as Muir, Leopold, and Carson, such efforts could only succeed or fail on a large scale with the involvement of the government, and it is this side of the story that Presidents and the American Environment tells. On the one hand, we find a ready environmental engagement, as in Theodore Roosevelt’s establishment of Pelican Island bird refuge upon being informed that the Constitution did not explicitly forbid it. On the other hand, we have leaders like Calvin Coolidge, playing hide-and-seek games in the Oval Office while ignoring reports of coastal industrial pollution. The book moves from early cautious sponsors of the idea of preserving public lands to crusaders like Theodore Roosevelt, from the environmental implications of the New Deal to the politics of pollution in the boom times of the forties and fifties, from the emergence of “environmentalism” to recent presidential detractors of the cause. From Harrison’s act, which established the American system of National Forests, to Barack Obama’s efforts on curbing climate change, presidents have mattered as they resisted or used the ever-changing tools and objectives of environmentalism. In fact, with a near even split between “browns” and “greens” over those 22 administrations, the role of president has often been decisive. How, and how much, distinguished historian Otis L. Graham, Jr., describes in in full for the first time, in this important contribution to American environmental history.

Download or read book The Administrative Presidency and the Environment written by David M. Shafie and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The growth of the administrative state and legislative gridlock has placed the White House at the center of environmental policymaking. Every recent president has continued the trend of relying upon administrative tools and unilateral actions to either advance or roll back environmental protection policies. From natural resources to climate change and pollution control, presidents have more been willing to test the limits of their authority, and the role of Congress has been one of reacting to presidential initiatives. In The Administrative Presidency and the Environment: Policy Leadership and Retrenchment from Clinton to Trump, David M. Shafie draws upon staff communications, speeches and other primary sources. Key features include detailed case studies in public land management, water quality, toxics, and climate policy, with particular attention to the role of science in decisionmaking. Finally, he identifies the techniques from previous administrations that made Trump's administrative presidency possible. Shafie's combination of qualitative analysis and topical case studies offers advanced undergraduate students and researchers alike important insights for understanding the interactions between environmental groups and the executive branch as well as implications for future policymaking"--

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy written by Sheldon Kamieniecki and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 783 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior to the Nixon administration, environmental policy in the United States was rudimentary at best. Since then, it has evolved into one of the primary concerns of governmental policy from the federal to the local level. As scientific expertise on the environment rapidly developed, Americans became more aware of the growing environmental crisis that surrounded them. Practical solutions for mitigating various aspects of the crisis - air pollution, water pollution, chemical waste dumping, strip mining, and later global warming - became politically popular, and the government responded by gradually erecting a vast regulatory apparatus to address the issue. Today, politicians regard environmental policy as one of the most pressing issues they face. The Obama administration has identified the renewable energy sector as a key driver of economic growth, and Congress is in the process of passing a bill to reduce global warming that will be one of the most important environmental policy acts in decades. The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy will be a state-of-the-art work on all aspects of environmental policy in America. Over the past half century, America has been the world's leading emitter of global warming gases. However, environmental policy is not simply a national issue. It is a global issue, and the explosive growth of Asian countries like China and India mean that policy will have to be coordinated at the international level. The book will therefore focus not only on the U.S., but on the increasing importance of global policies and issues on American regulatory efforts. This is a topic that will only grow in importance in the coming years, and this will serve as an authoritative guide to any scholar interested in the issue.

Download or read book Leave It As It Is written by David Gessner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author David Gessner’s wilderness road trip inspired by America’s greatest conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt, is “a rallying cry in the age of climate change” (Robert Redford). “Leave it as it is,” Theodore Roosevelt announced while viewing the Grand Canyon for the first time. “The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.” Roosevelt’s pronouncement signaled the beginning of an environmental fight that still wages today. To reconnect with the American wilderness and with the president who courageously protected it, acclaimed nature writer and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner embarks on a great American road trip guided by Roosevelt’s crusading environmental legacy. Gessner travels to the Dakota badlands where Roosevelt awakened as a naturalist; to Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon where Roosevelt escaped during the grind of his reelection tour; and finally, to Bears Ears, Utah, a monument proposed by Native Tribes that is currently embroiled in a national conservation fight. Along the way, Gessner questions and reimagines Roosevelt’s vision for today’s lands. “Insightful, observant, and wry,” (BookPage) Leave It As It Is offers an arresting history of Roosevelt’s pioneering conservationism, a powerful call to arms, and a profound meditation on our environmental future.

Download or read book Environmental Policy written by Norman J. Vig and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authoritative and trusted, Environmental Policy once again brings together top scholars to evaluate the changes and continuities in American environmental policy since the late 1960s and their implications for the twenty-first century. Students will learn to decipher the underlying trends, institutional constraints, and policy dilemmas that shape today’s environmental politics. The Tenth Edition examines how policy has changed within federal institutions and state and local governments, as well as how environmental governance affects private sector policies and practices. The book provides in-depth examinations of public policy dilemmas including fracking, food production, urban sustainability, and the viability of using market solutions to address policy challenges. Students will also develop a deeper understanding of global issues such as climate change governance, the implications of the Paris Agreement, and the role of environmental policy in the developing world. Students walk away with a measured yet hopeful evaluation of the future challenges policymakers will confront as the American environmental movement continues to affect the political process.

Download or read book Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism written by Frank J. Thompson and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Trump has used the federal government to promote conservative policies The presidency of Donald Trump has been unique in many respects—most obviously his flamboyant personal style and disregard for conventional niceties and factual information. But one area hasn't received as much attention as it deserves: Trump's use of the “administrative presidency,” including executive orders and regulatory changes, to reverse the policies of his predecessor and advance positions that lack widespread support in Congress. This book analyzes the dynamics and unique qualities of Trump's administrative presidency in the important policy areas of health care, education, and climate change. In each of these spheres, the arrival of the Trump administration represented a hostile takeover in which White House policy goals departed sharply from the more “liberal” ideologies and objectives of key agencies, which had been embraced by the Obama administration. Three expert authors show how Trump has continued, and even expanded, the rise of executive branch power since the Reagan years. The authors intertwine this focus with an in-depth examination of how the Trump administration's hostile takeover has drastically changed key federal policies—and reshaped who gets what from government—in the areas of health care, education, and climate change. Readers interested in the institutions of American democracy and the nation's progress (or lack thereof) in dealing with pressing policy problems will find deep insights in this book. Of particular interest is the book's examination of how the Trump administration's actions have long-term implications for American democracy.