Hello friends, it's the Environment Show and welcome.
The Clinton Gore transition team has chosen Carol Browner to head the EPA.
The Secretary of Environmental Regulation in Florida, Browner has already received wide
and genuine praise.
Also with the changing of the guard, concern rises over the recently signed North American
Free Trade Agreement.
Will Bush hobbit?
Will Clinton change it?
Dr. Hink Fulmer from the Netherlands shares one secret to Europe's economic success over
the U.S. in many markets.
It's much cheaper and much more efficient from an economic point of view to prevent than
to clean up afterwards.
The Environment Show is a national production made possible by Hemmings Motor News, the
national Bible of the old car hobby, monthly from Bennington for mod, and by the JM Kaplan
Fund of New York.
And this is Bruce Robertson.
I'm delighted to announce the appointment of Carol Browner, the Secretary of the Environment
for the State of Florida as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
President-elect Bill Clinton, piecing together his cabinet and staff, has chosen Carol Browner
to head up the Environmental Protection Agency.
Following the announcement in Little Rock, Clinton noted that Browner has been able to
walk the hazardous line between environmental protection and industrial growth in Florida.
I wanted her to take this job from the first time we discussed these issues because she
understands what the EPA is supposed to do, but she also knows in a way that I know what
it's like to be governed by the EPA and how awful it can be when it is done wrong.
What it is like to see an agency take two contradictory positions at the same time and put the
heat on the states and the private sector.
What it is like to see the EPA take one position, then another, and then another.
There are serious, serious problems facing this country in the environmental area.
But I believe that in the end, a heavy majority of the American people understand that our
future depends on maintaining a sustainable environment, on conserving our resources,
on solving our problems, and that in doing that we can create economic opportunity.
That is the central argument that Bill Clinton and Al Gore made in their campaign.
Carol Browner has lived out that argument with real distinction and secretary of the environment
in the state of Florida.
Formerly in aid to Senator and now Vice President-elect Al Gore, Browner was appointed to the Florida
Post by Governor Lawton Childs.
Browner was clearly delighted to accept the higher calling.
I'm thrilled to be here.
I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to serve at a time when environmental protection and
restoration will finally receive the attention and commitment it deserves.
When we will finally move away from the trade-off and the debate, we have focused on for far
too long between jobs and the environment for a sustainable economic future.
And I believe that that will now be possible, that we will be able to make the investment
and our economy that we so desperately need, yet preserve the air, land, and water.
So what do you think about this appointment to the federal environmental protection agency?
Well, we're pretty excited about having Carol Browner in this type of position.
Theresa Woody, Southeast associate field representative for the Sierra Club, based in West Palm
Beach, Florida.
Woody says she has known Browner for many years now and has mixed reactions.
Frankly, it's a loss for Florida.
It's a real gain for the United States.
Carol has a real commitment to strong environmental protection.
And yet she has the type of sharp legal mind that allows her to understand what Governor
a government can do and what we can't do.
What do you make of President-elect Clinton's remark during that press conference that
Browner knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of EPA bureaucracy?
Well, as Secretary of EPA, Carol Browner will be able to really negotiate perhaps better
with the states.
The EPA hands off a lot of power and a lot of authority to the states for administering
various programs.
And that I believe is what President-elect Clinton was referring to.
And so as a former state-level Secretary of Environmental Regulation, she understands
the working relationship between the states and the federal government as we struggle to
protect our environment at this country.
Talk to us a little bit about what you know of Secretary Browner's environmental record
in Florida.
One of the reasons I understand that she was picked has to do with some prior commitments
in prior involvement with Senator Gore.
But what is her environmental record itself?
We've been pretty pleased with the type of integrity that Carol Browner has brought to
the Department of Environmental Regulations.
And she took office here in Florida.
One of her two first public pronouncements was that she is an environmentalist and that
she sees her clients with the Department of Environmental Regulation as the people of
Florida.
That was a decided shift from the previous administration who had gone on record publicly as saying that
he saw his clients as the development community in this state.
That shift coupled with Carol's openness to public input, helping the public have access
to her to help her set the agenda for environmental protection of the state.
She hosted several forums where people were able to just meet Carol and brief her on their
concerns on what they think she should be addressing for environmental protection for
Florida.
Also, that openness is unprecedented.
We expect that type of vision to continue as she takes the helm at the national level
for environmental protection.
Florida is in many ways a microcosm of the best and the worst of our environmental problems.
What are some of the specifics of Browner's record?
Ms. Browner has brought to Florida a real commitment to protect the fragile wetlands in our state.
We've lost over 53 percent of our wetlands.
A commitment to protect Everglades National Park, one of the ten most endangered parks
in this country.
She also has brought a clear mandate to begin to address the solid waste disposal problem
here in Florida.
Something that the environmental community was particularly appreciative of was her institution
of a two-year moratorium for construction of new hazardous and municipal waste incinerators
because she felt very strongly that there were too many unanswered questions about potential
environmental and health dangers from these particular incinerators.
That kind of understanding and commitment is going to serve her well as she begins to
tackle both the reauthorization of the Clean Water Act, which will include provisions to
protect wetlands in this country and the reauthorization of the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act, which is also on this Congress of agenda.
Theresa Woody, field representative of the Sierra Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
If approved by Congress, Carol Browner would become the second woman to hold the post
of EPA chief, the first was Anne Gore such berfford under President Reagan.
Our thanks to C. Span, the cable satellite public affairs network for coverage of the Clinton
Gore press conference in Little Rock, and this is Bruce Robertson.
With the North American Free Trade Agreement signed by the United States, Canada, and Mexico,
the treaty is now on a fast track through Congress bound for implementation.
However, without some serious reworking, NAFTA remains not only inadequate, it is potentially
a destructive tool, especially for the environment.
Says Rob Hausman of the Center for International Environmental Law.
What NAFTA needs, says Hausman, is a strong nace, a North American commission on the environment.
What it is is it's intended to be a trilateral environmental commission that will pull in
representatives from Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
The best way to explain it is it's one of the parallel track mechanisms, if you recall,
I'm sure most of your listeners have heard that NAFTA was going to come with a parallel
environmental track.
The nace, if you will, is one of the parallel track mechanisms to address environmental
concerns.
What makes it especially critical at this juncture is as the watch changes over to President
Clinton.
President Clinton has stated in a speech on October 4th in Raleigh, North Carolina, that
NAFTA currently sits for him as unacceptable and needs to have certain supplemental parallel
agreements to address the environmental concerns that arise.
The nace is a central critical component to his plan to fill the NAFTA environmental
holes.
Hausman says it is important to get moving on nace now that NAFTA has been signed.
Because of the so-called fast track procedure, both chambers of Congress will vote on the
agreement as a complete package, without any amendments.
In other words, as a straight yes or no vote.
No one will be debating fine points of NAFTA.
If the agreement was solid and most environmentalists believe it is not, then a straight vote would
be desirable.
However, as NAFTA does not address certain critical environmental issues, having a straight
vote would be passing legislation that many feel is not only lacking but potentially dangerous.
The only way to correct this as Hausman is to get busy on the nace, a document that
in effect represents the sum total of all the amendments NAFTA needs before it could become
a sound piece of legislation.
However, as Hausman points out, negotiating nace at this juncture is especially critical
because...
As the watch changes over to President Clinton, President Clinton has stated in a speech
on October 4th in Raleigh, North Carolina, that NAFTA currently sits for him as unacceptable
and needs to have certain supplemental parallel agreements to address the environmental concerns
that arise.
The nace is a central critical component to his plan to fill the NAFTA environmental
holes.
The oddity of it is here because we're in the waiting usually called lame duck but not
so lame duck days of the Bush administration.
The Department of State, which has primary negotiating authority for the United States, is
negotiating the nace that President Clinton will then be implementing and which his officials
under his administration and potentially even Vice President Gore, he said that Vice
President Gore may take charge of it in the United States, would then be dealing with
it, would then be working under that umbrella.
In other words, while NAFTA is complete and may not be changed by Bush or by Clinton,
the North American Commission on the Environment is still in the construction stage.
The Bush administration has ample time to make changes, changes that will be left for
Clinton to deal with.
Houseman says the separation of trade and environment goes way back to the very beginning
of this debate.
When NAFTA first came up, when President Bush thought negotiating authority and they
began the negotiations, there was a two track system because President Bush said there
is trade agreements which should deal with trade and then we recognize there's some
environmental ramifications of that so we're going to have environmental agreements that
will deal with the environment.
Throughout the NAFTA process, environmentalists have been pushing things basically, hey,
these things are so interrelated, there shouldn't be two tracks that the NAFTA itself should
deal with environmental concerns based on, well, driven by trade, an increased economic
development that NAFTA is supposed to bring to all three countries.
It's happened though as there's been a hesitancy in the Bush administration and I don't
think it'll change in the Clinton administration to combine these two and I say I don't think
it'll change in the Clinton administration because I think the process is too far along.
And also I would say that other delegations, the Mexicans and the Canadians may not have
been willing themselves to combine them.
But what was envisioned was two parallel tracks that would sort of work hand in hand.
Cosmon says there are many objections to NACE now, chief among them, there are insufficient
mechanisms to deal with bilateral issues.
In other words, if there was a disagreement over environmental issues between, say, Mexico
and the United States, nothing could be done about it under NACE until the issue had become
a trilateral trade issue under NAFTA.
You are disagreeing with your neighbor over an issue but no resolution is possible unless
you involve the whole neighborhood.
Another shortcoming of NACE, says Houseman, is that it lacks enforcement powers for environmentally
lacks laws.
There is no way to make the duty-free trading contingent on upholding environmental laws.
Any one of the participating nations may produce goods in an environmentally destructive way
and sell them cheaply on the open market.
Consumers may unwittingly purchase the destructive products if only because they are cheaper.
NACE says Houseman, the NAFTA NACE setup now has another major pitfall.
The public participation element, all along the NAFTA negotiations, environmentalists
have been counting on the door trying to get in and have been basically, if not fully,
left outside, unable to obtain documents.
There was a big row over the inability to obtain the NAFTA itself for months.
The NACE was intended to ameliorate some of those concerns.
To allow the public, some mechanism to complain basically that in some way expand the trade
as this harming mind environment and it should be addressed.
As it's being negotiated now, however, the NACE doesn't have full public participation.
The NACE is basically at the whim of the NACE officials.
And if it doesn't be who the country to have something discussed publicly, they can block it.
Rob Hausman, an attorney with the Washington DC-based Center for International Environmental
Law, he says the best functioning NACE would be one that had powers to restore tariffs
and other economic controls such that products made using environmentally destructive techniques
would have a heavier economic burden to bear than otherwise allowed under the free trade
agreement itself.
To craft a NACE to operate this way, says Hausman, the Clinton transition team must work
now to ensure that Bush administration policies thought to restrict a powerful NACE would not
hobble the next administration.
This is Bruce Robertson.
The United States has long been viewed as Earth's environmental watchdog.
After Rachel Carson's seminal book Silent Spring called attention to pesticide pollution,
passage of the National Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts,
and the Endangered Species Act, among others, all highlighted the U.S. government's commitment
to achieving environmental protection.
At the time, the U.S. stood pretty much alone among industrialized nations in this sense.
But Dr. Hank Fulmer says that was then times have changed.
Fulmer is professor of economics at the University of Vogueginingen, the Netherlands.
He is also president of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
Fulmer says many Europeans no longer see the United States as environmentally friendly.
In former days, the United States was our example.
It was our guiding environmental economics, especially when it comes to economic theory,
environmental economic theory, people like, for instance, Arrow, and we used to study
their textbooks.
We also had the impression that environmental policy in the U.S. was ahead of the policies
in Europe.
But during the past 12 years, I think that the situation has changed.
First of all, in Europe, environmental issues have become much more important, whereas
in the U.S. environmental policies were viewed as an impedance to economic development.
As a result, Fulmer says the United States has fallen behind Europe, in both environmental
legislation and technology.
But he says the changes in Europe were driven as much by necessity as by environmental
goodwill.
Fuel prices quadrupled in Europe during the 1980s, spurring a drive for alternate fuels
research and more efficient automobiles.
Gas prices in the U.S., meanwhile, stayed relatively stable, and so did the mileage efficiency
of most American cars.
The result, American automobile manufacturers lost ground on the world market.
American made cars have no way of competing in Europe nor in Japan or elsewhere.
So if let's say the gas prices would go up now, very quickly, I think then there would
be, then American industry would not have time to adjust itself to the new prices and consequently
to the new standards.
It needs time to develop these products, but I think it's time to do that.
Now, otherwise, the American markets will, the American producers will lose foreign markets
more and more.
And if there is a fuel crisis in the United States future, Fulmer predicts even American
motorists will abandon American made automobiles.
A situation Fulmer blames on the short-sightedness of recent Republican administrations.
Vice President Dan Quail led the argument that tougher automobile performance standards
would threaten jobs and the economy.
Fulmer says this is a faulty argument.
The sound environmental policy is a prerequisite for sound economic development.
In the short-run, I think it's possible to gain some economic advantages.
It's possible to have a very short-run, increasing employment or experts or whatever.
But in the end, I think you'll pay back and a much higher price than if the preventive
policies had been undertaken.
It's much cheaper and much more efficient from an economic point of view to prevent than
to clean up afterwards.
According to Fulmer, that distrust of environmental legislation is evident in the new North American
Free Trade Agreement as well.
Fulmer believes the agreement, as it stands, lacks uniform environmental rules for all
three countries.
Without certain amendments, he expects American industries will suffer once again.
There are two major problems which can be foreseen.
First of all, there will be relocation of firms from the U.S. to especially Mexico.
It's not only for environmental policy, but it's in combination with low wages.
The combination of low wages and environmental policy will lead to an outmigration of firms,
especially of the establishment of new firms, new American firms in Mexico.
Another problem which I foresee, and that's on the basis of the European experience, is
that there may be imports of low quality products, low quality in terms of environmental
quality from other countries to the U.S.
Fulmer says the European Economic Community has developed certain safeguards to address
this problem.
Denmark restricted imports of beverages in aluminum cans because these cans were considered
to be harmful to the environment.
Export is from Germany and the Netherlands, considered there to be an artificial trade
barrier and took the case to the European Court.
The European Court decided that the Danes had the right to refuse these imports because
the European Treaty says that protection of the environment is one of the major goals
of European policy.
According to the U.S. and to the National Agreement, I can foresee imports from other member
states to the U.S. and these imports cannot be protected because there are no provisions
for protecting the environment.
President-elect Bill Clinton has expressed concern about lack of environmental controls
in the NAFTA.
Fulmer says he believes the new administration does offer some new thinking.
Though he says it is not too late for American technology to develop alternate fuels or
pollution treatment methods, for example, Fulmer says the only way American will report
a clean bill of environmental help is if the U.S. federal government administers the
treatment.
Dr. Hank Fulmer is professor of economics at the University of Vaganingen, the Netherlands,
and president of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
And that's our report on the Environment Show this week.
We hope you enjoy the program.
The Environment Show is a program about the environment, the air, water, soil, wildlife,
and people of our common habitat.
If you know of something happening in your area that you think we ought to know about,
or if you have a question about this week's or any week's Environment Show, drop us
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For a cassette copy of this program, call 1-800-767-1929.
Ask for the Environment Show program number 155.
Our piece on the European Environmental Policies written and produced this week by Karen Kelly.
The Environment Show is a presentation of national productions solely responsible for its
content.
Helen Shartock, Executive Producer.
This is Bruce Robertson.
The Environment Show is made possible by the James Kaplan Fund of New York.
And by Heming's Motor News, the national Bible of the Old Car Hobby, monthly from Bennington
Vermont.
