local control over that check from back east - 8.12.03
Whatintheheck is Enlibra?
I see the gentleman from Utah
our friendly Beehive State,
tell me, how can we help you Utah?
How can we make you great?
Well we got to irrigate our deserts
and we've got to get some things to grow,
and we've got to tell this country about Utah,
because nobody seems to know.
[Beehive State, by Randy Newman 1970]
Three time Republican governor of the Beehive State, Mike Leavitt, has been tapped by Pres. Bush to lead the EPA. Replacing Christie Whitman was a tough decision for the Bush administration: the public supports environmental protection, but the administration generally doesn't. Some feel that Gov. Leavitt was chosen because he can put a nice PR front on the anti-reg, anti-green moves the Bush adminsistration wants to take.
Perhaps more than anything, the Bush administration wants to reinforce its grip on the western states, where use of public lands is a major issue. Westerners (understandably) feel they are best equipped to make management decisions about use of the vast public lands of the west.
No doubt there's a lot to be said for that point of view; on the other hand the public lands of the west are the property of the whole nation and giving away their resources to people because of their proximity is questionable policy. Western states are also subsidized by the more populous east (e.g. highways, irrigation, farm subsidies) and these subsidies provide additional justification for the interest of bigdumbhoosiers, not to mention New Yorkers.
Western governors have created a philosophy of sorts to describe their vision for the use and development of western resources; they call it Enlibra. Gov. Leavitt is a primary proponent of enlibra, I'm not sure who came up with the vaguely new-agey moniker. It's explained on the Western Governors' Association website here. They say enlibra promotes efforts to:
'seek greater participation and collaboration in decision-making, focus on outcomes rather than just programs, and recognize the need for a variety of tools beyond regulation that will improve environmental and natural resource management'.
The enlibra principles have some charm, no doubt. I like the recognition that a loss of trust between the competing interests is one of the key problems in environmental protection efforts. I'm not so sure that following the enlibra doctrine would help foster trust though.
The central point of enlibra doctrine is to argue for moving ultimate control from the national level to the local level. Enlibra also embraces 'markets before mandates'. These sound attractive (markets are religion for the new right), but if local control and market economies were sufficient to protect the environment these problems would take care of themselves. They don't.
Other parts of enlibra are more platitude than policy. Change a heart, change a nation. That sounds pretty ironic when coming from the anti-enviro right. I'd suggest they start by changing Rush Limbaugh's heart; good luck, you'd have to find it first! Are they really serious about imparting environmental values as part of the educational system? That would help eventually, maybe. But it's also an excuse to keep plundering resources in the meantime and putting off meaningful protections.
Then there's the part about recognizing costs and benefits. That's good advice, but it's a lot like censorship - it all depends on who's making the calls. Here in Indiana the decision was made in the mid 20th century to assign the Lake Michigan shoreline to industrial uses, because of the economic payoff. The great steel mills of 'the Region' produced economic benefits for a few decades, but now many of the factories are closed leaving behind a great big often toxic mess. Right now, the area would be much better off if the lakeshore wasn't spoiled - it would be a healthier environment and also a tremendously valuable stretch of real estate. Even in purely dollars and cents terms, those factories aren't such a good thing today.
There is one part of enlibra that looks promising, though it would be difficult to do. That's the goal of separating the acquisition of environmental data from the policy making business. There's no doubt that policy makers often meddle in data acquisition, muddying the picture. The Bush administration has been accused of 'cooking the data' at times, so this is a two-edged sword, or should be.
However, this goal shouldn't be limited to environmental projects. It should also be applied to irrigation projects, road projects and other economic development projects. Here in Indiana, it ought to be applied to ditch projects, for example. The office promoting a project shouldn't be the one studying its cost benefit analysis or other aspects of its feasibility. I wonder if the Western Governors would really like that?
