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Strategic Planning Document -
Environment and Natural Resources
Chapter 1. Science and the Environment
Introduction
The Administration is committed to maintaining economic growth that
creates jobs, protects human and ecological health, and promotes
conservation of natural resources for existing and future
generations. Scientific research and technological development are the
key for sustainable economic development, that is, maintaining and
enhancing environmental quality while continuing to
strengthen our nation's economy and security. To reach our goals,
federal investments in research and development (R&D) must be
concentrated in areas where benefits will be optimized toward
our greatest challenges and where paybacks will be largest.
Sustainable Economic Development
In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development defined
sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs." The phrase most commonly refers to courses of action that
simultaneously improve human conditions and economic growth without
sacrificing the health of the environment.
In 1993, President Clinton established the National Science and
Technology Council (NSTC) to reinvent how R&D is conducted in the United
States. The NSTC Committee on
Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) is making significant changes
in how the federal government plans and supports research on the
environment and natural resources. We have started
coordinating the previously fragmented environmental research programs
across federal agencies. This approach replaces the traditional single
issue, single agency, and single discipline approach to solving
environmental issues with an integrated, interagency research program.
This process brings together researchers and policymakers from a range of
disciplines and agencies. The CENR is identifying
opportunities to reduce redundancy in federal programs, fill critical
gaps in research to understand important environmental issues, and
anticipate environmental problems of the future and prevent them,
rather than respond to them after the fact. This strategy holds the
promise of unprecedented benefits from integrated planning and budgeting
to reduce overlap in federal programs while solving issues in a
policy-relevant and cost-effective manner.
National Goals for Science and Technology
- Improved Environmental Quality
- A Healthier, Safer America
- A Stronger Economy
- Enhanced National Security
- Improved Education and Training
National Goals for Environmental and Natural Resources Research
The range of environmental and natural resource issues related to
sustainable development is diverse; it encompasses both urban and rural
issues at the local and regional scales, affecting human health and the
quality of both aquatic and terrestrial ecological systems. These issues
include pesticides, toxic substances, hazardous and
solid waste, water quality, air pollution, and natural disasters. Other
important local-to-regional concerns are related
to improving resource use by addressing problems such as inadequate
water supplies, loss of wetlands, soil erosion, and
the extraction and use of energy and mineral resources. Other critical
issues have international and global implications:
deforestation, loss of biological diversity, stratospheric ozone
depletion, and climate change.
These issues are interrelated and are no longer the sole concern of the
scientific community and environmentalists; their importance is now well
recognized by the private sector and governments
around the world. Sound national and international environmental
policies must be based on a solid
foundation of scientific, technical, social, and economic knowledge. The
knowledge, developed as a result of this strategy, will enable us to meet
the national goal of improved environmental quality, by
providing the scientific and technical information needed to refine and
couple environmental and economic policies effectively and efficiently.
In addition, the research agenda developed here will support other
important national goals:
- A healthier, safer America, by improving our
understanding of the human health implications of environmental changes
and mitigating societal vulnerabilities to natural hazards.
A Healthier, Safer America
One of the highest priorities of the Administration is to protect public
health and well-being. Degradation of environmental conditions can
threaten health and safety. Research on the links between natural hazards,
environmental change, and human health helps improve our societal
response to threats such as:
- Stratospheric ozone depletion, which increases ground-level
ultraviolet radiation that can increase incidences of melanoma and
nonmelanoma skin cancer, eye cataracts, and immune system suppression.
Research has helped to identify actions to reduce the risk of exposure.
- Changes in climate (e.g., temperature and precipitation) can
increase the loss of life from heat-related mortality and severe storms
and increase the range of diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and
cholera. Research can help anticipate areas where action is needed.
- Increases in urban and rural ozone and particles can increase the
incidence of respiratory ailments such as asthma. Research is helping
define more effective, cost-efficient control strategies.
- Natural hazards such as earthquakes and severe storms often lead to
injuries and the loss of life. More advanced warning is possible through
geological and meteorological research.
- Reduced exposures to toxic materials can lower the risk of health
problems including cancer, disruption of the endocrine system and birth
defects.
- New, more adequate safeguards in processing and storage of food can
help meet minimum nutritional needs, while fewer storage and
transportation losses can lead to decreased food prices.
Environmental research has contributed significantly to public health in
recent years and is expected to yield additional health benefits. A
better understanding of the natural world and how human activities
influence it are essential to safeguard life from natural hazards and
human-induced environmental changes. Research can lead to cost-effective
environmental improvements and an enhanced ability to prevent or
mitigate adverse health effects. New technologies can aid in cleaning up
the problems of the past and preventing future problems (see Chaps. 3 and
4).
- A stronger economy, through the continued development of
cost-effective pollution prevention technologies and a reduction of
market and government inefficiencies that prevent the diffusion of
environmental technologies.
A Stronger Economy: Economic Benefits of Environmental R&D
Investment in research is a prudent, cost-effective way of dealing with
the nation's environmental challenges; it enables us to set management
and regulatory priorities, select cost-effective strategies for
action, and identify problems before they become intractable as a means
to avoid costly remediation. The following are some reasons why a
sustained commitment to research is good business for the nation.
- Scientific knowledge provides the basis for responsible decision
making by government and the private sector.
- Environmental improvements translate into direct cost savings in
health care through cleaner air and water.
- Reducing waste makes economic sense, saving waste management costs
and avoiding indirect environmental costs.
- Environmental R&D continues to lead to new high-tech industries with
high-paying jobs, while allowing us to protect the environment faster,
better, and cheaper.
- Energy supply and demand R&D ensures greater national security,
energy independence, and competitiveness for the U.S. economy in the
future.
- Better planning for natural disasters could save countless human
lives and billions of dollars per year.
- Enhanced national security, by providing the information
needed to reduce destabilizingenvironmental degradation and resource
distribution and depletion that can lead to economic and
political destablization.
Enhanced National Security
Historically, the distribution of natural resources has been a basis for
conflict between nations. Environmental degradation, ecological damage,
and the depletion of natural resources can easily give rise to
confrontation between nations that could lead to armed conflict. In the
future, global-scale issues, such as human-induced climate change, are
projected to have their greatest adverse effects in developing countries.
Predicting, preventing, and/or remediating these potentially
destabilizing environmental issues coupled with
the development of long-term sources of food, water, and energy are
essential to global security. A world in which destabilizing factors are
minimized enhances our own national security.
The transfer and application of science and technology developed through
federal research programs can have far-reaching effects throughout the
world. Foreseeing and preventing environmental disasters will
reduce our requirements for relief efforts that are expensive in terms
of material, personnel, and national will. Other applications of
environmental science and technology will ensure that our forces are able to
deploy and operate safely and effectively on land, at sea, and in the air.
- Improved education and training, by developing innovative
curricula and continuing education programs on the environment and
natural resources with such mechanisms as government and
private-sector partnerships.
Americans enjoy some of the cleanest air, land, and water in the world.
For centuries we have reaped the benefits of seemingly unlimited natural
resources. In recent decades, however, our understandings
of natural processes, the fate of some contaminants, and the
consequences of some resource use activities have evolved. For example,
we now know that certain chemicals, such as heavy metals and
pesticides, can build up in the environment and may cause harm to human
health or ecological systems at levels far lower than ever imagined
previously. We also now know that releases of seemingly
harmless levels of sulfur and nitrogen air pollutants may travel great
distances, affecting areas hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Some
commercial fisheries, for example, experience
economic loss due to over fishing, or to periodic outbreaks of disease
or loss of habitat, which can be related to various forms of estuarine or
ocean pollution. Some of these effects are just now being
recognized after decades of progress in environmental protection. As a
result, even in the United States, we have rivers that are not suitable
for fishing or swimming, groundwater that we cannot drink,
and urban areas where air pollution poses health risks to children, the
elderly, and other more susceptible individuals.
The environment often can be restored from overuse and degradation from
pollution. The challenge before us is to obtain the knowledge base to
more cost effectively remediate the problems facing us
today from past actions, while building the understanding of our natural
resources necessary to sustainably meet the needs of society in future
generations, and anticipating our vulnerability to future
environmental change.
Increases in population and industrial activities during the last
century are anticipated to continue into the next, and they are affecting
the environment in profound and often irreversible ways. A diverse
range of environmental issues faces us at all scales local, regional,
and global. Scientific and technical information is needed to make sound
future policy and management decisions on issues such
as maintaining world agricultural productivity, stemming the loss of
biodiversity, minimizing the costs of natural disasters, and mitigating
climate change.
"We not only made wise investments in science, but we are using its
results in common-sense, cost-effective ways to protect our communities,
our families, our public health and our environment. Without scientific
research and its application, today would be a very different day--one
with fewer problems avoided, one with less healthy citizens, one with
fewer thriving local economies. We would be spending far more on
handling crises, and doing far less to protect our future and our
children's future."
--Honorable Carol M. Browner, Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Technology, the Key to a
Healthy Economy and a Healthy Environment
Environment technologies are the bridge to a sustainable future, a
bridge that, if well engineered, will facilitate the achievement of our
long-term environmental, energy, and economic goals. As the engine
of economic growth, technology has been responsible for as much as
two-thirds of the increase in our nation's productivity since the
Depression. Today, environmental technologies offer a win-win
opportunity for our nation and the world as a whole: economic growth
through the development and diffusion of environmental technologies will
result in more jobs, and a clean environment will mean a
higher standard of living for ourselves and the generations that follow.
Today, environmental issues largely focus on cleaning up pollution that
is already in existence: building scrubbers that remove sulfur dioxide
before it leaves a smokestack, for example, or cleaning
up waste sites that are already contaminated. Increasingly,
environmental technologies will instead aim
at the avoidance of environmental harm altogether. Energy systems will
shift toward cleaner fuels, and manufacturing firms will increasingly
adopt products and processes designed from the outset to
minimize the use of raw materials and the output of pollutants.
The United States has a large industry dedicated to the avoidance and
solution of environmental problems the largest in the world with $134
billion in total estimated domestic and international
revenues. Revenues for the rest of the global environmental industry are
$161 billion, most of which is concentrated in Japan and Germany. It is
estimated that the global market could grow to roughly $425
billion by 1997. Investment in science and technology today can enable
our nation's industries to successfully compete in this emerging world
market.
Research: Insurance for Economic Growth and Environmental
Sustainability
Through research, we have made significant progress in learning how to
manage our environment and natural resources effectively and to repair
damage from past practices. Success is largely the result of
scientific understanding of complex natural systems. With our growing
knowledge has come recognition of vast knowledge gaps about many
environmental issues and the need to develop
information and data to manage future threats more effectively and
efficiently. Society cannot afford to
repeat the mistakes of the past that now require costly remediation.
There are good reasons to protect the earth . . . It's the safest
and surest way to long-term profitability.
--Paul Allaire (Chairman and CEO, Xerox Corporation)
The challenge of protecting our environment and natural resource base
while enhancing economic growth requires knowledge of a myriad of
complex, scientific phenomena and their interrelationships. Effective and
efficient natural resource management requires policy decisions informed
by accurate information. Scientific research is needed to make informed
judgments on the best use of this country's resources in the context
of a global economy. Although the United States still possesses vast
natural resources, as world consumption rapidly increases, we must
ensure the sustained resource availability necessary for continued
economic growth.
Faced with inadequate information, we often either fail to capture
opportunities to avoid significant problems or overcompensate with
controls and limits, possibly wasting resources on the wrong
problems or responses. In contrast, balanced and informed public policy
must be based upon a sound understanding of problems and potential
solutions; this is an important role of federal scientific
research. Research should provide unbiased knowledge relevant to
critical policy questions. Research must enable us to anticipate
potential problems so that we can prevent, rather than just respond to,
environmental threats. Effective decisions regarding the environment and
natural resources must be informed by knowledge from many fields,
integrated across the natural, social, and economic sciences.
A New Strategy For Research
To meet the challenge for sound and cost-effective management of the
environment and natural resources in the United States, the
Administration has undertaken significant changes in how we plan
and fund federal research. The traditional single agency and single
discipline approach to problem solving is being replaced by a
coordinated, multiagency interdisciplinary approach. Intractable
multidimensional problems, such as those posed by many environmental
issues, can be addressed only by bringing together natural and social
scientists, economists, engineers, and policymakers. Science has often
been decoupled from informed policy decisions; strengthening this
connection is one of our highest priorities.
Principles of Environmental R&D
- Sound environmental and economic policies require a solid scientific
and technical foundation.
- Environment and natural resource R&D should be policy relevant but
not policy driven.
- Research should be anticipatory to prevent and/or mitigate serious
environmental threats.
- A balanced approach to managing the environment and natural
resources requires the complete integration of the social and
natural sciences.
The NSTC, through the CENR, is coordinating decentralized agency
programs to address environmental issues in an integrated manner.
The CENR has seven issue subcommittees: Air Quality; Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Dynamics; Global Change; Natural Disaster Reduction;
Resource Use and Management; Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Solid
Waste; and Water Resources and Coastal and Marine Environments. These
subcommittees coordinate the federal agency programs within their
particular environmental area. In addition, there are three crosscutting
methodological issue subcommittees: Environmental Technology, Social and
Economic Sciences, and Risk Assessment and two working groups:
Observations and Data Management and Ecosystem Research. Coordination
within these subcommittees will eliminate wasteful duplication and
identify gaps in research.
Involving Everyone
Advice has been, and will continue to be, sought from a wide range of
stakeholders from academia, industry, other private-sector groups,
Congress, and state and local governments. Although the research
strategy is designed to be responsive to regulatory time frames and
needs, it is also designed to be anticipatory and to support long-range
problem identification and solving. Federal agencies, through
the CENR, are encouraged to improve the quality and effectiveness of
their R&D programs by increasing the use of external peer and merit
review, increasing the use of open competition to award
funds, and by strengthening their extramural academic research programs
where feasible. In addition, the agencies are actively seeking
international cooperation in many of their programs to leverage U.S.
resources, provide access to research sites worldwide, and assist in
developing international scientific consensus regarding environmental and
resource issues.
Critical steps in building successful R&D programs are improving
education and training in all areas related to understanding our planet
and providing educators at all levels, beginning with kindergarten
through high school, the results of federal environmental programs in
useful forms. By stimulating an early interest in science and the
environment, a future generation of expertise will be assured. A
special effort will be made by all agencies to obtain advice from
educators on their needs and to provide useful data and information products.
The public is the ultimate policymaker. The CENR will enhance the effort
to clarify environmental issues; improve dialogue on risks, costs, and
benefits; and account for the effectiveness of public
decisions regarding the well-being of our citizens.
Sound policies are crafted from a sound scientific base, and a sound
scientific base is a product of scientific debate and consensus building.
We are developing the infrastructure to involve experts from
all stakeholder groups in conducting broad and credible national
scientific and technical assessments of the state of knowledge. These
national assessments will complement international assessments, (e.g.,
those conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Environment
Program and the World Meteorological Organization) that are currently in
place for global environmental issues such as
stratospheric ozone depletion, climate change, and loss of biological
diversity. It is imperative that a consensus be developed that explicitly
acknowledges what is known, what is unknown, and what is uncertain. The
consensus understanding can then be used to project the implications of
alternative policy options and to involve stakeholders and policymakers
in understanding the basis and uncertainties of those projections.
The CENR R&D strategy builds on the Administration's commitment to world
leadership in basic science, mathematics, and engineering and uses
advances in information technology to coordinate the
large numbers of relevant information management systems currently
available. In particular, the National Information Infrastructure (NII)
initiative will enhance the availability of information to
society as a whole. The strength of the U.S. scientific community in
academia, industry, and the federal laboratories must be harnessed to
obtain the scientific and technical understanding needed to
realize the vision of sustainable development. The NII is an essential
tool to empower citizens, businesses, and research institutions with
information (the NII will also help us achieve greater
research efficiencies through the efficient distribution of information).
The CENR Strategy
The CENR strategy is to provide a comprehensive, broad-based research
and development program that addresses current important issues by
providing knowledge and understanding which create
economic opportunity, and protect the environment and health of our
citizens today and in the future. Chapter 2 of this report discusses the
strategy behind the reinvention of federal environmental R&D,
Chapter 3 introduces CENR strategic planning in each of the critical
issue areas, and Chapter 4 describes how areas that crosscut this more
traditional issue-oriented approach to research are being
strategically coordinated to maximize both cost and information efficiency.
The R&D priorities in this strategy address the critical gaps in
scientific knowledge about the most important environmental issues of our
day and provide the information necessary to anticipate issues
of the future. R&D activities outlined in this strategy are designed to
provide the information required for more responsible natural resource
stewardship; more accurate environmental risk assessment; more
cost-effective risk management; and innovative technological solutions
that can make the nation's industries more competitive, while
contributing to environmental quality. Filling these needs can result
in policies that will lead to a better quality of life and save
billions of dollars in environmental management costs. A 10% savings in
national environmental management costs is twice the current
annual level of federal R&D expenditures for environmental research.
When viewed in this context, the nation cannot afford not to invest in
the insurance afforded by a sound environmental research
strategy and its implementation.
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