Robert W Hahn
A Recipe for Sustained Environmental Growth
Thu Sep 29, 2005 15:43
64.140.159.148
A Recipe for Sustained Environmental Growth
Robert W Hahn
American Enterprise Institute and Carnegie Mellon University
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg14n2i.html
Barring a worldwide calamity, environmental issues will continue to vie for center stage over the next several years. We are continually besieged by information suggesting that environmental problems are of catastrophic proportions-do not eat apples sprayed with Alar, hold the Perrier, stop using disposable diapers, recycle newspapers. With this steady bombardment of dos and don'ts, it is small wonder that consumers are overwhelmed.
Unfortunately, our political leaders do little to help the situation. While they seem quite effective at heightening our awareness of the perplexing array of environmental issues that may require attention, our leaders are less effective at devising innovative solutions to those problems in a way that promotes economic growth.
The critical challenge is to develop sound policies that will facilitate continued environmental and economic improvement-that is, "sustained growth." Sustained growth can be attained only with a strong, growing economy that judiciously addresses environmental concerns. The recent experience with the command-and-control approaches embraced by the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe serves as a stark reminder that this model did not promote economic growth or environmental improvement. Indeed, EPA Administrator Reilly has cogently argued that the key to environmental success lies in taking advantage of "the green thumb of capitalism." I agree. My purpose here is to spell out my view of Administrator Reilly's vision along with some of the potential challenges in promoting environmental and economic growth.
Successful solutions to environmental problems can be achieved by taking the following five not-so- simple steps:
* Prioritize environmental problems. Politicians have been reluctant to separate important from trivial environmental problems. They have taken the easy way out by suggesting that all problems are important. Our environmental expenditures could be spent much more wisely if a concerted effort was made to separate the environmental wheat from the chaff. To EPA's credit, the agency has begun to develop an information base that would help prioritize environmental risk. A critical question is whether such information will be used in actual policy formulation.
* Define judicious objectives. Defining judicious objectives requires comparing the costs and benefits of various policies, something that the environmental community generally eschews for fear that some regulations would be rolled back. If the goal is to stimulate sustainable growth, however, we must devise a framework that includes both environmental and economic costs and benefits incurred by the general public, especially where sizeable expenditures are involved.
* Develop innovative approaches for problem solving. To their credit, both Congress and the administration have recently become more supportive of new "incentive-based" approaches to environmental regulation. These approaches encourage producers as well as consumers to search for innovative environmental solutions. The basic idea is to create property rights for environmental goods so that individuals, businesses, and governments have a continuous incentive to incorporate the cost of pollution into their everyday decisions. The design of these approaches has been nicely laid out in several recent studies, including Project '88, a report cosponsored by the late Sen. John Heinz and Sen. Timothy Wirth on market-based solutions to environmental problems and an ongoing EPA study which identifies a mind-boggling assortment of potential applications for economists' tools. Notwithstanding the temptation to support a full-employment act for economists, we should not become so immersed in the application of tools that we lose sight of the importance of choosing the right problem. We are in very real danger of taking a fast train to the wrong station, as evidenced by some recent proposals for using markets to achieve mandatory recycling targets, which themselves may be undesirable.
* Implement innovative approaches for problem solving. Writing about new ideas for promoting environmental innovation is one thing; implementing them is quite another. The recent Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 contain a pathbreaking market-based proposal to control acid rain by reducing sulfur dioxide emissions by 10 million tons. Utilities and other industrial sources are given the flexibility to choose how best to achieve the required reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions. Critics of this legislation suggest that even in this case, the benefits from such reductions are speculative and the costs are substantial. There is widespread agreement, however, that this market-based approach has the potential to save as much as $2 billion annually over more traditional technology-forcing approaches.
* Learn from our successes and failures. Program evaluation is critical if we are to make progress toward ensuring sustainable growth. We think we know how innovative environmental approaches work in theory. We are much less certain how they will work in practice. Thus, there should be a continuing assessment of the efficacy of all regulatory tools as well as the selection of particular goals. Given our incomplete understanding of complex environmental processes, we are doomed to failure if we become prisoners of the status quo.
This five-step recipe for sustainable growth is currently little more than a pipe dream. The good news is that we are beginning to develop the kind of information that is needed to help ensure that we are on a path that fosters sustainable growth. While Administrator Reilly has been instrumental in encouraging the agency to rank risks and develop new innovative approaches, there remains a curious omission of costs in most discussions of environmental policies. For obvious reasons, politicians prefer to highlight "win-win" situations, which help both the economy and the environment. While such silver bullets are attractive, the search for constructive environmental solutions should not end there. Hard environmental policy choices that involve significant economic and social tradeoffs must inevitably be made. The remaining question is whether information comparing the benefits and costs of these policies will be used in making key environmental decisions.
With few exceptions, this need for balance currently lies beyond the grasp of the political process. Most politicians and environmental advocates continue to perpetuate the myth that industry can absorb whatever environmental costs are imposed by government without passing them on. Voters, however, are not so easily deceived, as the recent defeat of California's Big Green initiative made clear. They recognized that the public will inevitably pay, one way or the other, until someone invents a free lunch.
Sustainable growth relies on the presumption that a healthy environment and economy are inextricably intertwined. In many cases recent environmental policy has lost sight of that link. The way to rectify the balance is for the government to focus on big picture problems-to choose the right regulatory tool for the right problem and then to leave it to the ingenuity of the individual to help preserve our heritage for generations to come.
Regulation is published four times a year by the Cato Institute. Editorial and business offices are located at 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20001. For subscription information, please write to Circulation Department, Cato Institute, same address, or call (202) 842-0200.
-----------------
2 email letter sent to CEO of Dyncorp International
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DYNCORP-letters.htm
We all fed up with with Mr. Robert Hahn. DynCorp may win the new contract but you will not man it up if you do not get rid of Mr. Robert Hahn. We will not put up with the Status Quo any longer. This man has intimated, threatened, harassed and lied to us all, long enough. If he acted this way on any US based contract your company would be the target of multiple lawsuits. He has also misled the KAF and US government contract representatives on the overall condition of their Air Force to ensure that DynCorp meet the mission capable percentages required of the current contract. He acts like this in Kuwait because he knows he is God and we have no recourse against him. We can not bring any complaints about the contract or working conditions to him without the threat of being fired. He favorite saying is: If you don't like it just give me your passport and I will send you home. When he recently found out that many DynCorp employees had been contacted by the Kay-Boeing team he threatened them directly in the morning maintenance meeting. He implied that he might not give these people what they are entitled to in their contracts, because they were not loyal to him. He has done absolutely nothing for us in the last 8 years, so why would any of us be loyal to him!!!!! I dare you to find a single employee who likes or respects him as a site manager or much less a person. He cares more about his golf course project than us. We all know he has spent company time and used the APO mailing privileges for his golf course project. He also has come to work with the smell of alcohol on his breath, yet he preached to us after a DynCorp employee was arrested on drug charges, To either clean up or clear out. We all have many grievances against him and they are too numerous to do justice to in this email. We all believe DynCorp is a good company but Robert Hahn's DynCorp is not what we all expect from a company with such a good and long history in the Defense industry. We all have had to sign many forms from DynCorp about ethics and other workplace related matters. Did Robert Hahn also have to sign and abide by those promises? Many of us have invested many years of our lives with DynCorp, and without people like us there would not be a DynCorp. We all hope that you will accept our invitation to meet privately with us in Kuwait.
2 email letter sent to CEO of Dyncorp International
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DYNCORP-letters.htm
Robert W Hahn
American Enterprise Institute and Carnegie Mellon University
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg14n2i.html
Barring a worldwide calamity, environmental issues will continue to vie for center stage over the next several years. We are continually besieged by information suggesting that environmental problems are of catastrophic proportions-do not eat apples sprayed with Alar, hold the Perrier, stop using disposable diapers, recycle newspapers. With this steady bombardment of dos and don'ts, it is small wonder that consumers are overwhelmed.
Unfortunately, our political leaders do little to help the situation. While they seem quite effective at heightening our awareness of the perplexing array of environmental issues that may require attention, our leaders are less effective at devising innovative solutions to those problems in a way that promotes economic growth.
The critical challenge is to develop sound policies that will facilitate continued environmental and economic improvement-that is, "sustained growth." Sustained growth can be attained only with a strong, growing economy that judiciously addresses environmental concerns. The recent experience with the command-and-control approaches embraced by the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe serves as a stark reminder that this model did not promote economic growth or environmental improvement. Indeed, EPA Administrator Reilly has cogently argued that the key to environmental success lies in taking advantage of "the green thumb of capitalism." I agree. My purpose here is to spell out my view of Administrator Reilly's vision along with some of the potential challenges in promoting environmental and economic growth.
Successful solutions to environmental problems can be achieved by taking the following five not-so- simple steps:
* Prioritize environmental problems. Politicians have been reluctant to separate important from trivial environmental problems. They have taken the easy way out by suggesting that all problems are important. Our environmental expenditures could be spent much more wisely if a concerted effort was made to separate the environmental wheat from the chaff. To EPA's credit, the agency has begun to develop an information base that would help prioritize environmental risk. A critical question is whether such information will be used in actual policy formulation.
* Define judicious objectives. Defining judicious objectives requires comparing the costs and benefits of various policies, something that the environmental community generally eschews for fear that some regulations would be rolled back. If the goal is to stimulate sustainable growth, however, we must devise a framework that includes both environmental and economic costs and benefits incurred by the general public, especially where sizeable expenditures are involved.
* Develop innovative approaches for problem solving. To their credit, both Congress and the administration have recently become more supportive of new "incentive-based" approaches to environmental regulation. These approaches encourage producers as well as consumers to search for innovative environmental solutions. The basic idea is to create property rights for environmental goods so that individuals, businesses, and governments have a continuous incentive to incorporate the cost of pollution into their everyday decisions. The design of these approaches has been nicely laid out in several recent studies, including Project '88, a report cosponsored by the late Sen. John Heinz and Sen. Timothy Wirth on market-based solutions to environmental problems and an ongoing EPA study which identifies a mind-boggling assortment of potential applications for economists' tools. Notwithstanding the temptation to support a full-employment act for economists, we should not become so immersed in the application of tools that we lose sight of the importance of choosing the right problem. We are in very real danger of taking a fast train to the wrong station, as evidenced by some recent proposals for using markets to achieve mandatory recycling targets, which themselves may be undesirable.
* Implement innovative approaches for problem solving. Writing about new ideas for promoting environmental innovation is one thing; implementing them is quite another. The recent Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 contain a pathbreaking market-based proposal to control acid rain by reducing sulfur dioxide emissions by 10 million tons. Utilities and other industrial sources are given the flexibility to choose how best to achieve the required reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions. Critics of this legislation suggest that even in this case, the benefits from such reductions are speculative and the costs are substantial. There is widespread agreement, however, that this market-based approach has the potential to save as much as $2 billion annually over more traditional technology-forcing approaches.
* Learn from our successes and failures. Program evaluation is critical if we are to make progress toward ensuring sustainable growth. We think we know how innovative environmental approaches work in theory. We are much less certain how they will work in practice. Thus, there should be a continuing assessment of the efficacy of all regulatory tools as well as the selection of particular goals. Given our incomplete understanding of complex environmental processes, we are doomed to failure if we become prisoners of the status quo.
This five-step recipe for sustainable growth is currently little more than a pipe dream. The good news is that we are beginning to develop the kind of information that is needed to help ensure that we are on a path that fosters sustainable growth. While Administrator Reilly has been instrumental in encouraging the agency to rank risks and develop new innovative approaches, there remains a curious omission of costs in most discussions of environmental policies. For obvious reasons, politicians prefer to highlight "win-win" situations, which help both the economy and the environment. While such silver bullets are attractive, the search for constructive environmental solutions should not end there. Hard environmental policy choices that involve significant economic and social tradeoffs must inevitably be made. The remaining question is whether information comparing the benefits and costs of these policies will be used in making key environmental decisions.
With few exceptions, this need for balance currently lies beyond the grasp of the political process. Most politicians and environmental advocates continue to perpetuate the myth that industry can absorb whatever environmental costs are imposed by government without passing them on. Voters, however, are not so easily deceived, as the recent defeat of California's Big Green initiative made clear. They recognized that the public will inevitably pay, one way or the other, until someone invents a free lunch.
Sustainable growth relies on the presumption that a healthy environment and economy are inextricably intertwined. In many cases recent environmental policy has lost sight of that link. The way to rectify the balance is for the government to focus on big picture problems-to choose the right regulatory tool for the right problem and then to leave it to the ingenuity of the individual to help preserve our heritage for generations to come.
Regulation is published four times a year by the Cato Institute. Editorial and business offices are located at 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20001. For subscription information, please write to Circulation Department, Cato Institute, same address, or call (202) 842-0200.
-----------------
2 email letter sent to CEO of Dyncorp International
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DYNCORP-letters.htm
We all fed up with with Mr. Robert Hahn. DynCorp may win the new contract but you will not man it up if you do not get rid of Mr. Robert Hahn. We will not put up with the Status Quo any longer. This man has intimated, threatened, harassed and lied to us all, long enough. If he acted this way on any US based contract your company would be the target of multiple lawsuits. He has also misled the KAF and US government contract representatives on the overall condition of their Air Force to ensure that DynCorp meet the mission capable percentages required of the current contract. He acts like this in Kuwait because he knows he is God and we have no recourse against him. We can not bring any complaints about the contract or working conditions to him without the threat of being fired. He favorite saying is: If you don't like it just give me your passport and I will send you home. When he recently found out that many DynCorp employees had been contacted by the Kay-Boeing team he threatened them directly in the morning maintenance meeting. He implied that he might not give these people what they are entitled to in their contracts, because they were not loyal to him. He has done absolutely nothing for us in the last 8 years, so why would any of us be loyal to him!!!!! I dare you to find a single employee who likes or respects him as a site manager or much less a person. He cares more about his golf course project than us. We all know he has spent company time and used the APO mailing privileges for his golf course project. He also has come to work with the smell of alcohol on his breath, yet he preached to us after a DynCorp employee was arrested on drug charges, To either clean up or clear out. We all have many grievances against him and they are too numerous to do justice to in this email. We all believe DynCorp is a good company but Robert Hahn's DynCorp is not what we all expect from a company with such a good and long history in the Defense industry. We all have had to sign many forms from DynCorp about ethics and other workplace related matters. Did Robert Hahn also have to sign and abide by those promises? Many of us have invested many years of our lives with DynCorp, and without people like us there would not be a DynCorp. We all hope that you will accept our invitation to meet privately with us in Kuwait.
2 email letter sent to CEO of Dyncorp International
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DYNCORP-letters.htm
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