Environmental Justice/Biodiversity

[Tom Chao <tchao@mail.arc.nasa.gov>]

Katherine Carlitz' summary on collaborative processes included
the following paragraph:

"It's crucial to maintain a balance of power among the participants in a collaboration.  The labor-management model, being adversarial, works poorly for environmental protection.  Instead, collaborations should recognize all parties at the table as near-equals."

The 'EJ' concept, I think, is that the government monopoly agency should be required to consider social and economic factors with respect to environmental regulations.  Interestingly, the dilemma faced by labor then could then be said to be a root problem in biodiversity conservation and pollution prevention under both regulatory goverment agencies and the free market system.  And government agencies or monopolies could be implicated historically in this problem based on 'EJ' theory.  Realistically then, a monopoly would not be the solution.  Perhaps, the OSHA-EPA should form an alliance with respect to labor to address their mutual problem, and perhaps a biodiversity [mitigation] banking system should be set up.

  A typical model of the goverment agency is as follows:  The government agency contracts out over 50%.  The contractors tend to work under the definition of military technolgy programs.  The agency is the core center of the national Superfund Cleanup Sites and the state voluntary cleanup sites in that local region.  The agency requests to expand its facilities in the near future, and its site hosts the last remaining wildlife 'refuge' for the local community.  The population of the surrounding local community has expanded to its boundaries.

   Then, it is clear with this hypothetical model, that the government agency is a polluter also.  So, the problem of the monopoly is critical to the problem of environmental protection.  In the real world, if the government subsidizes and protects industry in a certain way, it will block innovation in 'green technology.'  And when the government makes a 'late' move to become a 'green organization' it will again cause problems in the economy by invoking a double jeopardy, 'due-process' violation in moving in a heavy handed manner.

   So, in theory, the states should have sovereign power in this kind of problem with the protection of sovereign immunity.  However, the problem is more difficult then that since there is the conflict between labor and the environment.  Again, note that 'EJ' is grassroots, whereas the 'biodiversity' has a proprietary sense, ie intellectual property of the science community.

   In the news, I read today that there was a plan 'to soften [the former] administration plan for cleaning up America's waterways by controlling runoff from farms, cities and other sources of water pollution.'  The Environmental Law and Policy Journal, King School of Law, U.C., Davis publishes the Environs-- Environmental Law and Policy Journal bi-annually.  One article I've come across has the student attorney considering coupling  the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit programs with the ESA process. (geospheric-biospheric science)

   Todays GREENLines Issue #1424, Endangered Species Coalition, has an article that 'Interior Secretary Norton determined that a petition by Klamath irrigation districts to invoke a federal panel empowered to "overrule provisions of the ESA to protect vital human economic interests" was not warranted says the NY times 7/14 [and in] rejecting the petition, Norton  cited the need to work for a "long-term solution, so we do not find ourselves struggling each year" with the chronic water shortages that have plagued the region and noted that the "federal government was preparing to provide the farmers with $20 million in financial aid, as a short-term solution."'[!]

   I read about the Bennett v. Spear, 1997 and Friends of the Earth, Inc v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, 2000 Supreme Court Decisions regarding environmental standing and environmental standing with respect to economic loss under the ESA's citizen suit clause.  
  
   I feel that the Court should be modernized to allow for coherency of public mandates--ie, on 'EJ'/biodiversity.