Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 8 - Environment USA

The folks in Germany had to do it after World War II.  The folks in Russia had to do it after 1989.  Some successfully accomplish it.  For some, it is a condition that lingers and lingers.  After a totalitarian state falls, there is a mess--a mess of law, of courts, of bureaucracy, and especially of finances.

In the midst of fretting about the filibuster, babbling about Bolton, and fulminating about Frist, we need to take a little time to look at the long view.

In 2006, 2008,  or God forbid 2010 or 2012, what must progressive Democrats have in place, ready to implement, when we regain power?  Think FDR's hundred days.

If there is one area of national policy that will need a dramatic reorientation after the Bush administration leaves, it is this.  Let's talk about how to get it right.  This diary deals only with the domestic aspects of environmental action.  A later diary will deal international actions, such as environmental treaties and agreements.

The other diaries in this series are:
Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 1 - Laws

Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 2 - Separation of Powers

Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 3 - Civil Service

Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 4 - Cabinet Departments

Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 5 - Freedom USA

Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 6 - Justice USA

Rebuilding after the Fall of the Bushevist State 7 - Public Safety USA

Nature provides many services to all of life.  The natural environment produces oxygen during photosynthesis.  Various strategies of reproduction and the reality of natural selection maintains biological and genetic diversity.  Environmental communities cleanse the air and water.  The weather recycles, stores, and distributes freshwater globally.  Biological and geological processes regulate the chemical composition of the atmosphere.   The environment maintains the migratory and nursing habitats for wildlife.  A variety of biological processes decompose organic wastes.  Plants and animals sequester and detoxify human and industrial waste.  Various animal species provide pest control.  Natural selection has produced a genetic library of species that can produce food, fibers, pharmaceuticals, and materials for human use.  Plant fix solar energy and convert it into raw materials.  Plants manage soil erosion and control sedimentaion of waterways.  Wetlands prevent floods and regulate runoff.  The upper layers of the atmosphere protect all of life against harmful cosmic radiation.  A variety of oceanographic processes regulate the chemical composition of the oceans. The atmosphere and oceans regulate local and global climate.  Soils permit production of grasslands and contain fertilizer and nutrients.  Various ecological cycles store and recycle nutrients.

An article in Nature estimated the economic value of the services provided by the environment worldwide:
$ 1.3 Trillion - Atmospheric regulation of the gases
$ 2.3 Trillion - Assimilation and processing of waste
$17.0 Trillion - Nutrient flows
$ 2.8 Trillion - Storage and purification of wastes
$20.7 Trillion - Marine coastal environment services
$12.3 Trillion - Terrestrial environmental maintenance services
$ 4.7 Trillion - Forest management
$ 4.7 Trillion - Wetland-provided services
TOTAL $65.8 Trillion of services provided worldwide but not accounted for as services to the economy

In the United States, there are significant ecological communities under threat.  These include:

• California wetlands and riparian communities
  
• Tallgrass prairies
  
• Hawai'ian dry forests
  
• Longleaf pine forests and savannas
  
• Forest wetlands in the Southern US
  
• Ancient Ponderosa Pine forests
  
• Ancient deciduous forests in the Eastern US
  
• California native grasslands
  
• Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forests
  
• Midwestern wetlands
  
• Marine coastal communities
  
• Ancient redwood forests
  
• Ancient cedar forests in the Pacific Northwest
  
• Ancient pine forests of the Great Lakes
  
• Eastern grasslands and savannas
  
• Southern California coastal sage scrub

Federal government environmental activities spent a large amount of the federal budget, but it is split among a variety of departments and agencies - Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, EPA, and others.  The proportion of the federal budget that affects the environment in positive and negative ways is even larger.  Therefore, it is very difficult to determine the exact total budget for federal direct environmental activities or the total budget that impacts the environment.  And the money supports activities often work at cross-purposes, depending on the constituency interested in a particular department's activities.

The federal government owns almost a million acres of public land, around 28% of the total land area of the US.  Most of this land has never been granted to individuals; the rest has been repurchased for specific purposes.

Policy direction for cabinet departments and federal agencies
The policy direction we need to pursue includes the following:

1. Consolidation of environmental departments to permit a single environmental policy, one that favors the long-term sustainability of the economic services that the environment performs for the economy.  Integrating land management, forest service, weather service, geological survey, fish and wildlife protection, mining permits, rangeland leasing, public land acquisition and sales, national parks, environmental law, environmental protection, soil conservation, and agricultural extension into a coordinated program.

2. Strategic management of public lands to provide understanding of what is required to protect each of the biomes, physiographic units, and hydrologic units of the environment in the US.

3. Forecasting and responding to environmental hazards to citizens, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, floods, and droughts.

4. Encouraging the management of economic activities within sound practices for improving the economic sustainability of the local environment.  Viewing environmental jurisdictions in terms of ecological communities and natural geological, hydrologic,and bioecological regions.

5.  Restoration and reclamation of ecological communities that have been significantly reduced or are under threat.

6. Focusing research and development in environmental programs on human impacts, human consequences, long-term sustainability, environmental protection, resource preservation, environmental restoration.

7. Subsidizing the education and training of professionals working in environmental programs through undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.

8. Providing information and educational resources that are well grounded in scientific knowledge to the general public.

9. Protecting the environment and the public from mishandled toxic waste, municipal solid waste, air pollution, water pollution, and radiation.

10. Conducting a high-priority research, development, demonstration, and commercialization program to close the ecological cycles being disrupted by economic activities.

11.  Continuing extensive and detailed, comprehensive and coordinated observation, mapping, monitoring, analysis, and reporting activities about the environment in the US.  Understanding the historical geology of all areas in the US.  Understanding streamflows of every significant stream and the capacities of aquifers.  Identifying locally endangered species and endangered species of national importance.  Identifying the local threats and impacts of invasive species.  Monitoring microclimate and local weather conditions.  Identifying pollution sources and impacts.  Monitoring through satellite and aircraft-borne remote sensing.  Producing and distribution maps through a coordinated publishing program.

12. Devolution of environmental planning, regulation, and enforcement within a framework of national standards and best practices.

13. Preservation of wilderness and mature ecological communities (such as old growth forests, prairies, and coral reefs).

14.  National programs organized by biomes, physiographic regions, and hydrologic units.

15. Public designation, ownership, protection, and interpretation of representative environments and significant natural sites--national parks, national forests, national rivers, national grasslands, national rain forests, national taiga, national tundra, national alpine areas, national wildlife refuges, national seashores, national estuaries, national ocean parks, national marine sanctuaries, and national wilderness.  Current publicly designated lands

16. Environmental rapid-response teams for oil and chemical spills, waste dumping, forest and grassland fires, algal blooms, and invasive species.

17. General mapping and charting of land, rivers, estuaries, and oceans for transportation and navigation.

River keepers alliance

The river keepers alliance program proposes federal designation of the private, non-profit and voluntary river keepers program as a public-voluntary partnership for research and monitoring of the environment within watersheds (USGS "hydrologic units").  The designation of a voluntary non-profit agency as a partner clearly defines the political independence of the river keepers in monitoring the environment at the most local level.  To assist them, the federal government provides the full support of monitoring resources, mapping activites, and agency coordination services of the federal government.  In addition, federal agencies commit to using river keeper data as part of regulation and enforcement actions in protection of the environment.  

The governance is based on a memorandum of agreement between the federal government and each individual river keepers organization, which are independent, non-profit member-supported organizations.  The model for operation is based on existing river keeper efforts, most notably those of the Hudson Riverkeepers organization.   The necessary staff composition to operate genrally follows the patter of the Hudson Riverkeepers staff.  

The federal support role is to provide technical support and monitoring equipment, funding for technical training of volunteers, coordination with federal regulators and prosecutors, and integration of reporting into federal environmental GIS systems.

The volunteers provide the on-site monitoring services, extending the ability of federal environmental agencies to research, gather data, and enforce environmental laws and regulations without large personnel costs.

To understand how extensive this program would be, look at the Hydrologic Units Map.

The USGS maps water and groundwater (hydrologic) resources on the basis of hydrologic units.  USGS Hydrologic Units

 The first level of classification divides the Nation into 21 major geographic areas, or regions. These geographic areas contain either the drainage area of a major river, such as the Missouri region, or the combined drainage areas of a series of rivers, such as the Texas-Gulf region, which includes a number of rivers draining into the Gulf of Mexico. Eighteen of the regions occupy the land areaof the conterminous United States. Alaska is region 19, the Hawaii Islands constitute region 20, and Puerto Rico and other outlying Caribbean areas are region 21. [The regions are shown in figure 1.]

The second level of classification divides the 21 regions into 222 subregions. A subregion includes the area drained by a river system, a reach of a river and its tributaries in that reach, a closed basin(s), or a group of streams forming a coastal drainage area.

The third level of classification subdivides many of the subregions into accounting units. These 352 hydrologic accounting units nest within, or are equivalent to, the subregions.

The fourth level of classification is the cataloging unit, the smallest element in the hierarchy of hydrologic units. [Efforts are underway to add further levels of subdivisions.] A cataloging unit is a geographic area representing part or all of a surface drainage basin, a combination of drainage basins, or a distinct hydrologic feature.

Here is the classification for the Klamath-Northern California Coastal hyrdrographic units:
18    California
1801      Klamath-Northern California Coastal
180101        Northern California Coastal
18010101    Smith
18010102    Mad-Redwood
18010103    Upper Eel
18010104    Middle Fork Eel
18010105    Lower Eel
18010106    South Fork Eel
18010107    Mattole
18010108    Big-Navarro-Garcia
18010109    Gualala-Salmon
18010110    Russian
18010111    Bodega Bay

And here for contrast, is the classification for the Great Salt Lake hydrographic units:
1602    Great Salt Lake
160201      Weber
16020101    Upper Weber
16020102    Lower Weber
160202      Jordan
16020201    Utah Lake
16020202    Spanish Fork
16020203    Provo
16020204    Jordan
160203      Great Salt Lake
16020301    Hamlin-Snake Valleys
16020302    Pine Valley
16020303    Tule Valley
16020304    Rush-Tooele Valleys
16020305    Skull Valley
16020306    Southern Great Salt Lake Desert
16020307    Pilot-Thousand Springs
16020308    Northern Great Salt Lake Desert
16020309    Curlew Valley
16020310    Great Salt Lake

For East Coast folk, here is the classification for the Lower Hudson-Long Island hydrographic units:
203    Lower Hudson-Long Island
20301    Lower Hudson
2030101    Lower Hudson
2030102    Bronx
2030103    Hackensack-Passaic
2030104    Sandy Hook-Staten Island
2030105    Raritan
20302    Long Island
2030201    Northern Long Island
2030202    Southern Long Island

Environmental planning and regulation regions
The Appalachian Regional Commission was the first to define a physiographic "province" as a focus of community and economic development.  The reason for organizing this effort physiographically was the effects the physiography of the Appalachians had on blocking economic development--the difficulty of putting in roads, the difficulties of building airports, the effects of mining, the isolated communities.  The programs of the Appalachian Regional Commission began with a consideration of only the economic effects of environmental degradation-- on tourism, road construction, health, and housing, for example. However, a ecological organization of economic development activities makes a lot of sense.  Why shouldn't planning, zoning regulations, building codes, and subdivision regulations reflect the environmental considerations of the local environment.  Why shouldn't loss of farmland be a concern in the Muskingum River area Ohio or the load on the Colorado River be of concern to planning in Phoenix and Los Angeles?

Physiographic regional commissions

Physiographic regions, like the Appalachian Highlands are often used for federal and state planning jurisdictions.  The Appalachian Regional Commission focused on the economic issues of the Appalachian region.  This commission and similar ones need to be refocused on the sustainability of the economy within the ecological limits of the environment.  The jurisdictions of these commissions need to be redrawn to correspond with physiographic realities, which often have hydrologic and bioregions consequences.

The governance of these commissions at the division, province, and section levels (USGS Physiographic Regions) comprises representatives from the public sector (especially elected officials), private sector, voluntary environmental groups, and local community organizations and citizens.  The commissions themselves make public investment, regulatory and enforcement, environmental research and development, and technical assistance policy.  The technical staff of the commissions include environmental preservation and restoration specialists in soils, botany, zoology, and ecology.  The staff includes environmental planners, capable of tailoring environmental regulations to support the sustainability of the environment within the jurisdiction, and specialists in urban ecology.  The staff also includes people who manage a system of permits and enforcement of the regulations.

In additional to environmental protection and restoration, the commissions provide technical assistance to businesses, focusing on region-specific waste reduction in the commercial and manufacturing sectors.  This programs uses engineering extension service resources of state universities to provide help to small businesses in reducing resource waste.

At the federal level, the following ecoregion commissions are designated as federal agencies, much as the Appalachian Regional Commission is today.

• Laurentian Upland Ecoregion Commission
  
• Atlantic Plain Ecoregion Commission
  
• Appalachian Highlands Ecoregion Commission (and defunding the Appalachian Regional Commission)
  
• Interior Plains Ecoregion Commission
  
• Interior Highlands Ecoregion Commission
  
• Rocky Mountain System Ecoregion Commission
  
• Intermontane Plateau Ecoregion Commission
  
• Pacific Mountain System Ecoregion Commission
  
• Alaskan Ecoregion Commission
  
• Hawai'ian Islands Ecoregion Commission

Action Items:

1. What other new ideas do we need to consider?
   
2. What existing regulations and restrictions do we need to remove?  As one example, it is clear that building codes need major overhauling.
   
3. What existing subsidies that promote resource waste do we need to eliminate?
   
4. How do we account in financial statements and cost accounting for the services that the environment is providing for free?
   
5. What is the role of the national trails system (AT, Pacific Crest, and so on)?

•  I'm sorry. I know you mean well....

  ...but FIRST you have to kick the bastards out.
  And if you spend all your time indulging in wishful utopian emoting about your rosy future... you'll never schieve STEP ONE.

  Bushand his gansters have at their disposal themost powerful military ever created, a totally supine opinion forming media, a cowed population fearful of EVERYTHING - Muslims, the authorities, losing their jobs etc.

  Hitler didn't just leave office in a peaceful election.... did he?

  And who will come to YOUR rescue? While you wax lyrical....

  Final point. Whilst I come here daily to see how your spirits are keeping up, and am glad to see some optimists out there.... there is ONE MORE THING that really worries me.

  Namely: The widely held assumption that some regular political process will put YOUR TEAM, the democrats, back in power.

  It won't. They are part of the problem.

  Once again. Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news. Nice diary..... otherwise. Lots of words. The odd bit of alliteration. Nice layout. Good grammar, too.

  Any brownshirt reading it would laugh their head off.
  

  by jpwillis on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 11:32:06 AM PDT

  •  i agree

    repubs are a menace and positive policy options put forward by the Dems will not bring about another Dem majority...what will get us there is challenging them and getting in their faces when they call us traitors, challenge them to a duel if that's what it takes...

    ..let me know, I will go die fighting those menace to the world pigs in a duel any day.

    by The Gnostic on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 11:44:33 AM PDT

    •  So when we regain power

      So when we regain power we do not know what to do with it?

      When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, he brought with him a clear set of policy directions that had been developed by the Heritage Foundation.

      Are we going to be reduced to bitchin' and moanin' about Bush and not have a conversation about what we are going to do.

      It's not frigging optimism.  And it is not something to campaign on.  It is a conversation about governing.

      We can do more than one thing at a time, you know.

      by TarheelDem on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 11:51:04 AM PDT

  •  You get a 1

    for your snide attitude.

    by TarheelDem on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 11:46:37 AM PDT

    •  Like I said. I'm sorry.

      But it's a "conversation about governing" that has no grounding in reality.

      Unless you totally expose HOW and WHY these fascists effected a COUP in USA, and the subsequent "Reichstag Fire" event that facilitated their global hegemonic ambitions....

      ....you'll be here on a KOS V.6.5 site 2009 kvetching about Jeb, how he stole the vote in California State with the Governator's help....and the state of the war in Iran.. and the price of gas being 5$ a gallon.

      This is going to get MUCH uglier before it gets better.

      Good luck anyhow.

      BTW - I subscribe to the theory of social cycles (that lies behind Ravi Batra's books.... that sez there are 4 groups.

      Intellectuals - people who use alliteration in wordy posts.

      Acquisitors - people who love money.....

      Warriors. Army, First Responders, Cops etc.

      And the rest of the peasants.

      http://www.nogw.com/articles/sarkars_social_cycles.html

      " AS TIME PASSES, INCREASING AMOUNTS OF WEALTH END UP IN THE HANDS OF THE
      RICH, and the acquisitive era gradually drifts toward the lawlessness
      of the laborer age. Eventually things become so wretched that angry warriors
      and intellectuals rise in rebellion ( Indonesia, and soon to be Russia .--J2 )
      and with the help of laborers bring an end to the age of acquisitors. Soon
      afterward, the rebellious warriors take over and the civilization moves afresh
      on the track of social cycles."

      Time to start canvassing the Big Labour and the Military... if you intellectuals want to kick out the rethugs.

      by jpwillis on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 12:18:22 PM PDT

  •  OK, now to substance

    Yes, first you have to kick the bastards out and they do not go willingly.  In both of my examples, the transition was not through elections.  I am not so optimistic as not to understand how much power the Bush administration has gotten for itself.

    If this is wistful utopian emoting, a lot of the current federal budget for the environment goes to wistful utopian emoting.

    The widely held assumption that some regular political process will put YOUR TEAM, the democrats, back in power.

    So who is your team?  And I didn't know that we were talking about team sports instead of national policy.  I guess for you, winning is the be-all and end-all of existence.

    Any brownshirt reading it would laugh their head off.
    That would be you, right?

    by TarheelDem on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 12:19:39 PM PDT

    •  Calm down

      I don't have "a team" here. I'm British. Living in Thailand. Worried as any sane person ought to be that THIS TIME ROUND, there is no greater power to remove the fascists who have their hands on the levers of power. as did you know who. And it took 20,000,000 Russians to defeat it the last time this happened.

      Just because the current "budget" is an absurdity, doesn't mean your shopping list isn't.

      I have no brownshirts in my closet. All blue. And no. I'm not laughing.

      BTW - how, precisely, do you plan to remove them?  The voting machines are fixed. Some other form of people power? A mass blog attack?

      Snide humour apart - in one respect the blogs are a menace. Allowing as they do the intellectuals to let off steam. When what they ought to be doing requires at a minimum some baseball bats.

      Go RE-Read my post and see if you can respond less hysterically to my well-meaning observation. Your thin-skinned retort entirely misses the point.

      ONE MORE TIME - the crux of the problem.....

      You all have to go back to the Original Sin. And look that squarely in the eye. We're dealing with some inretrievably EVIL people here. That Sin?

      911 of course.

      by jpwillis on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 12:40:25 PM PDT

      •  look, jackass

        we all know this, and more than a little energy on this blog and elsewhere have been devoted towards just the thing you're talking about. i would say that the vast majority of our discussions (however impractical and polyannaish) in the blogosphere revolve around how to remove these facists from power. the problem is that if we don't think ahead as well to what we want to do once we actually regain power, any future success will more likely as not end up either a) aimless and confused drifting, having not be fully thought out our goals, or worse yet, b) coopted by the powers that got us into this mess in the first place, a la clinton's presidency.

        without this kind of dreaming and brainstorming about what we want to accomplish politically, any future victory will be hollow. we can walk and chew gum at the same time here at dKos. it is a pity that you cannot.

        by wu ming on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 01:13:34 PM PDT

        •  Wu Ming. Nie Hao?

          You, too, make the assumption that I don't "get it".

          I do. Only too painfully.

          But in your ire and haste to fire off a "bon mot" of righteous retribution, you also miss my deeper point. I had two. One stated overtly, one not. But nevertheless implicit.

          Namely that the shopping list of environmental issues, well thought through etc. admirable... etc. will probably be THE LEAST OF YOUR PROBLEMS, even if you can't find a way to kick the neocons out....PDQ.

          By all means walk and chew gum at the same time. Enviro-friendly gum if it suits you.

          But better to plan on recovering at a minimum.... from a total global economic collapse brought on my NeoCon War-Unlimited, or at worst.... the after effects of a nuclear weapon exchange with New York wiped off the face of the planet... rather than this delusional wishlist.

          It's a question of priorities.

          tīngdedǒngma?

          by jpwillis on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 01:32:12 PM PDT

          •  disruption of discussion is trolling

            you offer nothing except hopelessness, and a call to end discusison because none of it really matters. if you had bothered to read through tarheeldem's series of diaries, you would have realised that what these discussions are for is to constructively trying to work out how we would, if granted the opportunity, crawl our way out of the dark hole of the present and start to put things back together again. this nihilistic "who the fuck cares, it'll all come to ruin" is worthless, because it discourages people from planning, and dreaming, and getting out the mode of passive reaction to the ills of the world. if you cannot add anything to the discussion, then fuck off. we have acknowledged your point, and there are a million other diaries that your comments might be more appropriate in. even better, start your own diary, and lecture us all on how the world will come to naught in a blaze of nuclear fire and an oil crash, and have your discussion there, where it ould be on-topic, and thus constructive. if you persist in disrupting this discussion, however, i will troll-rate the hell out of your remarks. you have been warned.

            by wu ming on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 02:07:36 PM PDT

            •  TaMaDe Wu Ming.

              I am well within my rights to point out what a pointless exercise this is.....

              ...given the likely starting point, economically AND environmentally is most likely to be Far Removed from even your worst case expectations.

              If anything..... some of the prescriptions are too mild.

              One of my wishlist items was a new bicycle. A Pinarello.

              I have no car. So I'm doing My Low Impact Bit. Thanks.

              I presently own a Cannondale bike. Damn thing has an american flag on it.

              by jpwillis on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 02:25:50 PM PDT

      •  More calm now

        Because you are British and living in Thailand, let me update you on some of the hidden realities of the US.

        (1) We are starting from a base of 59,028,111 Americans who voted for John Kerry.  And most of the ones that I meet are still very angry.
        (2) Bureaucratic conservatism in the federal civil service has frustrated a lot of idiotic things that the Bushies wanted to do.  It's not to the point of passive resistance (the good soldier Schweik dynamic) but it is there.
        (3) People in areas that Bush won are beginning to wake up and ask what's going on.  You can see it in the opinion polls.  I see it in my interaction with my neighbors.  We're a long way from being out of the woods, but there is movement.
        (4) Elections in the US are controlled by local boards of elections supervised by state-level Secretary of State or Board of Elections.  The leverage that individual citizens can exert to make their board of elections honest is not insignificant.  Secretaries of State are mostly elected officials.  These formerly ignored state offices (as well as attorney generals) are now on the radar.  The races will be competitive.  Watch Florida.  Watch Ohio.  Even if Republicans win as governor, there is a higher likelihood that Democrats might pick up the Secretary of State office.

        Oh, and about my shopping list? Of course it's an absurdity.  Until you look at the web sites of the US federal departments and see what they say they are doing.  And it is intended to be a creative absurdity, not to be dismissed with a single statement but to provoke more detailed discussion.

        About baseball bats: as satisfying and testosterone pumping as that idea is, it is less practical than my shopping list.  True, the National Guard is tied up in Iraq.  But there a quite a  few more gun nuts here than in the UK and no one wants to give them an excuse to prematurely decide which side they are on.

        by TarheelDem on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 01:50:01 PM PDT

•  This is amazing

  Thanks for this.  We need it.  We have to have this kind of vision.  

  I remember reading in Seven Pillars of Wisdom about the chaos that occurred afterDamascus was captured by the Turks.  They had to take care of everything from getting water running and dealing with the hospitals to dealing with the creation of a new government amidst piles of bickering.

  No, we aren't going to win this one easily.  But we need long term thinging, because neither are we going to win it absolutely.  Yes we have to make a broad based movement now, and yes, voting machine reform is of great urgency.  But we can't be so narrowly focused that we can't even think about the future.

  I'm upset this is not getting more attention and I am more upset about the other comments on the thread.

  Hey guys, why don't you go harp on people at espn.com about watching wimbeldon and ignoring the world's burning, rather than lambasting this guy's good work.

  Anyway, I've got this one bookmarked.

  cheers!

  by MediaRevolution on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 12:27:05 PM PDT

•  I'm not saying the shopping list isn't laudable.

  I, too, have a shopping list.

  Ferrari
  Pinarello (Look it up)
  Riva Ariston (Look it up)
  Grand Piano

  etc.

  But at present no wherewithal to turn it into a reality.

  :(

  by jpwillis on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 12:46:17 PM PDT

•  this is some good brainstorming

  in my mind, the four pillars of any new environmental policy have got to be

  1. a complete reversal of the mission and policies of the department of agriculture (and within it, the dept. of forestry), so that the rules, regulations and programs favor smaller-scale, sustainable, climactically-appropriate, biodiverse, non-polluting, organic farmers, and start to make soviet commune-scale corporate agribusiness unprofitable. agriculture in its current state is driving farmers out of business at the same time as it is seriously harming the environment through water waste and pesticide and fertilizer runoff, and monoculture cropping ill-suited to the climate (to say nothing of GMOs). tile the rules of the game towards the little guy, and the environment will benefit.

  additionally, while this would not likely be a publicized goal, starting to explore the details of a transition to a less-oil intensive agriculture in preparation of peak oil would be a wise use of funds as well, perhaps starting biodiesel production/distribution seed programs dedicated to farm machinery and produce transportation, to blunt an oil price spike's impact of food production and prices.

  finally, pursuing a trust- and monopoly-busting legal strategy against packers, mills, and canneries might not be a bad idea, since the concentration of management in these value-added stages of agriculture allow those corporations to use their monopsony to drive producer incomes down, which hurts actual farmers, ranchers and loggers.

  2. a rededication of the department of the interior from facilitating private resource exploitation to watershed and ecosystem protection. your diary gets into this in pretty good detail, so i won't duplicate it..

  3. solving the sprawl issue both in terms of trying to limit sprawling low-density growth, but perhaps more importantly by investing heavily in mass transit infrastructure (dept. of transportation) and in a new generation of livable high- and medium density public housing in urban and suburban cores (HUD) to solve the underlying forces driving people further and further out into the exurbs. solve the problem of affordable housing, and make cities and small town centers livable, and take commuting traffic off the roads, and our problems with pollution, oil use and sprawl will be lessened to the point where controls on exurban growth won't invite near as much of a backlash.

  4. energy independence, as per the apollo program.

  by wu ming on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 01:08:10 PM PDT

  •  Exactly the sort of comments

    This is exactly the sort of comments that I was hoping to get from this series of diaries.  Thanks.

    Reversal of mission of Department of Agriculture and interior--a biggie.  This also applies to a later diary I have planned on the cabinet departments that relate to the economy.

    Sprawl, which really has to do with reducing the waste of soil resources, which do more than just provide a matrix for crops.  Exactly right, and the housing issue has to do with how economic subsidies are structured--such as those for highways and mortgages--and also building codes (see above).  Part of the reason for the commissions idea was to put this issue at a local level in a context that sought solutions.  On oil use, resource use in general will be addressed in the planned diary on the economy as will energy independence.

    by TarheelDem on Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 01:31:04 PM PDT