Public policy is defined by Webster’s as the “The basic policy or set of policies forming the foundation of public laws, especially such policy not yet formally enunciated.” The United States Government has many policies in the area of the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in 1970 to help identify environmental problems in our nation, and to set policy on how to deal with those problems. Yet, with so much money spent by the government to deal with problems with the environment, it must be noted that problems still exist, even within the bureaucracy that was meant to help in the first place.
During the presidential campaign of the last election, an issue arose concerning the “energy crisis” that was driving gasoline and oil prices up throughout our country. Vice President Al Gore supported President Clinton’s ideology of waiting for the proper legislative initiatives to pass through Congress, and when the situation merited, provide some limited releases of oil from the national oil reserve. Candidate George W. Bush, on the other had, favored drilling in the government protected lands of Alaska to find future oil reserves so that America would no longer be so dependent on foreign oil. The problem with Bush’s plan, according to Gore, was that this could be devastating to the environment of the scarcely populated Alaskan wilderness. Regardless of the political, legal or moral implications of such drilling, there are problems dealing with multiple types of rationality in this issue.
In his book “Reason in Society,” Paul Diesing describes six major types of rationality. These include technical, economic, social, legal, political and ecological rational. It is easy to comprehend that this environmental issue involves each one of these types of rationality.
First of all, the technical rationality is demonstrated through the question of whether or not oil can be found in Alaska, and if it could, would there be enough present to really make a dramatic difference for the consumer? It must also be considered as to how this drilling may effect the environment of this area. Technical rationality also questions whether or not there are ways to drill that can possibly leave the natural resources of this area with as little human interference as possible. Engineers and scientists can try to come up with ways to create a process with which the area will not be devastated by the involvement with man in those areas.
My opponents 1st/2nd/3rd contention was the drilling in the ANWR will harm the environment. This is absolutely incorrect. Lets put this into perspective, the ANWR is 19.6 million acres out of Alaska, which is 240 million acres. The proposed drilling in the coastal plain will be 1.5 million acres. Now, with the new technology we have today, we can tap into the 1.5 million acre oil supply with an oil area that is 2000 acres. 2000 acres is 1/10000 or .0001% of the ANWR. 1.5 million acres of oil and a minuscule possibility of harming at max, 1/10000, I repeat 1/10000th if the ANWR. (Arctic Power)
The environment needs protecting because even before the drilling started hunting was rapidly decreasing the amount of animals in the area. So if drilling occured in Alaska the animal count would go down even more. Drilling is gonna need space, and because Alaska is a mountained and woodland area they will have to make space by destroying trees etc. Destroying trees means destroying animals’ homes. According to document E ‘just look 60 miles west to Prudhoe bay- an oil complex that has turned 1,000 square miles of fragile tundra into a sprawling industrial zone containing, 1,500 miles of roads and pipes’. Also the document states that the would be
Although industrialization revolutionizes America, it possesses devastating effects on nature. In 2003, The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was threatened by plans of oil drilling and the construction of roads and pipelines. In response, former United States President Jimmy Carter crafted a speech, found in the foreword to book written by Subhankar Banerjee, with the intent of protecting the reserve. By utilizing diction, imagery and pathos, President Carter was effective in convincing America to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The debate on drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is an intensely debated topic of America today. Proponents of the oil drilling believe that the oil in the refuge will solve the high prices of gasoline, but they don’t even know what amount of oil the refuge holds and the amount of oil that we use every year in the United States. The drilling in ANWR will severely damage the wildlife refuge and its environment. The oil would take years to access with drilling and so far there has been no proof that the drilling would actually produce enough oil to sustain our needs as a country. Also a reason to not drill in the refuge is because the reserve is being saved for when our country is in a national emergency, or until when there is no oil left because of its rapid decline in availability. How did you feel when just about a year ago there was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? That event killed the environment in the Gulf and millions of innocent animals died to our screw up, if the drilling in ANWR is allowed we could be faced with these same exact circumstances again. These are the reasons that the oil drilling in the national refuge should not be allowed.
The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA is the result of a 1970 executive order by President Richard Nixon for the purpose of protecting the environment of the United States through regulation on business and citizens. Public opinion on the Environmental Protection Agency has been divided fairly evenly across the population of the United States as of recently, as compared to the widespread public concern of the 50’s and 60’s that led to the agency’s creation. Recently the agency has come under scrutiny for its contributions of millions of dollars in grants to researchers in order to hide the potential trade off of its actions in order to further the agency’s agenda. The EPA’s ever-expanding regulation could end up harming more than it actually
Over the last thirty years the United States has been faced with the problem of dependence on foreign countries for oil and the tight control that these exercise on the energy policies and economics of America. Many of these instances include: the oil embargos of the 1970s, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. Since the 1970s, one solution offered to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign countries for oil has been opening up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Proponents say that drilling in ANWR would make the United States more self-sufficient in the area of energy, while at the same time not doing excessive damage to the environment of the area. Opponents of drilling in ANWR cite the environmental problems of off-shore drilling and maintain that this land should be left alone and allowed to stand as an environmental wonder. Given that some environmental groups do not mind allowing technology to invade the environment when it profits them and given the threats of global terror and the ever-increasing dependence our nation has on foreign oil, I believe it is in the best interests of the United States to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.
Drilling for oil in Alaska may affect the wildlife, but it is a good thing to do because our government well make money and get out of depth. Are you tired of paying high gas prices every time you got to fill the tank? Do you know if the U.S would let shell oil company drill for oil in Alaska you could kiss those high gas prices good byes? The resin they say we cannot drill there is because it would affect the wild life. But in my view the wild life that lives there has plenty of land to move to once they started to drill.
Whether we get around by car, bus, or plane, oil is an important factor in most people's lives. The demand is huge, and prices have shot up fast, making us now seek sources for oil in other countries or by drilling offshore. This essay will address the issue from Taking Sides (2013) of “Should we drill offshore for oil?” First, I will talk about the benefits of offshore drilling, economically and socially. Next, I will talk about various arguments against offshore drilling, paying special attention to possible environmental threats. Finally, I will say my personal beliefs, taking both sides into consideration.
Throughout the past three decades, energy has been a perennial issue in United States politics, economics, and media. The main concern surrounding this topic is the idea of energy independence and how the United States should proceed into the future. Energy independence relates to the goal of reducing United States dependence on importing foreign oil and other foreign energy sources. This desire aims to maintain energy dependence domestically so the United States can avoid reliance on any unstable countries and be detached from global energy supply distribution. It is currently being speculated that the United States might not be too far off from this goal. America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since 2007. In 2010, the U.S. imported less than 50 percent of the oil the country consumed -- the first time that’s happened in 13 years -- and the trend continued in 2011 (Zhang.) Experts credit new technology as the reason the United States is within several years of again becoming the biggest oil producer in the world, and perhaps two decades away from full energy independence. Hydraulic fracturing, fracking, is the “lead” technology in this technological revolution. Fracking is an economically more feasible way of drilling for oil or gas in harder to reach geological formation. Within the past decade or so, combining hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling has opened up shale deposits across the country. It has brought large-scale natural gas drilling to new regions that may not have had accessible deposits in the past. These areas have greatly benefited from the addition of this industry to their local economies. Certain are...
Oil is an important resource in America but what most do not know is oil drilling comes with a price. Former president Jimmy Carter, prepared an arguement to try to save a beautiful land he once visited from the destruction of oil drilling. Carter uses the three methods of persuasion, pathos, logos and ethos, to present his arguement to his audience to preserve Alaska.
Twitchell researched the Northern Slope of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and found out that there is a large amount of untapped crude oil. Twitchell states (2001) that the government and environmentalists have fought over drilling rights in this area and the government wants money but the environmentalists do not want to abolish the habitat. After researching this topic, Twitchell realized that he was not going to be able to pick one side of the argument. He says that both parties made good points but they either contradicted one another or were very biased (Twitchell, 2001, p. 1).
For these reasons, global warming stands as one of the most daunting policy issues facing our world today. This is compounded by the debate over the very existence of climate change. While countless sources of empirical evidence testify to the very real presence of climate change the world over, considerable denial of the phenomenon still exists. The argument has been made that evidence about climate change is a gross overstatement, or in some cases, a complete fabrication. Despite the evidence to the contrary, many interest groups with considerable political clout have successfully perpetuated the argument that documented changes in the environment are a product of natural cyclical changes in climate, and are not associated with human activities. However, even the acceptance of this particular brand of reality is no grounds for the disregard of environmental consciousness. Even if one accepts the premise that recent climate change is not resultant of human activity, the rationale behind environmental conservation remains ...
Our Congress created the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969 in order to establish an environmental foundation for mankind. This policy endorses harmony between humans and the vast ecosystems surrounding them. To obtain this goal and provide our future with resources as well, NEPA is separated into two titles. The first title declares the policy in detail while the second title focuses on the Council on Environmental Quality. The CEQ oversees the effectiveness of current methods, the reactions of the environment to those methods, and implements revisions as necessary.
There has been a tremendous attention from EU scholars about environmental policy. Since the 1970’s there has been numerous environmental crises and the emergency of an environmental, social movement in several European countries, but even after green politics in Europe quietened and environmental policy gained a ‘normal’ status in the “acquis communautaire”, this attention never subsided.
United States being a federal system, large number of decisions is not only made by the Federal, but also by state and local governments. Government uses various tools like Law, services, money, taxes, other economic instruments and suasion to influence policies. These tools are unique to the Government and may not be available to private parties. Peters suggest that a huge amount of money flows through the government and it gets redistributed to different people in forms of goods and services (Peters, 2013). Since governments have the resource and rights to influence social agendas, Government has to be involved in policy making. Since public policies are results of collaborations between various groups and backgrounds, the environmental factors contribute as an uncontrollable attribute to policy making. These environmental factors that affect policy making