Earlier this month Washington State’s Department of Ecology released its integrated climate response strategy, Preparing for a Changing Climate. The strategy again demonstrates that the state is a leader when it comes to preparing for climate change impacts (see also NRDC’s recent report examining climate preparedness in all 50 states).
What makes Washington a leader? Well, the political leadership is willing to address climate change impacts, and the scientific community is active and engaged and generates the information and data needed to make decisions on climate change adaptation actions. (None of this discussion, of course, should mean giving any less urgency to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the first place). Remarkably, the state has made rough economic calculations for the cost of inaction—$10 billion by 2020 as a result of increased health costs, flooding and coastal destruction, forest fires, drought, and other impacts—and the benefits of ecosystem services from forests, wildlife, and other natural resources. For example, in 2006 recreational and commercial fishing supported more than 16,000 jobs and $540 million in personal income and outdoors recreation added nearly $3.1 billion to the economy.
Armed with this information, lawmakers, policymakers, and agency regulators can begin to make the critical decisions needed to adapt to climate change. As the state’s report notes, “Many options with low or no costs can be implemented today that will significantly improve our prosperity now and in the future. In other cases, the costs of preparing our natural and built environments to cope with the impacts of changing climate will be more substantial. Such costs are far less, however, than costs of inaction.”
The strategy leaves unanswered the question of how it will be implemented, committing Ecology only to “work with other key agencies to implement the response strategy and ensure that adaptation is integrated into agency policies, programs, and funding.” Although the strategy includes a wide range of approaches and actions, such as preserving groundwater resources, selecting for heat-tolerant and disease-resistant trees, and conserving pollinator habitat, implementation is key.
The strategy cites limited financial resources, inadequate institutional support, and also legal barriers as obstacles to an effective response to climate change. Last year, CPR published Climate Change and the Puget Sound: Building the Legal Framework for Adaptation, which recommends new types of laws and applications of existing laws for the state to use to prepare for the impacts of climate change. For example, better enforcement of existing state water law and the federal Clean Water Act will increase resilience of natural aquatic and marine ecosystems.
There’s no doubt that the state’s new strategy itself is tremendous forward progress and builds on an impressive body of science that projects the potential impacts of climate change across the state. Now comes an even bigger challenge: can the political leadership sustain the momentum?
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Catherine O'Neill | April 20, 2012
Earlier this month Washington State’s Department of Ecology released its integrated climate response strategy, Preparing for a Changing Climate. The strategy again demonstrates that the state is a leader when it comes to preparing for climate change impacts (see also NRDC’s recent report examining climate preparedness in all 50 states). What makes Washington a leader? […]
Thomas McGarity | April 19, 2012
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report today detailing the challenges that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) faces in writing regulations to protect America’s workers from unsafe and unhealthful workplaces. The report was released at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, chaired by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), […]
Ben Somberg | April 19, 2012
On March 19, in a major economic policy address, Mitt Romney painted a portrait of a real-life “victim” of the Obama Administration’s supposed overregulation: This administration’s burdensome regulations are even invading the freedom of everyday Americans. Mike and Chantell Sackett run a small business in Idaho. They saved enough money to buy a piece of […]
Aimee Simpson | April 18, 2012
CPR Member Scholar Noah Sachs and I submitted comments yesterday to FDA regarding the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) petition to the agency on BPA. In September, the ACC petitioned FDA to remove approval for the use of BPA in “infant feeding bottles and certain spill-proof cups” (Rena Steinzor and I explained at the time the […]
Joel A. Mintz | April 12, 2012
Last week, members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union at EPA released an internal Agency memo describing the Agency’s proposed plan to cut back on specific areas of enforcement in response to looming budget cuts in FY 2013. The memo, by Larry Starfield, EPA’s Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Office of Enforcement […]
| April 11, 2012
a(broad) perspective Today’s post is second in a series on a recent CPR white paper, Reclaiming Global Environmental Leadership: Why the United States Should Ratify Ten Pending Environmental Treaties. Each month, this series will discuss one of these ten treaties. Previous posts are here. Annex VI on Liability Arising from Environmental Emergencies to the Protocol […]
Matthew Freeman | April 9, 2012
One of the many ways that the slow and agonizing contraction of the newspaper industry is felt is in the depth of coverage that papers provide their readers. It’s a matter of simple math, really. As newsrooms shrink, reporters are stretched ever thinner. So a newspaper that 15 years ago had separate reporters covering elementary […]
Rena Steinzor | April 6, 2012
The White House’s Cass Sunstein has found another poster child for his crusade to eliminate costly regulation under President Obama’s Executive Order 13563. The order requires agencies and departments to “look back” at existing requirements in order to kill unnecessary health, safety, and environmental requirements. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), complying dutifully with the […]
Thomas McGarity | April 5, 2012
Congress usually enacts new public protections following a major crisis or series of crises that focus attention on the failure of existing laws to protect the public or the environment from abuses by companies pursuing economic gain. Most of the protective regulatory programs of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Public Interest Era […]