Congress passed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973 to protect species threatened or in danger of extinction. Federal judges have an especially difficult time dealing with it. In the ESA, they confront nasty conflicts between Congressional intent to save endangered species and our Bill of Rights. In Saving All the Pieces, Rocky Barker notes […]
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At each summer’s end, I leave our Montana ranch and return to Washington. I love to drive the West. This is a good time to reconsider our culture, ecology, economy and politics. Increasingly, I’m having second thoughts about these subjects. Many friends, academics, business people and environmentalists, are also re-evaluating their approach to environmental goals. […]
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THIS is my last lecture as a professor at UW. I end my career with the course I began 25 years ago at Indiana University, The Political Economy of Environmental Policy. Throughout my career, I have advocated environmental policies based on incentives, not commands I helped create an environmental paradigm that views economies as ecosystems. […]
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AMERICA experienced a major energy crisis in 1978. Ill-conceived federal price controls and OPEC’s last successful petroleum embargo combined to create an emergency. The results were disastrous, the predictable consequence of policies that disrupt the market process and favor special interests In response to this “crisis,” Congress passed the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, commonly […]
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IN THE 25 years since Earth Day, increased environmental concern has helped us avoid some mistakes by focusing attention on many environmental problems. But concern alone is insufficient. No amount of concern will be enough to avoid environmental harm if information is of poor quality and incentives are perverse. How can we best channel our […]
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On April 22 we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. This is also the last time I will teach the environmental policy course I began teaching in 1970 at Indiana University. When I began teaching environmental courses, many of my colleagues looked toward two reforms for ecological salvation: an environmental ethic to regulate […]
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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was great concern that America would run out of trees. Predictions of a timber famine were common among forestry “experts” of the time, especially from Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the Forest Service Pinchot and others correctly noted that timber harvests were far exceeding reforestation, but incorrectly […]
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OCCASIONALLY on the way to work, I see people in wheelchairs working their way south along the sidewalk of Sand Point Way. When they reach 41st Avenue Northeast, the sidewalk ends. These people then wheel themselves into Sand Point’s rush-hour traffic and travel down the street until the sidewalk resumes a block later Officials should […]
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“THE Tragedy of the Commons” is the best known article on ecology. It was printed in Science magazine in 1968 and has been reprinted hundreds of times in dozens of fields ranging from anthropology to zoology. Its essential message is profound yet simple: If a valuable resource is open to all, if it is common […]
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DATELINE: ENTERPRISE RANCH, GALLATIN VALLEY, MONTANA Our ranch lies in the northern reaches of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Calving has started, lambing will shortly follow, and soon we’ll put the livestock out to range. And wolves have just arrived in Yellowstone Park. In Montana, and in Idaho as well, few issues are more complex and […]
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