Local action in a new world order.

I. Pollution is Local

Those who monitor the workings of government tend to focus on the largest political systems and institutions in analyzing the environmental potential of the New World Order. As a consequence, the emphasis remains on relationships among nations and on redefined roles for environmental bureaucracies of national governments. Even the United Nations - a mega-institution - is getting attention as an environmental convener and broker. National governments and the United Nations should get their due, but only up to a point. While the Rio Conference series to rally environmentalists worldwide and attempted to set the framework for a common agenda, we now will settle back into the day-to-day task of protecting our environment. To paraphrase an axiom in politics, "all pollution is local."

Public awareness and concern over environmental damage can only be raised if it is felt locally. Global warming does not seem serious to a person experiencing a Wisconsin winter; the language of the North American Free Trade Agreement seems rather abstract unless the fact that particulate matter in the jet stream from Mexico is polluting Lake Michigan is made clearer.(1) Even then, the seriousness of the problem is beat understood by those who actually fish or swim in the lake.

When environmental problems are localized, our local institutions will respond more readily. Attention should be paid to the environmental actions of political subdivisions, such as state governments in the United States, provinces in Canada, or the autonomous republics in what was the Soviet Union. A closer look reveals cooperation among these local units. Environmental problems have fostered intercontinental relationships between and among small businesses, universities, and nonprofit interests at state and local levels. Sometimes these "small but beautiful" environmental initiatives are documented in local newspapers, national journals and the popular media. However, they often seem to take on the character of feature stories with heroes and heroines, victims and villains; they are not taken seriously as important ingredients in humanity's response to the challenge to manage planet earth for its own survival. These state and local experiences and initiatives are relegated to a lesser status than those undertaken by the "giants," even though they possess considerable potential for environmental progress and human understanding.

Therefore, it is time to recognize and develop the potential of the states as coordinated and coordinating actors in an international institutional family - a family created through people-to-people relationships and strengthened by free enterprise, enhanced by technology transfer, and communicated in a world of facsimiles, satellites and computers. Indeed, just as states, cities and other sub-national communities have become active participants in the international marketplace - through trade missions, foreign offices and export policies - they can embrace opportunities for environmental improvement initiatives. These initiatives have the potential to lift everyone's "economic boat" while progressing toward higher environmental standards that will protect the developing world's resources and developed world's economic viability. An patchwork makes the quilt, so will the work now being done at the local level become the defining characteristics of the global environmental picture.

II. A State's Potential

Building a case for a new state-to-state environmental dimension within the New World Order is possible by reviewing the experience and potential of one state - Wisconsin. With a distinguished record of natural resources protection and management, Wisconsin is well-positioned to become a meaningful catalyst for positive environmental change that reaches far beyond its Midwest borders.

There is a certain irony in reviewing Wisconsin's potential and its work to seize the window of global economic and environmental opportunity. Nestled in the Midwest, far from the coasts, Wisconsin has a history of isolationism and independence. Today this isolationism has transcended to a state whose economy relies heavily on exports. Provisions of North American trade agreements become important to Wisconsin which trades extensively with Canada and Mexico.(2)

Yet, the same philosophy of good government that sustained the Wisconsin Progressives during its isolationism earlier this century continues to influence values, priorities, and thinking in the politics of Wisconsin today. Both Republicans and Democrate have actively responded to concerns about the land, water, and natural resources, and environmental protection language of trade pacts. This bonding between the people and their leaders over environmental issues is rooted in our culture and nurtured by a people who value natural resources deeply and a state government whose environmental record is one of the most accomplished in the nation.

It wasn't always that way. Wisconsin's experience in the area of natural resources is testimony to what determination, innovation and sacrifice of short-term gains for long-term sustainability can do. A century ago, Wisconsin's virgin forests were cleared to build cities such as Chicago and St. Louis. A century ago, Wisconsin's slaughterhouse wastes turned rivers red. Today, Wisconsin's reforested North Woods are living proof to the success of public-private partnerships, innovative fiscal commitments, and the efforts of professional foresters employed by the state. Wisconsin was the first state to meet the Clean Water Act's federally-mandated, fishable-swimmable standards;(3) waters once devoid of many fish species are now repopulated. Even the state's most industrialized rivers are so clean that they attract daily recreational users and developers catering to the exclusive buyer. In its effort to build and sustain its environmental record in forestry, water soil, outdoor recreation, air quality, material management, and a myriad of other natural resources subjects, the state set high expectations for its businesses, government and university system. And each delivered with impressive results. Wisconsin businesses met - and exceeded - high state environmental standards. In doing so, they developed new knowledge and equipment that are now nationally and globally marketable.

Wisconsin state government long ago integrated environmental management activities under now-popular holistic principles, and established innovative fiscal and other partnerships with local government. Wisconsin's university system applied the "Wisconsin Idea" - the notion that the borders of the campus are the borders of the state - to environmental issues. The universities transferred information gained through research concerning land management, sustainable agriculture, pollution control, and much more to the local level. These new ideas were directly applied to the lands and waters of the state and disseminated to citizens, public officials and businesses.

As word of these accomplishments spread, Wisconsin's people were called upon to serve as advisors, consultants, teachers, and suppliers of innovative equipment to others interested in protecting the environment. Wisconsin's environmental experience has affected every continent. State agency environmental experts have been invited overseas to advise governments and organizations, and foreign visitors tour our campuses, businesses, state agencies, and communities to see how natural resources can be managed best.

III. Global Environmental Needs

Much has been said about the growing environmental awareness that has awakened new expectations among people and increased demands for governmental action. People are reordering their priorities, especially in the developing world and the former Communist bloc and old Soviet Union. With improved communications and the unshackling of the media, people in previously controlled states now see the environmental skeletons that were hidden from their view. They are angry that, in certain locations, unconscionable environmental damage has occurred and their health has been threatened.

The global awakening of the environmental conscience stimulates a market for environmental goods and services. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates the potential market is $370 billion.(4) Another estimate comes from the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, which predicts a $200 billion worldwide market that, in the words of Chairman Michael Deland, represents "a real challenge for American industry."(5) Unfortunately, American companies have only tapped ten percent of the world market, which is growing about five percent per year.(6) It is a market that has interested Germany and Japan, who are responding to this demand with greater interest, coordination, and effectiveness than the United States. For example, Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry has drafted a hundred-year blueprint on how to eliminate the world's pollutants, and has written "New Earth 21" - a five-plank plan that is the foundation of the national development effort to invent and sell pollution control technologies and equipment.(7) An interesting question is how the Japanese approach, based on central planning and coordination, fits the current trend toward decentralization and flexibility.

Typically, the situation is much less coordinated at the national level in the United States, although the President has asked for cooperation among eighteen federal agencies to provide environmental goods and services to Asian nations, territories or island groups.(8) For the most part coordination of environmental goods and services is left to voluntary public and private sector efforts or the states themselves. Interestingly, some states are trying to take the initiative, filling the federal vacuum. Massachusetts aspires to become "the Silicon Valley of environmental companies," according to one consultant.(9) The state counts more than 1300 environmental businesses, second only to California, and boasts of universities with growing interests in environmental programs.

Wisconsin has proposed a "global profit center" concept that would involve inventorying the hundreds or thousands of businesses and individuals in academia, industry, nonprofit organization and government already producing environmental management equipment or providing environmental services.(10) Following completion of the inventory, the state would showcase its assets, making it easy for customers to reach the knowledge, service or goods provider.

IV. What Can States Offer?

The ambitions of states like Wisconsin and Massachusetts give new definition and new dimension to the common environmentalist's slogan of "think globally, act locally." The Old Order was defined in mega-term; there were mega-corporations and superpowers. But localization, decentralization and fragmentation occur with such rapidity that even the concept of "order" can be questioned. While the United States is still a "superpower" by military definition, it is far less powerful in any number of areas where economics and other constraints prevent it from doing what it would prefer to do without the interference of others.

The world's environmental condition and the solutions to its problems can beet be described by focusing on the parts - states - rather than the sum of the parts - nation-states. Even large environmental problems, such as global climate change, which require an understanding of global conditions and the interrelationship among sea, land and air, are more likely to be solved by incremental and local responses, rather than massive international answers. Many singular actions and decisions by citizens, local governments, land managers, and business interests have the power and potential to affect even the most transient of resources - the air.

Members of the world community need information to help them define problems and discover opportunities. The beauty of that truth is there is a wealth of available information - in state agencies, state universities, small businesses and individuals - available for retrieval and application. With the new worldwide political freedoms, people of the world community can talk to each other, access each other's data banks and shop at an environmental information smorgasbord that was previously inaccessible. Moreover, fragmentation of markets and dismemberment or redefinition of nation-states allows for a much more diverse system of environmentally-sustainable actions, fulfilling the ecological principle that a diverse system is, by definition, stronger than a monoculture.

V. Barriers to Effectiveness

Wisconsin's environmental experience is distinctive but not singular. Many states have foreign environmental contacts and accomplishments. However, while international barriers to cooperation, coordination and environmentally-relevant commerce are coming down, many domestic barriers remain. If these barriers and impediments were removed o,r reduced, there is no question that there would be even greater demand for environmental knowledge, services and equipment from the industrialized world. Yet, impediments to effectiveness of cooperation remain.

One barrier is the entrenchment of the status quo. For example, in a stalled global economy, government bureaucrats throughout the world have jobs that depend upon the status quo of regulations. And some strong constituencies need the status quo of a current public policy that rewards short term gains over long-term sustainable economic growth. It is partly a psychological barrier; managers on the local level do not try to change policies because federal and international activities and relations traditionally have been considered the business of Washington, London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow and the bureaucracies that run them. In both the free and Communist World, national government bureaucracies maintained - and in some cases still seek to maintain - control over relationships beyond their borders. But, these bureaucracies have failed to, recognize local needs and the value of local and private expertise. Our policy-making should involve to recognize the value of these assets to the new world order.

One change that must come about to reduce barriers to a new order within the United States is to change our blanket command-and-control regulation. In this kind of regulation, specific standards are set by government and those standards are enforced under threat of fines, court orders, or criminal prosecution. But this rigid approach is inefficient because it does not consider costs and benefits.

An economic instrument that allows greater local flexibility and more efficient solution to some environmental problems through the market processes in the use of Tradable Discharge Permits (TDP's). While bureaucrats hesitate to defer their regulatory control to the marketplace, TDP's have been used in some form for fifteen years and are gaining wide acceptance; recently Wisconsin Power and Light Company announced the first national trade of sulphur dioxide emissions credits under the 1990 Clean Air Act.(11) The sale to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and to Duquesne Light Company in Pennsylvania financially rewarded, through the marketplace, Wisconsin Power and Light gains in reducing emissions. At the same time, the TVA and Duquesne Light paid the price for their failure to achieve emissions reductions.

Also in Wisconsin, a form of TDP's have been used to address water quality problems. A system called Waste Load Allocation is used to control paper mill wastes in the Fox River. This in a hybrid of the TDP and wasteload allocation system. It first requires the controlling agency, in this case the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), to determine assimilative capacity of the river - the amount of pollutant discharge that can be safely carried. Next the DNR and the paper industry jointly determine pollution allocations among the dischargers. As plants close, discharge allocations are redistributed among the remaining plants, with some of the allocation going to the waterway. This has the effect of reducing total discharge and improving water quality over time, While there has been voluntary reduction beyond allocations, to date these are being "banked" by industry for possible future expansion. A final step in new administrative rules allows for an "antidegradation" step. Despite the discharge allowances, any proposed new discharge, or any increase in discharges, will be granted only after it is found to be necessary for social or economic development.

Novel methods of resource management developed at the state level must be shared. But, often, states fall to appreciate the value of their experiences and assets and do not understand that their knowledge, goods, and services could be marketed for use elsewhere. Other barriers to effective use of state assets must be overcome as well. First, local players have the same impediments as any small business working on an international field. Questions about protocol, currency and contracts are the most obvious. In some instances, language barriers are considerable, especially when translation of technical information is a prerequisite to success. Second, even if the state wants to market the innovative goods or services, there may be financial and political barriers. Decision-makers must proceed carefully if the transition toward a sustainable economic growth policy means displacement of jobs. Also, State agencies, universities, and community leaders are expected, especially during times of fiscal restraint, to take care of local people and situations first. And the job is never done.

VI. The Federal Roles

The federal government has important and legitimate roles in promoting a New World Environmental Order. Indeed, T.,T.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator William Reilly has indicated one of the seven "pillars" of his agency should be to recognize its international responsibilities.(12) The EPA has created an Office of international Relations and sponsored through its regional offices a number of overseas missions involving state agency representatives. Similarly, institutions such as the World Bank are beginning to factor the environment into their investment equations. From a state perspective, Washington's contributions should span its whole range of legitimate national responsibilities, from taxation to information sharing and networking, from trade policy to research and development.

A. Leveling the Economic Playing Field

Washington must view environmental protection as part of a national economic strategy that assures a more level international playing field through uniformly high environmental expectations and requirements without, regard to national borders. The significance of this perspective becomes obvious in light of America's evolving economic relationship with Mexico, and Canada.

The difficulties of insuring a level economic playing field for international and local relations cannot be minimized. In the effort to, equalize trade relationships, the focus has traditionally been on diseconomies created by nation-states. But, charges of unfair trading practices can, and have been made under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) regulations.(13) Similar practices take place at the state and local level. Many local and state governments provide tax breaks, training grants, below market-rate loans, or other incentives to attract new business. In this tremendously competitive climate, the Wisconsin government provides financial support to a major international printing company found it too difficult to expand - even at their own cost - in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, only twenty miles away, because of summer ozone pollution levels, much of that being attributable to the pollution moving in from Chicago, Illinois, and Gary, Indiana.(14) The federal government has an important role in resolving economic relationships between nations, between states, and between states and nations.

B. Facilitating Discussion

Also, the national government should encourage and facilitate the global dissemination of information and knowledge more actively. Washington must use its considerable influence in the world economic order by encouraging research to statistically recognize and incorporate the costs of environmental management into domestic and international economic equations. The European Economic Community is conducting such research which is bound to generate, considerable debate within the European Economic Committee and at various future trade discussions. That debate - sure to be vigorous - should he viewed as an opportunity for dialogue and progress, rather than as a threat to any particular economic system or order.

C. Meshing Environmental Management and Economics

John Stuart Mill, more than 100 years ago, recognized the legitimacy of a government intervention in environmental matters when he said:

Is there not the Earth itself, its forests and waters, above and below the surface? These are the inheritance of the human race. . . . What rights, and under what conditions, a person shall be allowed to exercise over any portion of this common inheritance cannot be left undecided. No function of government is less optional than the regulation of these things, or more completely involved in a civilized society.(15)

The challenge for governments will be to mesh the best of the command-and-control approach to environmental management with market incentives to produce the kind of environmental regulation that John Stuart Mill philosophically embraced and can be practically implemented.

Also, national governments, especially those that are part of the G-7, still have much say over fiscal policy, especially as it is manipulated to promote or discourage certain kinds of economic activity. Much has been written about the inability of these nation-states to cope with the world of commodities trading, acquisitions and mergers, transnational manufacturing, and other characteristics of the global marketplace. Nevertheless, the industrialized world still exercises legal control, and control through national banks, over the balance between the political "market failure" and free-market "property right" dimensions of environmental policies. Holding frequent discussions over the proper balance between those two paradigms is a critical, remaining role for the nation states that, until recently, have generally focused on the topic of economic stimulation in their G-7 talks. Discussions also are needed about the government policies that subsidize inefficient use of natural resources such as land and water simply for political or protectionist reasons. Some of these policies the familiar to Americans; they often involve federally subsidized water projects that pay little attention to energy and water conservation practices; or they might involve federal lands leased for grazing at rates under that which the marketplace would bring.

D. Removing Impediments to State and Local Involvement

These things are all well and good, but more action - and a different kind of action - is needed also. The federal government must help states carve out their roles in the international community by removing the impediments to state and local involvement. Toward this end, the EPA is undertaking a project that will allow the localization of pollution. The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) provides the support necessary to make local decisions.(16) The monitoring program will eventually provide data on ecological resources in grids throughout the country. The assessment program's purpose is to diagnose problems to allow for scientifically based decision making. The EMAP itself is to be carried out in cooperation with local universities.

For effective change to happen in other areas, however, a fundamental shift in philosophy and behavior which recognizes local players is necessary. In recent years, it has become obvious that standard command-and-control management can stifle creativity and the environmental potential of both the states and private sector even when it involves breakthrough technology. Consequently, Washington needs to redefine its proper role with the states in a way that ensures a level local economic playing field on one hand, while allowing flexibility and experimentation on the other. This will be increasingly important as the entire nation takes integrated actions that focus on prevention rather than cure, a strategy which most now agree is the preferred approach to accomplishing environmental quality.

VII. The Time for Reordering

A state's decision on whether or how extensively to get involved in this New World Environmental Order depends upon numerous internal and external factors. As is the case with any initiative - especially those reaching outside a state's border - there are various risks as well as benefits. The financial and political risks are well known to elected officials, bureaucrats, and businesses; and in the public sector there may be a tendency to preserve the status quo rather than to take the risks of innovation. But in calculating the pluses and minuses, states can consider a number of key factors:

1) By getting internationally involved, the state can influence international pollution control standards and practices. Although the advantages may be difficult to measure, involvement helps to level the competitive playing field for businesses that produce goods. While production of goods produced in the United States must include the cost of stringent pollution control laws, goods can be produced cheaper in other areas of the world where pollution Control measures do not have to be considered. By sharing knowledge and technology of pollution control and the information that empowers people, states can provide a viable action option for nations pressured by their people for a cleaner environment, and at the same time reduce the market pressures from foreign manufacturers.

2) There is a kind of eco-tourism potential. Delegations of officials from overseas have visited Wisconsin to discuss reforestation, fly ash management, wastewater treatment, land management, and other issues. Other foreign delegations are signing up for future tours.

3) There are other spin-off benefits, especially for universities. As centers of research, teaching and outreach, universities - especially land grant institutions - have untapped potential to become players in the international environmental arena. In some respects, universities can become almost brokers or marketing centers for businesses and experts placed throughout the world. This type of market is especially attractive for an interior state like Wisconsin because it is much easier to export information and data than heavy equipment, and the revenue potential contained in the marketing of ideas and knowledge remains under-tapped and under-priced.

Many signs indicate the time is right for states to move, and move in partnerships with their universities and businesses. In a recent speech to the World Future Society, business-futurist Edith Weiner stated that environmetalists will "continue to shake the foundations of businesses well into the twenty-first century." She opined that "stewardship will underpin the great bulk of policy in the U.S. and worldwide [and] it is critical for any large business that wants to succeed into the twenty-first century to understand fully this major tidal wave of change sweeping over humanity." Weiner's advice is equally important to government policy-makers as they examine the work government should be doing - but not necessarily is doing - and decide how to set priorities.

Although the New World "Order" may be a term better suited to the age of dominant nation states - which imposed order on their colonial or ideological subjects - it may well be that even stronger value-driven bonds are bringing peoples and communities together. One bond is Natural Resources Stewardship. And it is rooted in the most basic of human instincts - the struggle for survival on a harsh planet among powerful forces of nature.

Whatever evolves from the ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflict we see today, it seems clear to some of us at the state level that there will be a greater role for the business-to-business, local government-to-local government, and person-to-person level. Recognition of this reordering on the part of national and international institutions will only serve to accelerate the shared goal of a cleaner global environment.

(1.) Jerry Moskal, 12 Senators: Put Air Pollution Controls in Trade Agreement, Gannett News Service, Mar. 2, 1992. (2.) Wisconsin exported $1.9 billion worth of goods and services during 1991. Even our highway system is being planned with one eye on our Canadian trading partner. The Mexican export market is worth $2.5 million a year and growing rapidly. Mexico jumped from Wisconsin's ninth largest trading partner to sixth largest trading partner when exports grew by 83% during the period from 1988 to 1991. (3.) Carlisle P. Range, Office of Governmental Studies, The Wisconsin Idea (Mar. 28, 1981). (4.) Michael Silverstein, In Economics "Green" is Gold, Christian Sci. Monitor, Feb. 18, 1992, at 19. (5.) Casey Bukro, U.S. Urged to Expand Ecological Trade, Chi. Trib., Apr. 3 1992, at B1. (6.) Id. (7.) Clayton Jones, Japan Faces Eco-Tech Dilemma, Christian Sci. Monitor, June 10, 1992. at S12. (8.) World Trade Week 1992 Proclamation; George Bush Transcript, 113 Bus. Am., June 1, 1992, No.11 at 8. (9.) Elizabeth Levitan Spaid, Bay State Leaders See Great "Envirotech" Potential, Christian Sci. Monitor, Aug. 20, 1991, at U7. (10.) Bruce B. Braun, Environmental Management: A Global Profit Center, Address Before the Future of Working Wisconsin Conference (Feb. 25, 1987). (11.) Pollution Swap, Time, May 25, 1992, at 22. (12.) William Reilly, The |New Environmentalism', Roll Call, Sept. 28, 1992, at 30. (13.) See generally Janet McDonald, Greening the GATT: Harmonizing Free Trade and Environmental Protection in the New World Order, 23 Envtl. L,. 397 (1993); Steve Charnovitz, The Environment Vs. Trade Rules: Defogging the Debate, 23 Envtl. L. 477 (1993). (14.) DNR Digest, (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources), June-July 1992. (15.) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Viking Penguin 1982) (1859). (16.) U.S. EPA. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program: Overview 1 (1990).