EPA’s Population Non-Policy (NPG Footnote)
- Roy Beck
- June 1, 1993
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
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EPA’S POPULATION NON-POLICY
An NPG Forum Paper
(NPG Footnote)
by Roy Beck
June 1993
The Environmental Protection Agency heretofore has shown no interest in population growth as a cause of environmental problems, and recent remarks by its new administrator suggest that the situation has not improved.
EPA Chief Carol Browner may be at the head of her class in technical knowledge and administrative skill, but an exchange with environmental journalists indicates she is in urgent need of education on the importance of population growth in the nation’s ability to achieve environmental goals.
This is a serious gap. Not only is demography a major source of the problems that the EPA itself must address but, since President Clinton is abolishing the Council on Environmental Quality, EPA is in line to be the agency primarily responsible for seeing that other government agencies prepare environmental impact statements (EIS) on their activities, under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). That act attached great importance to the population issue. The record has been spotty in translating this importance into environmental impact statements, but efforts to beef up the population aspects had begun to show promise of bearing fruit under the Bush administration last year.
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