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Perspectives on Environmental Politics
Budget Woes and the Environment
by Renee Hoyos
We are in tough fiscal times here in California and across the nation. With the California state budget deficit around $38 billion and the federal budget deficit heading towards the trillions, the environment will get the short shrift regardless of the will and intent of millions of state workers dedicated to managing natural resources and preventing pollution.
The charge, then, is how to do more with less. Sadly, the reality is that State Government will do less with less in the coming years. So, what can the environmental field expect to see from government in the future?
One area of reduction will be grant programs that are administered by the State, which typically are staff intensive. They require hundreds of hours of administration to review proposals, rank them and determine who gets how much funding. As staff gets laid off, furloughed or an increased workload, grant programs will suffer. Fewer staff means that the quality of decisions will decrease. In some cases, programs will not be administered at all due to lack of staffing, even though money is available. In California, we have passed four Natural Resources/Park Lands bond initiatives in the past four years totaling $10.11 billion. The bond revenues will be available for about four more years; however, due to cutbacks in personnel and the impact of fronting bond expenditures on the General Fund, these funds may not be available until we have sufficient staff to disburse the money.
It is likely there also will be severe cutbacks in the services government provides. In the flush years, departments and agencies added staff and resources towards the creation of innovative programs that 'go the extra mile' for their mandates. Programs such as environmental education and outreach, creation of public access databases and agency-level program units - such as watershed management and environmental justice - are usually the first to be cut back in order to preserve the core functions of legislation, regulation, administration and legal affairs. Any programs that aren't protected by legislation have no safe harbor and even those that are protected run the risk of getting cut as budget concerns deepen in the coming years.
How will these changes in government impact the look of the landscape? At the federal level, we are already witnessing a rollback of federal air and water quality standards and forest protection in the name of business and economy. At the state level, we are seeing parks close and departments become more complaint-driven than mandate-driven. As the size of government shrinks, so will the amount and quality of the services it provides. Environmental quality and natural resources will continue to degrade as long as we rely on the government to take the lead in caring for our environment.
However, there is a lot we can do as individuals to support the government and its waning resources. Now is the time for creative thinking, and agencies and departments may be more willing to take advice from the public than they have been in years. Non-profits, academic institutions and local authorities can play a positive role through the formation of government assistance groups that can do some of the work that departments are tasked to do, but don't have the resources to complete. For example, grant programs don't need to be administered through government departments. Joint Power Authorities or other neutral non-profits could take that burden from the state. In California, the University of California (UC) has worked as a neutral partner to administer the CalFed Ecosystem Restoration Programs (ERP) grant program. ERP develops the criteria for their program and the UC does the solicitation, evaluation, ranking and administration of the program. ERP pays less to have the UC do this work than it would to have it done in-house.
Water and air quality monitoring and identification of pollution problems can be tackled by active citizen's groups. As public awareness of these issues grows, it becomes our responsibility to get involved in some way to protect our natural surroundings. Citizen's monitoring groups are becoming more sophisticated and their findings are gaining acceptance by the scientific and governmental communities. Being active in local watershed protection efforts or citizen's groups is an important way for each of us to help ensure the future health of local natural resources.
The era of big government is over, at least for now. Cutbacks in environmental programs will limit the extent to which government agencies can play an active role in protecting the environment and human health. But as individual citizens, we can pick up the slack and continue to be stewards of our own backyards.
Renee Hoyos, ELP Fellow 2002-2004, is special assistant for watersheds and outreach to Secretary Mary Nichols of the California Resources Agency where she manages a statewide watershed group that fosters agency coordination to restore California's natural resources.
Affiliation listed for identification purposes only.
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