Policy Analysis No. 217                 October 26, 1994

FEDERAL ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT:
A "TRAIN WRECK" IN THE MAKING

Executive Summary

The Ecosystem Management Initiative, launched by Presi-
dent Clinton as part of his effort to "reinvent" government,
signals a radical departure from past environmental policy.
The idea is to avoid what the administration aptly terms
policy "train wrecks"--collisions of economic enterprise and
environmental preservation--before they occur. The adminis-
tration seeks to reach that goal by having the federal gov-
ernment manage and protect ecosystems throughout the country.

Analysis shows that the assumptions behind the policy
are incorrect. The nation is not facing serious environmen-
tal perils requiring drastic new federal policies. The
ecosystem concept, while quite useful within the realm of
science from which it was borrowed, is inappropriate for use
as a geographic guide for public policies. Instead of intro-
ducing science into public policy, use of the ecosystem
concept interjects uncertainty, imprecision, and arbitrari-
ness.

Federal management of ecosystems would significantly
expand federal control of the use of privately owned land and
lead to increased restrictions on the use of the nation's
public lands for economic purposes. Economic activity and
private property rights would be subordinated to ecosystem
protection.

The key to minimizing "train wrecks" is the abandonment
of existing policies that elevate environmental protection
above the pursuit of human welfare. Restoration of policy
equilibrium and greater reliance on market forces, rather
than further movement toward coercive federal regulations and
additional intrusions of the government into land-use deci-
sions, should guide federal actions.


Introduction

As federal actions to protect the environment impose
greater and greater economic and social costs on society, a
growing number of analysts are searching for ways to amelio-
rate the collision of economic and environmental policy
goals. Many people have been persuaded that, instead of
acting after such a collision has occurred, government would
be best advised to act before the fact to ensure that, to
the extent possible, conflicts between environmental protec-
tion and economic activity are mediated before high economic
or environmental costs must be paid. Only by adopting such
an approach, proponents argue, can we hope to head off the
acceleration of environmental crises that are believed by
some to threaten the very future of the planet. Thus, the
Clinton administration, intending in part to avoid costly
economic and environmental "train wrecks," determined that,
as part of its National Performance Review, federal manage-
ment and protection of ecosystems would henceforth be a
cornerstone of American environmental and natural resource
policy.(1)

There can be little doubt about the ambitiousness of
the administration's effort, for it aims at nothing less
than "reinventing the way the federal government uses and
cares for the environment."(2) Ecosystem management is an
effort to centrally manage land-use decisions and commercial
activity in order to protect and restore the function,
structure, and species composition of ecosystems that blan-
ket the entire United States.

The Ecosystem Management Initiative has thus been
established by the White House along with the Interagency
Ecosystem Management Coordinating Group of 20 federal agen-
cies.(3) Although Congress has yet to pass legislation autho-
rizing creation of the National Biological Survey (NBS),
Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt has reorganized the
Department of the Interior to create the NBS as a major
first step in putting administration policies into practice.
President Clinton's budget reflects his seriousness about
the matter: the administration requested $610 million for
"ecosystem management and biodiversity" in fiscal year 1995,
while only $56 million was expended on such activities in
FY93. Federal agencies have been directed to interpret
"existing authorities as broadly as possible to implement
the ecosystem management policy and process."(4)

Ecosystem management, however, is predicated on a
number of dubious assumptions that promise to cripple the
application of the concept in public policy. The environ
mental health of the nation is not in serious jeopardy, and
ecosystem management is not a particularly useful tool for
addressing environmental stresses that do occur. Nor will
the NBS deliver the kind of information necessary to avoid
the sort of political "train wrecks" decried by the adminis-
tration.

Indeed, careful analysis shows that the federal govern-
ment is incapable of managing and protecting ecosystems
throughout the United States and that implementation of such
a policy would only exacerbate, not alleviate, the policy
"train wrecks" so common under current regulatory practices.


The NBS: Legitimizing Ecosystem Management

The creation of the NBS is the cornerstone of the
administration's federal ecosystem management program and is
Bruce Babbitt's top priority as secretary of the interior.(5)
The NBS is to provide resource managers with the best possi-
ble biological science on which to base decisions and to be
the "biological underpinning" for ecosystem management.(6)
According to the secretary, the information the NBS produces
will permit the identification of "biological trends before
they become white hot crises" and yield a definitive ecosys-
tem map for the country that can serve the needs of all
levels of government and the private sector when faced with
economic-environmental conflicts.(7)

The entire United States, including the 70 percent of
the nation that is privately owned, would be subject to the
NBS and federal ecosystem protection. As noted by Secretary
Babbitt, "ecosystems do not recognize political or bureau-
cratic boundaries."(8)

Neither what is to be surveyed nor the scale at which
surveys are to be conducted is clear. Babbitt envisions
examination of the status and trends of individual species
as well as whole ecosystems in a "systematic biological
inventory of the entire nation at an appropriate scale and
feasible level of detail."(9) John Sawhill, chief executive
officer of the Nature Conservancy, told Congress that map-
ping should be conducted from the species level (including
all vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant species) up through
"natural communities and ecosystems" and that the survey
should be sufficiently detailed to help with land-use deci-
sions.(10) Other environmental organizations, including the
National Audubon Society and the Sierra Club Legal Defense
Fund, recommend mapping down to the subspecies level.(11)
Scientific societies have further urged that biological
surveys include microorganisms.(12) The National Research
Council called for study of "terrestrial, freshwater, and
marine invertebrates (all classes); plants (bryophytes and
vascular plants); macrofungi; and selected fresh-water,
marine, and terrestrial invertebrates (mollusks, crusta-
ceans, mosquitoes, beetles, butterflies, moths, spiders, and
ticks)."(13)

Yet definitive estimates of the total number of species
resident in the United States do not exist, which should
give some idea of the challenge presented by the NBS. For
instance, Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical
Garden, suggested to Congress that perhaps 250,000 species
reside in the United States, of which only some 150,000 have
been identified.(14) Therefore, even one of the most basic
tasks of the NBS--to identify ecosystems--is problematic if
for no other reason than the fact that scientists are not
even close to a firm count of plant and animal species.

Although the administration has thus far been unable to
secure legislation authorizing the NBS, Babbitt has used his
authority to establish the survey administratively within
Interior.(15) The organization is staffed by some 1,700 per-
sonnel shifted from other Interior bureaus, including some
1,180 research scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.(16) The administration requested $179 million for
the NBS for FY94 (Congress appropriated $164 million) and
$177 million for FY95.(17)


The Assumptions of Ecosystem Management

The charge of the NBS is largely dictated by fundamen-
tal assumptions about ecosystem health and environmental
management. Many proponents of the NBS, for example, be-
lieve that there are critical problems with the U.S. envi-
ronment that the survey is uniquely positioned to address.
Secretary Babbitt, for instance, wrote to Interior staff
that the NBS "is designed to save the West," which he views
as suffering from a "history of . . . destruction" produced
by human use of the land and natural resources.(18) Tom Love-
joy, who served as the secretary's science adviser, chiefly
for the purpose of establishing the NBS, believes that "the
planet is in the process of falling apart biologically."(19)
Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club Legal De-
fense Fund, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club,
the Wilderness Society, and Greenpeace, have all written or
testified in support of NBS legislation, and their views on
environmental conditions are well known.(20) For example, the
executive director of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund
wrote, "Our world is drowning in filth. Garbage covers the
land and . . . our cities sprawl beneath skies awash with a
brown haze." Each day, he said, brings "new environmental
atrocities" leading to "humanity's reckless slide toward
environmental suicide."(21) The National Wildlife Federation
recently concluded that virtually all aspects of the U.S.
environment were getting "worse," and the new executive
director of the Sierra Club views the planet as being in
such environmental danger that "aspects of the American way
of life . . . cannot be sustained." He further singled out
the automobile and the single-family suburban home as the
most harmful features of the American lifestyle.(22) Only
dramatic new policy approaches, such as the NBS and the
Ecosystem Management Initiative, are alleged by proponents
to provide the government with the information and authority
necessary to undertake the environmental rescue mission
deemed so necessary.

A second assumption is that general federal management
and protection of ecosystems offer the necessary new ap-
proach to ensure proper protection of the environment.
Ecosystems are envisioned as the on-the-ground organizing
principle for the management of federal lands as well as for
the application of federal environmental and natural re-
source regulations that affect privately owned lands (e.g.,
requirements stemming from the Endangered Species Act or
section 404 of the Clean Water Act). Babbitt consistently
emphasizes the need for ecosystem-based policies, which he
judges to be the "most effective and efficient natural
resource management strategy."(23) That approach is part of
what he terms a "new land ethic" that calls for a relentless
"search for levels and methods of human activity that [are]
compatible with the ecosystem."(24)

An inescapable corollary to the assumption that ecosys-
tems offer a sound spatial basis for the application of
federal policies is the presumption that ecosystems are
discrete entities on the landscape awaiting discovery by the
application of science and technology. Ecosystems are as-
sumed to have distinct and identifiable boundaries offering
the geographic precision and stability necessary to guide
on-the-ground federal actions.

The third assumption behind the NBS is Babbitt's belief
that the NBS "will provide the map we need to avoid the
economic and environmental train wrecks we see scattered
across the country."(25) Because it is held out as a means of
avoiding economic-environmental conflicts, the creation of
that map is a major lure to attract supporters to the NBS.

A fourth basic assumption underpinning the NBS is that
additional information is the key to preventing "train
wrecks." According to Babbitt, "The National Biological
Survey will unlock information about how we protect ecosys-
tems and plan for the future."(26) He argues that NBS data
would be of particular value in sidestepping problems asso-
ciated with administration of the Endangered Species Act be-
cause the survey could identify troubled species before they
were listed under the act, and management actions could then
be taken before such listing.(27) Presumably, such actions
would be less antithetical to considerations of economic
growth and private-property rights than those required under
the Endangered Species Act. Many in the scientific communi-
ty share the view that information is the linchpin of re-
solving conflicts. For example, Norman Christensen, dean of
Duke University's School of the Environment, argues that "we
are woefully ignorant of the processes we influence . . .
the 'environmental train wrecks' cited by Secretary Babbitt
are mostly a tribute to that ignorance."(28)

Analysis reveals, however, that no matter how reason-
able those assumptions appear on their face, there is pre-
cious little scientific or policy justification for their
acceptance.


Our Dying Ecosystems?

It is difficult to sustain the argument that a major
new federal environmental initiative like the management and
protection of ecosystems throughout the country is justifi-
able on the grounds that the American environment is either
poor or degenerating. There are no national environmental
crises gripping the United States or poised to overtake
us.(29) On balance, the record shows that the U.S. environ-
ment is generally in good shape and getting better.

It would be remarkable if that were not the case, given
our nation's vast public and private expenditures (no matter
how inefficient those expenditures may have been) on envi-
ronmental protection and cleanup. The Environmental Protec-
tion Agency estimated pollution-control costs for 1993 to
exceed $120 billion (1986 dollars), and total costs from
1972 through 1993 were thought to be approximately $1.5
trillion (1986 dollars).(30) The EPA calculated expenditures
for pollution control at approximately 0.9 percent of gross
national product in 1972 and some 2.5 percent in 1993, an
increase of over 175 percent.(31) The EPA analysis is not
intended to be all-inclusive. For example, it did not
estimate costs stemming from compliance with statutes such
as the Endangered Species Act or the National Environmental
Policy Act, state or local environmental regulation, or the
failure to develop domestic natural resources such as off-
shore oil and natural gas or the energy resources of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.(32) An analysis by Manage-
ment Information Services, Inc., found that environmental
expenditures totaled $170 billion (1992 dollars) in 1992, or
2.8 percent of gross domestic product.(33) According to MISI,
spending on environmental protection will exceed the na-
tion's total spending on national defense by the year
2000.(34)

Neither the EPA, MISI, nor other regulatory analysts,
however, have attempted to calculate secondary environmental
regulatory costs such as rent-seeking investments or the
myriad opportunity costs associated with regulatory compli-
ance. Studies suggest that those social costs may nearly
double conventional regulatory expenditures.(35)

Examination of national environmental conditions from
several perspectives reveals that, contrary to the rhetoric
of the environmental lobby, environmental quality has been
dramatically increasing, not decreasing, over the past 20
years. According to the EPA, the 1990 national ambient air
pollutant concentration of each criteria pollutant was below
the standards established to protect human health.(36) More-
over, trends in concentrations of those pollutants are all
downward for the 1975-90 period. That is not surprising
because total emissions dropped by one-third--from nearly
192 million metric tons in 1970 to approximately 127 million
metric tons in 1990.(37) That translates into continuing im-
provements in urban air quality. The EPA reported a decline
of more than 50 percent in the cumulative number of days
that selected major urban areas experienced air quality that
was "unhealthy or worse" between 1981 and 1990.(38) In the
Los Angeles area, for example, the number of people exposed
to unhealthy levels of ozone has decreased by about 50
percent over the last decade, even though the total popula-
tion has increased by some 25 percent.(39)

The terrestrial environment, like the air above it,
shows no signs of crisis. For example, consider our for-
ests. As a nation, we are long past the time when the
clearing of forests was the order of the day, largely be-
cause (1) improved agricultural technologies radically
reduced the amount of land necessary to produce a given
amount of foodstuffs; (2) the advent of the automobile
eliminated the need for draft-animal feed, which actually
accounted for about a quarter of the agricultural production
of American farms; and (3) fossil fuels replaced wood as the
chief source of energy.(40) In the contiguous 48 states, the
amount of land in forests in 1987 was some 558 million acres
(not including forests in parks, wilderness, or wildlife
refuges) compared with 578 million acres in 1900.(41) Changes
in management policies and the application of technology
have yielded increasingly healthy forests. In 1920 almost
twice as much wood was removed as was replaced by forest
growth. By 1952 growth exceeded removals by 2 billion cubic
feet per year, and it has continued to outpace removals.(42)
In 1987 the nation's timber volume was some 23 percent
greater than in 1952, with the greatest increases in hard-
woods.(43) During the same period, the annual growth rate for
softwoods increased by nearly 75 percent and by nearly 65
percent for hardwoods.(44)

Available data suggest that our rangelands are not
endangered and that their condition is improving.(45) The
Bureau of Land Management within Interior manages most
federal rangeland, some 167 million acres in 1992. Approxi-
mately 39 percent of BLM rangeland was categorized as in
"good" or "excellent" condition in 1992 compared with 17
percent in 1975--nearly a 130 percent increase in the amount
of land so rated.(46) While more rangeland was moving into
the top two condition categories, less was being found in
the bottom classification, "poor." In 1975, 33 percent of
BLM rangeland was estimated to be in "poor" condition com-
pared with 13 percent in 1992.(47) The condition of nonfeder-
al rangelands has also improved markedly. Some 33 percent
were deemed "excellent" or "good" in 1987 compared with 20
percent in 1963.(48) In 1963 some 40 percent of nonfederal
rangeland was thought to be in "poor" condition as opposed
to 14 percent in 1987.(49)

The nation also retains a rich biological foundation.
On balance, human actions have had little overall impact on
species diversity. Peter Raven estimated the number of
species of "plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms" at
250,000.(50) James Williams and Ronald Nowak suggested that
the number of vertebrate species that had become extinct in
the 50 states since 1492 was 87.(51) The number of species
currently listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as
threatened or endangered is 822, with approximately 300
additional candidate species in category one (meaning there
is probably sufficient information available to justify
their being proposed for listing as threatened or endan-
gered).(52) Taken together, the number of extinct species
plus those listed as threatened or endangered plus those in
FWS category one is approximately 1,200, or 0.5 percent of
the total number of species estimated by Raven to reside in
the United States.

By contrast, the Office of Technology Assessment re-
cently estimated that human actions have resulted in "at
least 4,500 species of foreign origin establishing resident
populations in this country."(53) Some of those species have
been introduced deliberately, and others arrived acciden-
tally. Many clearly benefit society--virtually all our food
crops are introduced species--whereas others appear to have
little redeeming societal value (e.g., Melaleuca and zebra
mussels). All, however, add to the diversity of life in the
United States.

Maintenance of our biological diversity should not
surprise, given land-use patterns in the United States. In
1987 (the most recent year for which data are available)
only about 4 percent of the country--89 million acres--was
part of the built landscape, a landscape that includes all
cities and towns with at least 2,500 population; all high-
ways, roads, airports, and rights-of-way; and other miscel-
laneous man-made components of the environment.(54) Crop-
lands, on the other hand, were found to occupy over 20
percent of the country.(55) Yet another 10 percent of Ameri-
ca--225 million acres--was permanently protected as parks,
wilderness, and wildlife refuges.(56) Finally, there were 648
million acres of forest; 591 million acres of grassland and
range; and 247 million acres of desert, tundra, marshes, and
other undeveloped land.(57)

Put another way, about 75 percent of America's land
base was found to be forests, rangelands, grasslands, parks,
wilderness, deserts, marshes, and so forth--broad landscapes
widely available for use by other species. Another 20 per-
cent of the United States is cropland, which is available to
other species on a more restricted basis. Less than 5 per-
cent of the country is devoted to human construction, which
requires other species to adapt to a drastically changed
environment in order to survive.


Ecosystems--The Pretense of Knowledge

The ecosystem concept is a research tool intended to
aid scientists in better understanding the world of living
organisms.(58) It serves that purpose very well, in part
because the ecosystem concept is geographically amorphous--a
useful attribute in the realm of research but a fatal flaw
in the world of people, property, policy, and regulation.
Ecosystems in reality are mental constructs fashioned by
researchers to forward some particular analysis. A pond can
be an ecosystem; so can the territory shared by two species
of trees or the space that forms the habitat of an insect or
an eagle. Rather than discrete entities, ecosystems are
devices of analytic convenience and reflect all the vagaries
of research (e.g., project purpose, budget, data availabili-
ty and quality, and time constraints).

The National Research Council points out that (1) there
is no agreed-upon classification system for ecosystems; (2)
no accepted list of core ecosystem attributes exists; (3)
protocols for the sampling, measuring, and recording of data
are not defined; and (4) scientists cannot predict which
species and which interactions are key to determining the
makeup and location of assemblages of living things.(59)

The ecosystem concept is unavoidably characterized by
geographic fog when actually applied on the ground and
should not be used to garb policies in the cloak of science.
For example,

1. the location of ecosystems on the landscape is
inherently arbitrary, imprecise, and variable over
time;

2. ecosystems can vary in size from a back yard to the
drainage basin of the Mississippi River;

3. ecosystem boundaries are normally little more than
geographic best guesses;

4. ecosystem boundaries are always based on only a tiny
fraction of the ecological information about the area
they outline;

5. the nation contains a virtually unlimited number of
ecosystems and ecosystem patterns;

6. there are no protocols available for selecting any
one ecosystem pattern as the "best" for the purpose of
guiding federal policies;

7. a given portion of the landscape may simultaneously
be in hundreds of different ecosystems, each designated
using different criteria; and

8. a given portion of the landscape may be criss-
crossed by hundreds of different ecosystem bound-
aries at the same time.(60)

Those characteristics do not reduce the value of the
ecosystem concept as a research tool, but they do render it
unsuitable as a guide to federal policies.

It is instructive to examine the characteristics of
ecosystems listed above in the light of policy pronounce-
ments and past actions. In a joint hearing on the National
Biological Survey Act of 1993, Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.)
asked Babbitt about ecosystems.

Mr. Dickey--Good morning, Mr. Secretary. In
your mind, what is an ecosystem, how will one be
defined, and how will you differentiate one from
another?

Secretary Babbitt--Mr. Congressman, to some
degree, an ecosystem is in the eye of the behold-
er.

Mr. Dickey--Is that your answer? Would you
like to elaborate?

Secretary Babbitt--I think I would be willing
to elaborate, sir. I can put it in specific con-
text. The timber problem and the salmon problem
drives you to an ecosystem which essentially runs
from the crest of the Cascades to the Pacific
Ocean from approximately Puget Sound to the begin-
ning of the Sierra Nevada in California. It is
characterized by a lot of the commonalities.
Stream drainage is certainly a big one.

Climate. The weather from the Pacific creates
a lot of precipitation until it hits the tops of
the Cascades and then you are off into the desert.
So that is an ecosystem. River basins are a pret-
ty good starting point.

In the case of the Edwards Aquifer in Texas,
we were looking at an ecosystem defined by ground
water recharge in the limestone hill country of
west Texas. In other cases, the dominant thing
will be the vegetation communities. Some would
say the Colorado Plateau is an ecosystem. Others
would vigorously dissent.

I think the essential thing you are looking
for is common natural and geographic features that
generate a particular set of resources or a par-
ticular set of problems or opportunities.(61)

The secretary's statement partially illustrates the
geographic chaos associated with trying to depict ecosystems
but fails to acknowledge the policy significance. Babbitt
refers in general terms to characteristics such as climate,
vegetation, and drainage as major factors in determining the
location of ecosystems.(62) He gives rough boundaries for an
ecosystem that extends from Puget Sound in the north to the
northernmost portions of the Sierra Nevada in the south and
from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the peaks of the Cas-
cades in the east. In that area there are at least 6 dis-
tinct natural vegetation regions (based only on the distri-
butions of selected species of trees) in addition to some 50
separate hydrologic accounting units.(63) Secretary Babbitt
did not discuss how the various boundaries of those individ-
ual factors were blended into the boundary of the single
ecosystem he described. References to a "timber problem and
the salmon problem" are not geographically enlightening in
anything but broad terms unsuited for directing the placing
of lines on maps to determine the spatial extent of an
ecosystem.

The secretary's general reference to defining ecosys-
tems by identifying "common natural and geographic features
that generate a particular set of resources or a particular
set of problems or opportunities" is the usual approach
taken by those who create general ecosystem maps. Two
widely known maps of ecoregions of the United States have
been made, each seeking to identify areas with common char-
acteristics such as those described by the secretary.
Tellingly, the pattern of ecosystems they show are notice-
ably different. Robert Bailey's Ecoregions of the United
States divides the coterminous states into 57 regions.(64)
James Omernik divides the same 48 states into 103 regions.(65)
Their respective ecoregions are dramatically different in
size, shape, and location, and both maps have several thou-
sand miles of ecosystem boundaries with little congruency
between them.

Not surprisingly, neither Bailey nor Omernik shows an
ecosystem running from Puget Sound into northern California
and extending from the crest of the Cascades to the Pacific
Ocean. On the Bailey map, that area is part of at least
four different ecosystems, and Omernik places the area in
six separate ecosystems. There is no way to determine if
the Babbitt, Bailey, or Omernik map--or any one of the
hundreds of other possible ways to divvy up the region into
ecosystems--is the "best" way to portray the area for pur-
poses of federal ecosystem management and protection.

The Great Plains Initiative provides a glimpse into the
quandaries of ecosystem identification. Conceived by former
Kansas governor Mike Hayden, the initiative is a geographi-
cally expansive effort at ecosystem management covering all
or part of some dozen states from Texas to North Dakota and
Iowa to Wyoming. Just where the Great Plains begin or end,
however, is a problem that has eluded precise solution for
decades, largely because the eastern boundary is notoriously
inexact.(66)

Various proposals have been advanced to mark the east-
ern boundary of the ecosystem to be covered by the initia-
tive, including, "the 94th, 97th, 98th or 100th meridian;
. . . the 20-inch or 25-inch precipitation line; the 1,500-
foot elevation contour; the former extent of the short-grass
or tall-grass prairies; or even I-35."(67) Yet meridians are
totally artificial lines having nothing whatsoever to do
with the distribution of biota. The 20- and 25-inch precip-
itation lines (isoheyets) are equally artificial, represent-
ing substantial cartographic compromises that transform
point data that change yearly into fixed lines on a map.
Such lines have little to do with the distribution of living
things. Neither does the 1,500-foot contour. The past
extent of the short- or tall-grass prairies can only be
estimated in general terms, and cartographic renderings of
those distributions would be replete with guesswork.

When ecosystem boundaries are drawn for the purpose of
dictating land use, their location is of enormous impor-
tance. For example, if the 94th meridian were selected as
the eastern boundary of the Great Plains ecosystem, all of
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota
would be included within the ecosystem, and all their resi-
dents would be directly affected by any policies aimed at
its management. If the 100th meridian were chosen, the
ecosystem boundary would be shifted nearly 340 miles west-
ward, and most of the area (and the overwhelming majority of
the population) of those states would lie outside the Great
Plains ecosystem so that the land and the people would not
be subject to ecosystem management and protection poli-
cies.(68)


The Limitations of Ecosystem Maps

It is impossible to create a meaningful ecosystem map
for the nation that will permit the avoidance of economic
and environmental "train wrecks," given the limitations of
maps in general and the weaknesses of ecosystem maps in
particular. Integrating the sheer volume of ecological data
that proponents of the NBS wish to map as a coherent whole
is a cartographic impossibility. Trying to include vital
nonecologic information critical to informed decisionmaking
on the train-wreck-avoidance map is an exercise in futility.

Geographers and cartographers have long recognized the
limitations of maps, but many others have not, which some-
times results in false hopes for the ability of maps to
solve problems. Denis Wood, associate professor of geogra-
phy at North Carolina State University, notes that by many,
"the objectivity of maps . . . is so taken for granted that
they serve as powerful metaphors for other sciences, on
occasion even for scientific objectivity itself."(69) He
writes that "viewers should become better educated about
what maps can and cannot do."(70) Mark Monmonier, professor
of geography at Syracuse University, proclaims that to
combat what he terms the "unhealthy and widespread naivete"
of map users, nonspecialists must be made aware that "a
single map is but one of an indefinitely large number of
maps that might be produced for the same situation or from
the same data."(71)

All maps share the following characteristics: they are
subjective and biased; they portray only a tiny fraction of
the information about the areas they represent; and they are
generalizations.(72) The practical needs of cartography dic-
tate that only a small number of variables be illustrated on
the map lest it become indecipherable. It is a cartographic
impossibility to show every plant in a region, let alone
every plant, animal, insect, road, house, factory, field,
and so on. Choices must be made about which variables to
put on the map and which to leave off. Those choices are
subjective and influenced by the bias of the researcher and
the biases imposed by the project at hand. More information
about the area represented on the map is left off than is
ultimately included--by several orders of magnitude. Even
the variables that are represented on the map are general-
izations (e.g., a housing map of the Los Angeles metropoli-
tan area will not show each house; rather, the map may
depict such variables as housing densities, predominant
housing types, age, or value).

Ecosystem maps carry additional burdens. Whereas the
location of features shown on some maps may be well known--
cities, state and county boundaries, highways, and build-
ings--the location of ecosystem boundaries is often little
more than a guess in even the best of circumstances. That
is true even if the ecosystem is defined in its simplest
terms; that is, by the distribution of a single species.

Consider the case of the grizzly bear population cen-
tered in Yellowstone National Park. Estimates of the griz-
zlies' range are constructed from numerous sources including
sightings, radio-collar data, and evidence from the land-
scape. Those data are of different quality and gathered at
different times, yet they must be amalgamated to identify a
single ecosystem. As Monmonier cautioned, a very large
number of different maps could be constructed from the same
data. In nearly all cases, the lines on the map depicting
the Yellowstone grizzly ecosystem would be wholly imaginary
in that they would have no counterpart on the landscape.

Ecosystem maps are further burdened by the fact that
many of the things they seek to depict are in constant spa-
tial flux over time so that an ecosystem map may be out of
date before it is printed. A case in point is the northern
spotted owl. Few species have attracted so much effort to
determine an ecosystem based on their range. The location
of northern spotted owls has been dealt with by interagency
task forces, the subject of numerous scientific studies and
field investigations, examined in environmental impact
statements, and addressed in multiple public hearings and
voluminous public comments.(73) Yet in spite of that massive
effort, the boundaries of what might be called the northern
spotted owl ecosystem continue to shift. Previously thought
to exist only in old-growth forests, the owl has now been
found in substantial numbers in areas that have been logged.
Indeed, 600 northern spotted owls have recently been banded
on timberlands in northern California that were logged about
70 years ago.(74)

The ecosystem map envisioned by proponents of the NBS
will have to be a composite of many factors. Consider, for
example, Babbitt's aforementioned desire to include consid-
erations of climate, vegetation, and drainage as well as
individual species. There is also, as noted earlier, a
widespread desire to map what would ultimately be thousands
of species of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, fungi, and
microorganisms. It is reasonable, therefore, to ask how
many maps would have to be integrated into the single anti-
train-wreck map and whether that could be done in a meaning-
ful way.

Wetland mapping offers insights into the volume of maps
associated with the NBS. Wetland ecosystems account for
about 5 percent of the land in the conterminous states.(75)
They are defined and mapped by considering dominant species
of vegetation as well as soils and hydrology.(76) The distri-
butions of vertebrates, invertebrates, fungi, and microor-
ganisms are not considered when delineating the boundaries
of wetland ecosystems. Similarly, the distributions of
special kinds of biota, such as threatened or endangered
species, play no role in identifying wetlands. There is no
information concerning the interrelations of biota portrayed
on those maps; there are no data on population trends of
individual species or on a wide variety of other ecological-
ly valuable factors.

Even with all those informational deficiencies, the
administration recently rejected calls for categorizing
wetlands by value on the grounds that "simply mapping [wet-
lands in] the lower 48 States at a scale suitable for . . .
regulatory use would involve a mammoth undertaking yielding
nearly 14 million maps and costing in excess of $500 mil-
lion."(77) If 14 million maps are needed to give what is at
best a very incomplete ecological picture of only 5 percent
of the land in the conterminous states, the number of maps
required to cover the entire country in the comprehensive
manner envisioned by supporters of the NBS can be expected
to be several times greater. The idea that such an enormous
collection of maps could then be reduced to a single nation-
al "map we need to avoid the economic and environmental
train wrecks we see scattered across the country" is without
foundation.

As ecologically limited as ecosystem maps are, they are
even more constrained in their ability to show the socioeco-
nomic information necessary to reach knowledgeable and
balanced public policy decisions. They do not show economic
activity, jobs, tax revenues, land ownership and productivi-
ty, or numerous other factors that must be considered by
policymakers. Many important considerations are not even
mappable, for example, the rights of property owners or the
wide range of societal benefits that are associated with
economic activity.


The Anatomy of a Train Wreck

More science and better information will not ameliorate
economic and environmental "train wrecks" as long as the
policy playing field remains tilted against fulfillment of
legitimate societal aspirations tied to economic growth and
private-property rights whenever there is a conflict with
environmental goals.(78) The protection of northern spotted
owls and wetland ecosystems, as currently required by the
Endangered Species Act and section 404 of the Clean Water
Act, respectively, provides illuminating case histories of
why more science will not prevent future collisions between
economic and environmental aims.

Assume that the science concerning the northern spotted
owl was perfect. Assume that we knew where every owl could
be found at all times, what every owl ate, all about the
health of each owl, what was required for each owl to make a
maximum contribution to the continuation of the species, the
status and condition of future generations of northern spot-
ted owls, and so forth. That knowledge could not have pre-
vented the "train wreck" in the Pacific Northwest because of
the policy playing field on which it would have been used.

The Endangered Species Act as currently written re-
quires that activities benefiting humans or aiding in the
realization of human aspirations and goals give way to
protecting threatened and endangered species.(79) Efforts to
protect the northern spotted owl will have significant
adverse human consequences. Estimates of job losses vary;
however, Benjamin Stevens of the Regional Science Research
Institute concludes that more than 80,000 jobs would be lost
through implementation of owl-protection measures.(80) Lost
jobs translate into lost wages, which annually run into
hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as declines in
income for local communities.(81) Studies indicate that over
100 communities and counties in Washington, Oregon, and
northern California would be severely affected.(82)

Economic harm is only one measure of the human costs
imposed by the Endangered Species Act. In its discussion of
the social costs of measures to protect the northern spotted
owl, the Department of the Interior noted,

Sociological research shows the social costs in
timber dependent communities may be heightened by
the stereotyping and stigmatizing methods that
some groups advocating preservation of owl habitat
have employed . . . particularly against loggers.
. . . The combination of economic stress and stig-
matization can lead to . . . depression and pas-
sivity, drug and alcohol abuse, violence and fami-
ly dysfunction. . . . Sociologists regard such
situations as life-threatening traumas that can
cause maladaptive behavior patterns that can be
transmitted through families for generations.(83)

Ecosystem management, then, would have done precious
little to alter the fundamental legal dynamic that has led
to the economic "train wreck" about to occur in the timber
communities in the Pacific Northwest. Whether the govern-
ment acted sooner or later to protect the spotted owl, those
jobs would be affected and those communities would be devas-
tated under the Endangered Species Act.

"Train wrecks" in wetlands would not be avoided by
better science. Suppose we knew exactly where wetlands were
located and had complete understanding of the innumerable
interactions among all wetland biota and their physical
environment.(84) Absent changes in present policy, that in-
formation would not resolve existing conflicts about the use
of wetland areas.

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, the chief legis-
lative vehicle providing for federal regulation of wetlands,
requires those who wish to place material in wetlands to
obtain a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Within the 404 program, the process known as "sequencing"
requires that regulators presume that the preservation of
existing wetlands is the highest and best use of land, with-
out regard to the societal benefits that could accrue from
its use for other purposes or the costs imposed by permit
denial.(85) The act also provides that the EPA may veto any
Army Corps permit if, in the sole opinion of the EPA, a veto
is necessary to protect the environment. The EPA does not
have to consider the human consequences of its action. By
design, then, sequencing and the EPA veto establish an
unbalanced policy-regulatory playing field responsible for
many wetland-related "train wrecks" that cannot be overcome
by additional scientific knowledge.

James City County's (Virginia) efforts to provide an
adequate supply of water for its residents illustrates the
anti-human bias of section 404. The county is located in
low-lying coastal Virginia and contains a substantial amount
of wetlands. Facing a serious potential water shortage, the
county embarked on an extensive effort to develop a replace-
ment for its wells, the levels of which were falling as was
the quality of water they yielded. After a decade of scien-
tific studies and millions of dollars in expenditures, the
county overcame the sequencing hurdle to the satisfaction of
the Army Corp of Engineers, and a 404 permit was issued to
proceed with construction of a reservoir. The EPA, however,
vetoed the permit, arguing that not all non-wetland-impact-
ing options had been considered--including towing icebergs
to the county--and that the reservoir would have too great
an adverse impact on the environment.(86)

The county initially prevailed in a court challenge to
the veto, but on December 30, 1993, the Fourth Circuit Court
of Appeals held that the EPA could use its veto authority
without having to consider human costs or the public inter-
est.(87) Even though the court agreed with the county's (and
the Army Corps of Engineers') contention that no "practica-
ble alternatives" to the project had been shown to exist, it
wrote that under section 404, the EPA's "authority to veto
to protect the environment is practically unadorned."(88) Be-
cause of the bureaucratic obstacles, cost estimates for the
project went from $43.2 million in 1987 to $90.1 million in
1993.(89) So even if the county successfully appeals the EPA
decision, the taxpayers of James City County will pay a
heavy cost directly attributable to an unbalanced political
playing field and regulation run amok.

Not surprisingly, the EPA veto of the James City
County reservoir was strongly endorsed by the National
Wildlife Federation.(90) It and other national environmental
groups in favor of the NBS and federal protection of ecosys-
tems advocate strengthening section 404's restrictions on
the human use of wetlands to further tilt the unbalanced
playing field against economic activity, the rights of
property owners, and human needs.(91)


Ecosystem Management or Federal Land Grab?

Providing the federal government with the authority to
centrally manage ecosystems would entail a massive transfer
of power from the individual to the state. Federal regula-
tors and third-party activists would inevitably be involved
in land-use decisions throughout the nation; since most
"ecosystems" are in the hands of private landowners, one
could not hope to seriously "manage" ecosystems without
"managing" private land use. That would probably occur
through the application of a greatly expanded regulatory
framework and virtually unlimited opportunities to use or
threaten to use litigation if government demands regarding
private land-use decisions were not met. Absent capitula-
tion by those favoring economic use of the land and adher-
ence to principles of property rights, the possibility for
"train wrecks" is enhanced rather than diminished by embrac-
ing the NBS and federal management and protection of ecosys-
tems.

A plethora of federal environmental and resource man-
agement legislation already covers the landscape of the
United States, albeit in a nonsystematic manner. The Endan-
gered Species Act, for example, applies to publicly and
privately owned land but only to the habitat of threatened
and endangered species.(92) Section 404 of the Clean Water
Act likewise applies to publicly and privately owned land
but only to wetlands. The Coastal Zone Management Act
applies only to the coastal zone, the geographic extent of
which is determined on a state-by-state basis.

Geographic disjointedness is a major impediment to
using federal authority to control land use in a comprehen-
sive manner. Adoption of a policy for federal protection
and management of ecosystems overcomes that perceived defi-
ciency because all of the nation's land and water--regard-
less of ownership, amount or kind of existing or proposed
activity, or environmental characteristics--can be placed
within something labeled an ecosystem and thus be subjected
to an all-embracing regulatory regime.

Ecosystem management has another major appeal for those
seeking to use the power of the federal government to influ-
ence land-use decisions on private property. Federal land-
use dictates are currently constrained by the takings provi-
sion of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution that re-
quires just compensation for land owners.(93) Federal protec-
tion of ecosystems, however, offers a way to circumvent the
takings problem by invoking the public trust doctrine to
protect ecosystems as entities.(94) That doctrine provides
that there are certain public trust responsibilities vested
in government that cannot be relinquished; that is, there is
an affirmative government responsibility to protect the
people's common interest in certain resources. For example,
David Hunter, a proponent of increased federal controls,
wrote recently in the Harvard Environmental Law Review,

The public trust doctrine permits the states
to avoid traditional takings inquiries when they
are merely fulfilling their obligations as trus-
tees of the public's interest in private lands.
The doctrine is important because it empowers
states to place onerous regulations on certain
lands . . . while successfully avoiding the tak-
ings problem. It has a great potential for inter-
jecting [Leopold's] land ethic into property
law.(95)

The recent case of a Rhode Island farmer, Bill Stamp,
provides a glimpse of the federal-protection-of-ecosystems-
as-a-public-trust approach.(96) The land in question had been
in the family for four generations. It was a wetland eco-
system and therefore subject to federal protection under
section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Taxes on the land had
increased from $4,000 to $72,000 annually to reflect the
increase in property values associated with the evolution of
land use in the area from agriculture to industry. The
increased tax burden, however, made farming uneconomic, so
the landowner sought to use the land as it was taxed--as a
site for industrial development. The federal government
refused to grant a permit, leaving the landowner "stuck with
the land and the taxes." He felt he should be compensated
as provided for by the takings clause of the Fifth Amend-
ment. Jay Hair, president of the National Wildlife Federa
tion, disagreed. He commented that "there are certain
benefits that accrued to the public at large that transcends
[sic] the individual rights" of property owners so that
landowners have a "stewardship responsibility" to protect
resources "for the public good" without compensation.(97)

The geographic application of the public trust doctrine
is currently linked with the notion of navigable waters
(including wetlands).(98) However, a case is being built for
border-to-border application of the public trust doctrine.
Greg Meyers, adjunct professor at Northwestern University's
School of Law, writes that the doctrine should apply to
"wildlife, and by necessity the habitat it depends upon."(99)
David Hunter goes further, arguing that "the public trust
doctrine should be . . . expanded to all ecologically impor-
tant lands [because] our growing understanding of ecology
should lead to certain obligations on all landowners in
order to protect the public's interest."(100) Justice
Stevens, in his dissent in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal
Council (1992), lent support to that view; he wrote that
"new learning" and "self-education [produce] . . . changes
in the rights of property owners." He found that "new
appreciation of the significance of endangered species, the
importance of wetlands, and the vulnerability of coastal
lands shapes our evolving understandings of property
rights."(101) Ecosystem management, then, threatens to radi-
cally alter the nature of the relationship between govern-
mental agents and private-property owners by expanding the
"public trust" doctrine to justify centrally managed land-
use planning.


Conclusion

The administration has wholeheartedly embraced a policy
of federal management and protection of ecosystems as the
foundation for its environmental and natural resource poli-
cies in spite of the fact that the assumptions behind the
policy do not stand close inspection. The evidence strongly
indicates that the overall quality of the nation's environ-
ment is neither bad nor declining; indeed, it is good and
getting better. America is simply not in need of environ-
mental salvation. We particularly do not require excessive
new policies that may greatly expand federal intrusion into
land-use decisions about private property and increase
limitations on the use of federal lands for economic pur-
poses.

Supporters of the administration's policy suppose that
because the ecosystem concept comes from science it provides
a scientific foundation for the policy itself. In a most
unscientific way, however, advocates fail to acknowledge
that ecosystems are but shifting, unfocused, and incomplete
images of fragments of the landscape. Ecosystems are not
concrete features of the environment. Rather, they are
mental constructs that appear as a crazy quilt of overlap-
ping and geographically fuzzy areas, the location, size, and
shape of which are in constant flux. They do not provide a
rational on-the-ground basis for federal land management
policies throughout the nation. After all, how can one
justify telling a landowner or a land user that some activi-
ty will be prohibited because it would occur on the "wrong"
side of an ecosystem boundary, when the location of the
boundary is geographic guesswork and the ecosystem it delim-
its is but one of hundreds that could include all or various
portions of the area in question?

No amount of new information (however scientifically
useful it may be) provided by the NBS can overcome that
fatal policy flaw inherent in the ecosystem concept. The
latent danger of the NBS is that it can be used to provide
an undeserved mantle of science to federal ecosystem manage-
ment and protection policies. The interactions of thousands
of species of living things with all the various components
of the physical environment is extremely complex and not
well understood. To imagine, as proponents of federal
ecosystem management and protection must, that the federal
government has the wisdom and knowledge to determine a
single set of ecosystems for the nation and precisely locate
potentially tens of thousands of miles of ecosystem bound-
aries, establish agreed-upon and measurable goals for the
performance and desired condition of each of those ecosys-
tems in all its complexity, and manage the intricacies of
all the natural and human forces that affect the living and
nonliving things on the landscape to reach those goals is to
credit the federal government with an omniscience that
simply does not exist in the real world.

New federal environmental policies must address specif-
ic and clearly formulated problems. The NBS mission to help
save the West, for example, is not a concise statement of a
public policy issue. What is the West to be saved from?
What is the West to be saved for? Where is the West? Is
all of the West at risk? Is all of the West threatened by
the same thing? Numerous such fundamental questions are
unanswered. Unfocused policy goals can yield unfocused
policy responses that create confusion and undue burdens for
those directly affected as well as impose significant eco-
nomic and other costs on society at large.

The avoidance of economic and environmental "train
wrecks" is an admirable goal. The administration--through
the NBS and federal management and protection of eco-
systems--would attain that goal by placing the economic and
property-rights trains on sidings to allow the "Environmen-
tal Express" to highball down the track at top speed.
However, the real cause of "train wrecks" is inflexible
federal statutes that create uneven playing fields whereon
the legitimate pursuit of human aspirations is subordinated
to environmental protection. "Train wrecks" will be effec-
tively avoided only when economic and environmental goals
are harmonized on an even policy playing field that maximiz-
es the use of noncoercive market processes.(102)


Notes

(1) Al Gore, Reinventing Environmental Management, Accompa
nying Report of the National Performance Review (Washington:
Government Printing Office, September 1993), p. 11. The
phrase "economic-environmental train wrecks" has been used
extensively by Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt in
conjunction with establishment of the National Biological
Survey.
(2) Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year
1995 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1994),
p. 143.
(3) Agencies include the Environmental Protection Agency,
the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the
U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, the National Park Service, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, the
Federal Highway Administration, the Bureau of Mines, the
Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the
Minerals Management Service, the National Biological Survey,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Depart
ment of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Soil
Conservation Service, the Office of Surface Mining, and the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
(4) Gore, p. 14.
(5) Bruce Babbitt, testimony, in Hearing on H.R. 1845, the
National Biological Survey Act of 1993, before the Subcom
mittee on Technology, Environment and Aviation and the
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 103rd Cong.,
1st sess., September 14, 1993 (Washington: Government Print
ing Office, 1993), p. 12.
(6) Ibid., p. 13; and Bruce Babbitt, "Re: Creation of the
National Biological Survey," memorandum of March 17, 1993,
to cabinet secretaries, White House officials, the president
of the National Academy of Sciences, and the director of the
Smithsonian Institution.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Babbitt, testimony, in Hearing on H.R. 1845, the Na
tional Biological Survey Act of 1993, p. 13.
(9) Bruce Babbitt, statement, in Joint Hearing on the
National Biological Survey Act of 1993 before the Subcommit
tee on Environment and Natural Resources of the House Com
mittee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and the Subcommittee
on National Parks, Forests, and Public Land of the House
Committee on Natural Resources, 103rd Cong., 1st sess., July
15, 1993 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1993),
p. 42.
(10) John Sawhill, statement, in ibid., p. 54.
(11) Mark Shaffer, statement, in ibid., p. 71.
(12) American Association for the Advancement of Science,
"Resolution in Support of a National Center for Biodi
versity," February 18, 1991, p. 177; and American Society
for Microbiology, letter to Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-N.Y.)
in support of national biological diversity legislation, May
23, 1991, in Hearing on H.R. 585 and H.R. 2082, National
Biological Diversity Conservation, before the Subcommittee
on Environment of the House Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, 102d Cong., 1st sess., May 23, 1991 (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1991), p. 165.
(13) National Research Council, A Biological Survey for the
Nation (Washington: National Academy Press, 1993), p. 70.
(14) Peter Raven, testimony, in Hearing on H.R. 585 and H.R.
2082, National Biological Diversity Conservation, p. 37.
(15) Secretarial Order no. 3173, September 29, 1993.
(16) Staffing of the NBS was laid out in U.S. Department of
the Interior, "The National Biological Survey: Integrating
Biological Science at the Department of Interior," June 8,
1993.
(17) Bill Clinton, letter to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, April 26, 1994; and Budget of the United
States Government, Fiscal Year 1995, Appendix, p. 544.
(18) Bruce Babbitt, "Dear Interior Colleague," letter dated
April 1, 1993; "Interior Views--Interview with Secretary
Babbitt," Audubon, May-June 1993; and Tom Kenworthy, "The
Lord of the Land," Washington Post, January 23, 1994, p. F1.
(19) U.S. Department of the Interior, "Secretary Babbitt
Announces Appointment of Tom Lovejoy as Science Advisor,"
Department of the Interior press release, March 13, 1993;
and Chris Smith, "The Natural," New York, April 8, 1991,
p. 30.
(20) Mark Shaffer, representing the Wilderness Society, the
Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the
Environmental Defense Fund, and Greenpeace, testimony, in
Joint Hearing on the National Biological Survey Act of 1993.
(21) Vawter "Buck" Parker, Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund,
fundraising letter, Fall 1992.
(22) "26th Environmental Quality Index: It's the Ecosystem,
Stupid," National Wildlife, February-March 1994, pp. 38-45;
and "Want to Climb a Mountain?" Sierra, March-April 1993,
p. 22. See also J. Michael McCloskey and Carl Pope, "To
gether in Time," Sierra, May-June 1992, pp. 96-99,
124-25.
(23) Babbitt, testimony, in Hearing on H.R. 1845, the Na
tional Biological Survey Act of 1993, p. 13.
(24) "Bruce Babbitt: Is He Tough Enough to Save the Environ
ment?" Rolling Stone, July 8-22, 1993, p. 52.
(25) U.S. Department of the Interior, "The National Biologi
cal Survey."
(26) Quoted in House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fish
eries, National Biological Survey Act of 1993, Report to
Accompany H.R. 1845, 103d Cong., 1st sess., July 27, 1993,
Report 105-198, committee print, p. 4.
(27) Babbitt, testimony, in Hearing on H.R. 1845, the Na
tional Biological Survey Act of 1993, p. 17.
(28) Norman Christensen, Jr., in ibid., p. 52.
(29) Critics of the arguments presented in this section can
point out that looking at the condition of the American
environment in the broad strokes used here masks trouble
spots and that more can be done to improve the quality of
our environment. Although that is true, the presence of
environmental trouble spots is not what is driving efforts
to legitimize generic federal management and protection of
ecosystems. Rather, that ambitious approach is justified on
the grounds that major environmental problems national in
scope exist and that they cannot be resolved using existing
policy tools.
(30) Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Invest
ments: The Costs of a Clean Environment (Washington: EPA,
December 1990), table 2-1. The statutes considered in the
EPA analysis were the Clean Air Act; the Radon Gas and
Indoor Air Quality Research Act of 1986; the Radon Pollution
Control Act of 1988 (and earlier, unspecified acts relating
to air pollution); the Clean Water Act; the Marine Protec
tion, Sanctuaries, and Research Act; the Safe Drinking Water
Act; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; the Compre
hensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act; the Toxic Substances Control Act; the Federal Insec
ticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; the Energy Security
Act; and title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthor
ization Act.
(31) Ibid.
(32) Other analysts have found that total hard environmental
expenditures are 67 percent higher than the EPA's estimates.
See "Environmental Clean-Up Spending May Help Boost Econo
my," Journal of Environmental Health 55, no. 3 (April 1993):
55-56.
(33) Although Management Information Services, Inc., calcu
lates that direct pollution and abatement control expendi
tures were actually $139 billion in 1992 (1992 dollars),
MISI accounts for other environment-related expenditures
such as global warming research; clean energy technology;
utility conservation; demand-side management; and similar
federal, state, and local programs not considered by the EPA
(excluding, however, government spending on parks, recre
ation, and natural resource functions). MISI's figures are
particularly striking, given that the firm applauds environ
mental regulation as a means of stimulating economic activi
ty, so there is no incentive on the part of the firm to
"inflate" cost totals to discredit environmental regulation.
See Management Information Services, Inc., "U.S. 1992 Envi
ronmental Spending Totals 170 Billion and Creates 4 Million
Jobs," Washington, December 1992.
(34) Ibid.
(35) Michael Hazilla and Raymond Kopp, "Social Cost of
Environmental Quality Regulations: A General Equilibrium
Analysis," Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 4 (1990):
853-73.
(36) Environmental Protection Agency, National Air Quality
and Emissions Trends Report, annual. The criteria pollut
ants are carbon monoxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
dioxide, total suspended particulates, and lead.
(37) Environmental Protection Agency, National Air Pollutant
Emission Estimates, 1940-1990 (Research Triangle Park, N.C.:
EPA, 1991), p. 2.
(38) Ibid. Cities included are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago,
Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles,
New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle,
and Washington, D.C.
(39) James Lents and William Kelly, "Clearing the Air in Los
Angeles," Scientific American, October 1993, p. 32.
(40) See generally Indur Goklany, "Sustaining Development
and Biodiversity: Productivity, Efficiency, and Conserva
tion," Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 175, August 6,
1992.
(41) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Major Land Uses Data
Base; and John Fedkiw, The Evolution of Use and Management
of the Nation's Forests, Grasslands, Croplands, and Related
Resources, General Technical Report RM-175 (Washington:
USDA, Forest Service, 1989), p. 7.
(42) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Statistics
1991 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1991), p. 467;
and Douglas MacCleery, American Forests, FS-540 (Washington:
USDA, 1992), p. 47.
(43) Ibid.
(44) Ibid.
(45) Data on rangelands are less comprehensive than those on
air quality or forests. Rangeland data are subject to some
controversy, but the trends they show are supported by the
judgments of many rangeland experts and individual empirical
studies. The issue is reviewed by B. Delworth Gardiner,
"Rangeland Resources: Changing Uses and Productivity," in
America's Renewable Resources, ed. Kenneth Frederick and
Roger Sedjo (Washington: Resources for the Future, 1992),
pp. 123-66. The National Research Council recently termed
data on rangelands inadequate in Rangeland Health (Washing
ton: National Academy Press, 1994).
(46) Bureau of Land Management, Public Land Statistics--1992
(Washington: BLM, 1993), p. 28; and Council on Environmental
Quality, Environmental Quality--22nd Annual Report (Wash
ington: Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 299. In 1992
the condition of 11 percent of BLM rangeland was classified
as "unknown." For 1992 the categories of "excellent,"
"good," "fair," and "poor" were relabeled "community," "po
tential natural seral," "late seral," and "mild seral,"
respectively. The definitions behind the category labels,
however, remained unchanged so that range judged to be in
"excellent" condition in 1991 would have had an ecological
status of "community" in 1992.
(47) Ibid.
(48) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation
Service, "Summary Report: 1987 National Resources Invento
ry," Statistical Bulletin no. 790, December 1989, p. 37.
Nonfederal rangeland was estimated at approximately 401
million acres in 1987. In 1987 the condition of 6 percent
of nonfederal rangelands was "unknown." Survey methods
differ for federal and nonfederal lands so data are not
strictly comparable.
(49) Council on Environmental Quality, p. 299.
(50) Raven, p. 37.
(51) James Williams and Ronald Nowak, "Vanishing Species in
Our Own Backyard: Extinct Fish and Wildlife of the United
States and Canada," in Last Extinctions, ed. Les Kaufman and
Kenneth Mallory (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986),
pp. 133-37.
(52) As of January 28, 1994. The adequacy of data used for
listing species is the subject of controversy; see Robert E.
Gordon Jr., "When the 'Best Available Data' is B.A.D.: The
Data Error Plague," Resources (Summer 1993): 3.
(53) U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, "Harm
ful Non-indigenous Species in the United States," September
1993, p. 3.
(54) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Major Land Uses Data
Base.
(55) Ibid.
(56) Ibid.
(57) Ibid.
(58) A. G. Tansley, a British botanist, is generally credit
ed with coining the term "ecosystems" over 50 years ago.
Definitions of the term include "dynamic and interrelating
complex of plant and animal communities and their associated
non-living environment" (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, An
Ecosystem Approach to Fish and Wildlife Management [Wash
ington: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1994], p. 4); "an
interesting collection of organisms and the abiotic [non-
living] factors that affect them" (Eldon Enger, Concepts in
Biology, 6th ed. [Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Broea, 1991],
p. 516); and "a self-sustaining and self-regulating communi
ty of organisms interacting with one another and with their
environment" (G. Tyler Miller, Living in the Environment,
4th ed. [Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1985], p. A33).
(59) National Research Council, A Biological Survey for the
Nation (Washington: National Academy Press, 1993),
pp. 75-77.
(60) These points are discussed in detail in Allan K. Fitz-
simmons, testimony, in Hearing on H.R. 1845, the National
Biological Survey Act of 1993, pp. 72-95, and in a statement
in Joint Hearing on the National Biological Survey Act of
1993, pp. 104-12.
(61) Babbitt, statement, in ibid., pp. 15-16.
(62) Drainage basins are not generally regarded as causal
factors in the distribution of biota and are therefore of
little value in determining ecosystem boundaries. See James
Omernik, "Ecoregions of the Conterminous United States,"
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, March
1987, p. 119.
(63) A. W. Kuchler, "Potential Natural Vegetation--Revised
1985," in National Atlas of the United States of America
(Reston, Va.: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geologi
cal Survey, 1985); and Paul Seasber et al., Hydrologic Unit
Maps--U.S. Geological Survey, Water-Supply Paper 2294 (Wash
ington: Government Printing Office, 1987), pp. 55-58.
(64) Robert Bailey, Ecoregions of the United States (Ogden,
Utah: U.S. Forest Service, 1976); and Robert Bailey, De
scriptions of the Ecoregions of the United States, Miscella
neous Publication 1391 (Washington: U.S. Department of
Agriculture, 1980). Bailey melded maps of climate, eleva
tion, potential natural vegetation, and soils to determine
ecoregions.
(65) Omernik, pp. 118-25. Omernik blended considerations of
land surface form, soils, land use, and potential natural
vegetation in formulating his ecoregions.
(66) C. Langdon White, Edwin Foscue, and Tom McKnight,
Regional Geography of Anglo-America, 5th ed. (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1979), pp. 94-95.
(67) Scott Pendleton, "Great Plains Initiative's Twin Goals
Aim at Regional Survival Strategies," Christian Science
Monitor, May 18, 1993, p. 10.
(68) The approximately 340-mile shift would occur in Kansas;
in North America, the distance between meridians decreases
as you move toward the north pole and increases as you move
toward the equator.
(69) Denis Wood, "The Power of Maps," Scientific American,
May 1993, p. 89.
(70) Ibid., p. 93.
(71) Mark Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps (Chicago: Univer
sity of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 2. Emphasis in original.
(72) For good discussions of maps and their characteristics,
see Wood and Monmonier.
(73) See Draft Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl
(Washington: U.S. Department of the Interior, April 1992).
(74) NBC Nightly News, September 17, 1993.
(75) T. E. Dahl and C. E. Johnson, Wetlands Status and
Trends in the Conterminous United States: Mid-1970s to Mid-
1980s (Washington: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1991),
p. 8.
(76) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wetlands Delineation
Manual, Technical Report Y-87-1 (Washington: U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, January 1987).
(77) White House, "Protecting America's Wetlands: A Fair,
Flexible, and Effective Approach," August 24, 1993, p. 12.
(78) Folding better science and good data into decision
making should be encouraged while recognizing that more
information will not ensure good policymaking. For example,
concerns about the impacts of the NBS on other governmental
programs and responsibilities are highlighted in the testi
mony of Bill Horn (Wildlife Legislative Fund of America),
Max Peterson (International Association of Fish and Wildlife
Agencies), and Rollin Sparrowe (Wildlife Management Insti
tute) in Joint Hearing on the National Biological Survey Act
of 1993.
(79) The literature on the Endangered Species Act is volumi
nous. For a recent synopsis of the act and its consequenc
es, see Thomas Lambert and Robert J. Smith, "The Endangered
Species Act: Time for a Change," Policy Study no. 119,
Center for the Study of American Business, St. Louis, March
1994; Rob Gordon Jr. and James Streeter, "Salamander the
Great," Policy Review (Winter 1994): 56-61; Charles Mann and
Mark Plummer, "The Butterfly Problem," Atlantic Monthly,
January 1992, pp. 47-70; and Brian Mannix, "The Origin of
Endangered Species and the Descent of Man," American Enter
prise, November-December 1992, pp. 56-63. A concise legal
review is provided by Robert Meltz, "CRS Report to Con-
gress--The Endangered Species Act and Private Property: A
Legal Primer," Congressional Research Service, March 7,
1993.
(80) Benjamin Stevens, Final Report on the Comparative
Evaluation of Two Major Studies on the Employment Impacts of
the ISC Northern Spotted Owl Conservation Strategy of Wash
ington, Oregon, and California (Washington: Regional Science
Research Institute for the American Forest Resource Alli
ance, 1991), p. 20.
(81) U.S. Department of the Interior, Recovery Plan for the
Northern Spotted Owl--Draft (Washington: U.S. Department of
the Interior, April 1992), pp. 544-46.
(82) Ibid., pp. 556-57.
(83) Ibid., p. 549.
(84) There is substantial controversy regarding federal
wetland policies. They have been the subject of White House
task forces in both the Bush and Clinton administrations,
numerous congressional hearings, and widespread public
debate. The Clinton administration's views are outlined in
White House, "Protecting America's Wetlands." For a general
review of applicable federal policies, see General Account
ing Office, "Wetlands Overview," General Accounting Office
RCED-92-79FS, November 1991.
(85) "Sequencing" as applied to the 404 process provides
first for the avoidance of wetlands; second, if wetlands
cannot be avoided, then impacts must be minimized; third,
after minimization, mitigation may be required for remaining
impacts. Steps in sequencing are set out by the Council of
Environmental Quality at 40 CFR 1508.20, and their appli
cation to the issuance of individual 404 permits is dis
cussed in Federal Register, February 15, 1990, p. 5510.
(86) William Ellis, testimony before the Domestic Policy
Council's Interagency Wetlands Task Force, Providence, Rhode
Island, September 17, 1990, pp. 28-36.
(87) James City County v. EPA (no. 92-2294) (4th Cir., Dec.
30, 1993).
(88) James City County v. EPA, 955 F.2d 254 (4th Cir.,
1992), quoted in National Wetlands Coalition, Washington
Update, December 1993-January 1994, p. 5; and Randolph
Goode, "Need for Water Ruled Not Sufficient for Approval,"
Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 1, 1994, p. B-5.
(89)
"Final Environmental Impact Statement--Ware Creek
Reservoir," 1987, p. 2-12, table 12; and James City County,
"Capital Improvement Request Form," January 1, 1993.
(90) National Wildlife, June-July 1992, p. 28.
(91) Douglas Inkley, National Wildlife Federation, testimo
ny, in Hearing on S. 1114, Reauthorization of the Clean
Water Act, before the Subcommittee on Clean Water, Fish
eries, and Wildlife of the Senate Committee on Environment
and Public Works, 103d Cong., 1st sess., September 15, 1993,
S. Hrg 103328 (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1993), pp. 1283-99.

On June 4, 1991, a letter from 101 conservation and
other organizations, "Re: Strengthening and Improving Sec
tion 404 of the Clean Water Act," was hand delivered to
members of the Senate.
(92) The reach of the Endangered Species Act on private
lands could be substantially restricted if a March 11, 1994,
decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia is upheld. In Sweet Home v. Babbitt (no. 92-5255),
the court found that FWS regulation defining the word
"harm," as found in the statute, to include the modification
of habitat (ecosystems) to be invalid.
(93) "[N]or shall private property be taken for public use,
without compensation."
(94) See James Huffman, "Avoiding the Takings Clause through
the Myth of Public Rights: The Public Trust and Reserved
Rights Doctrines at Work," Journal of Land Use and Environ
mental Law 3 (1987): 171-212.
(95) David Hunter, "An Ecological Perspective on Property: A
Call for Judicial Protection of the Public's Interest in
Environmentally Critical Resources," Harvard Environmental
Law Review 12 (1988): 316. Also see Alison Rieser, "Ecolog
ical Preservation as a Public Property Right: An Emerging
Doctrine in Search of a Theory," Harvard Environmental Law
Review 15 (1991): 393-434; and James Huffman, "A Fish Out of
Water: The Public Trust Doctrine in a Constitutional Democ
racy," Environmental Law 19 (1989): 527-71.
(96) MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, December 17, 1991.
(97) Ibid.
(98) William Rodgers Jr., Environmental Law (St. Paul: West,
1986), vol. 1, p. 158.
(99) Gary Meyers, "Variations on a Theme: Expanding the
Public Trust Doctrine to Include Protection of Wildlife,"
Environmental Law 19 (1989): 728,
(100) Hunter, p. 377.
(101) 505 U.S., ___, 12 S. Ct. 2886 (1992).
(102) See generally Terry Anderson and Donald Leal, Free
Market Environmentalism (San Francisco: Pacific Research
Institute, 1989); Taking the Environment Seriously, ed.
Roger Meiners and Bruce Yandle (Lanham, Md.: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1993); and Economics and the Environment: A
Reconciliation, ed. Walter Block (Vancouver: Fraser Insti
tute, 1990).

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