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U.S. Environmental Policy and Its Effects on the Job Market, 1993-2009

The Clinton Administration, beginning in 1993, has been credited with several environmental achievements. However, many expressed dissatisfaction with the environmental effects of some of his policies-particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993, which created friction with several political and social organizations including some environmental special interest groups. NAFTA's perceived negative effects on the environment contributed to the rise in public approval of the Green Party, headed by Ralph Nader. NAFTA is still a controversial policy today, with many arguing that after its initial positive results it contributed to the later recession.

But many of the Clinton environmental policy accomplishments are widely hailed by progressives. Clinton made several changes to make the environmental regulation of industry more stringent and effective, encouraged recycling, and championed initiatives which protected the threatened California fresh water supply.

Environmental science research enjoyed increased funding during the Clinton administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the entire national environmental protection apparatus, flourished. The national economy exhibited growth in most sectors, and for the first time in decades the national deficit did not dramatically rise under a single president. How much of this economic success can be attributed to environmental policy cannot be definitively measured, but scientists have claimed significant, measurable progress was made throughout the 1990s in reducing air and water pollution.

Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, took office in 2001. Bush had a radically different agenda for U.S. energy and environmental policy. His priorities revolved principally around securing the expansion and profitability of the oil and coal industries, with less emphasis on safety, complying with existing regulations, and reducing the negative environmental impacts of drilling, mining, and consumption of fossil fuels.

Critics of George W. Bush accuse him of deliberately appointing only unqualified or otherwise incompetent individuals to the EPA, which under his administrative tenure abandoned many regulations and policies previously employed. In 2004, President Bush was criticized by NASA, which claimed that the administration had attempted to censor data that the organization had gathered concerning global climate change. Many were also embittered against Bush for perceived willful negligence, either causing or exacerbating the human loss and suffering, destruction, and environmental calamity during and directly after the time that hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas.

Perhaps the most widely-criticized environmental decision of the Bush Administration-especially amongst the international community-was the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, a global commitment to set definitive limits on greenhouse emissions. Bill Clinton had supported the Kyoto Protocol, and the refusal of the United States to sign on to the agreement under the following administration was appalling to most foreign industrialized nations.

As scientific research was not a high priority under the troubled Bush administration, environmental research declined generally, and most of its funding came from private sector rather than government investments. Many say that when research is privately and not publicly funded, the results are more likely to be skewed in favor of the financial interests of its sponsors.

It will never be known how far this sharp reduction in research funding impacted environmental and economic progress, but new and innovative environmental initiatives were rare except when in relation to the fossil fuel industry. Funding for NASA and other organizations conducting nonpartisan environmental research was strangled-to what economic loss cannot be determined.

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