I am part I am part of the generation for which the environment became a front and center issue.

I’ve been involved from a variety of perspectives-government, law firm and now as head of GE’s environmental program initiatives.

As the world has become a much smaller place, and the laws and regulations governing the environment are much more alike than they are different. As time goes on, that will be even more the case as the developing world hurries to “catch up” and put the legal framework in place to enable it to handle the development that is happening.

I have seen the world of environmental policy up close throughout my career, and this has given me a chance to think about what has “worked” and what hasn’t in the world of environmental policy in many different contexts. Here are some thoughts based on my expenences.

First of all, courts and lawyers may not be the best means of solving environmental problems, but they’re not all bad either. There is a lot of complaining that goes on about the courts and the legal system. They cause delay, they interfere with agency discretion, they favor vested interest, etc. To quote Atticus Finch, “in this country the courts are the great levelers.”

The truth is that our legal system beats whatever is in second place for resolving disputes (war, dueling, rioting, etc) and it beats having no forum in which a neutral decider will hear and decide disputes. When stakeholders are shut out from the legal system, there simply is no other avenue to insure that decisions will be made fairly and dispassionately. No matter how well intended, when one person or agency has absolute power to make another person do what they say with no recourse, the power will be abused. No one is right all the time; there is always room for fair dispute. I have almost never seen a disputed matter that would not benefit from the parties having to make their case to a neutral decision-maker, and any delay has been well worth the wait.

Fair process is essential. Allowing stakeholders to have a voice in what actually happens before a decision is made always yields a better result. The environmental groups fought for years to get what the law calls” standing” to make their points. That struggle was important. It is just as important for all stakeholders as it is for just one to have a chance to be heard and make their point.

Government, environmental groups, private business and the communities and people who will be impacted by a decision or action all have a critical role to play in the development of environmental laws and regulations and in deciding where the boundaries lie for proscribed behavior. Most progress comes when those people recognize their respective roles, don’t shout past each other and realize that no one gets 100 percent of what they want all the time.

Scare tactics are counterproductive. Pronouncements that some dire calamity is about to occur merely defeat consensus building efforts and force issues into a win/lose equation from which it is hard to make positive progress. For both environmentalists and their “opponents”, being professional and trying to understand opposing perspectives will yield better results nine times out of ten.

When laws and programs don’t work or outlive their usefulness, they should be changed. Instead, invested parties often cling to them in the mistaken fear that any change to a part of a law may result in a cascade of changes to other laws, and lead to a wholesale dismantlement of our environmental legal and regulatory structure. This is the Vietnam “domino” theory in an environmental disguise, and it doesn’t hold.

At GE, I have seen first hand the adoption by most (but by no means all) companies of comprehensive EHS policies and programs. These programs drive compliance and are integrating EHS values into the operation of the enterprise. Companies have identified the links between productivity and waste reduction, energy efficiency, disciplined water use, recyclability of parts and products, and can demonstrate how these contribute to the bottom line. Some companies still may try to get by with a “look good feel good” approach. This approach may fool analysts and unsophisticated observers, but sooner or later it fails.

Our system functions on the tenet that laws will be obeyed.
Without voluntary compliance, the system will break down. Thus, fair and certain enforcement to deter cheaters is essential.

Voluntary initiatives are an important adjunct to the “command and control” approach to achieving environmental policy goals. Both are necessary and neither alone will do the job. For example the EPA’s 33/50 program resulted in the voluntary reduction of tens of millions of pounds of chemicals and other air pollutants. The creation of the Toxic Release Inventory by itself resulted in reductions of releases and emissions as companies tired of reading about themselves in the papers and took action to reduce emISSIOns.

Air emission trading programs (in their infancy) should provide an opportunity for the free market to assist government as it tries to deal with the growing patchwork of climate change regulation and laws globally and, eventually, in the US. Globalization provides an opportunity to build capacity in the developing world and to make the pace of change in the environmental area faster, not slower. Most governments want growth and environmental protection. Most multi-nationals do too. Opposing globalization is not the way to insure that economic growth for the developing world and meaningful and healthy lives for the people in it.

There is lots of important work to do in the area of environmental policy, but people should not forget the significant improvements that the past 30 years have brought in the US and around the world. There are still many very difficult and seemingly intractable problems. However, the past 30 years provide us with lots of learning and context for the future if we are wise and bold enough to learn and act on what we have experienced.

Stephen Ramsey is an environmental lawyer and fanner Chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section at the US Department of Justice. He has been the vice president of Corporate Environmental Programs at GE since 1990. He received the Service award in 1983.