The Green Guru

No stranger to environmental issues, Frampton served as the Interior Department's assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks from 1993 to 1997. Earlier, he was president of the Wilderness Society, an environmental group, from 1986 to 1993. A lawyer by training, Frampton is no stranger to political controversy. He served as an assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation from 1973 to 1975 and as chief of staff for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 1979-80 inquiry into the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

After being appointed to the CEQ in November, Frampton helped draft several new White House environmental initiatives that were announced with great ceremony in January. One, the Lands Legacy Program, envisions acquiring additional land for preserves such as Florida's Everglades and the Mojave Desert in California, protecting ocean and coastal resources such as the national marine sanctuaries, conserving farmland, and expanding urban parks and forests, especially in run-down neighborhoods.

Frampton also has helped launch a White House program to make communities more livable by easing traffic congestion, improving public transportation, preserving green space and promoting regional land-use planning. And he has helped develop the administration's proposed $3.6-billion, five-year program of research and $1.4 billion in tax incentives to get industry and individuals to buy energy-efficient cars, appliances and manufacturing equipment to help counter global warming.

To pay for the livable communities program, the Clinton administration proposed a set of tax credits in its fiscal 2000 budget that would allow state and local governments to issue $9.5 billion in "Better America Bonds" over the next five years. The bonds would be used to preserve green space, protect water quality and clean up abandoned industrial sites known as "brownfields." The administration has also requested more than $8 billion to promote public transportation and strengthen regional land use planning programs.

At the same time, Frampton and CEQ have taken a leading role in coordinating federal efforts to preserve salmon in the Pacific Northwest, mediating environmental disputes between agencies and restoring a more natural flow of water through the Everglades. Even before Frampton was appointed, CEQ led so-far unsuccessful efforts to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Comprehensive Emergency Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which created the Superfund program.

The council was created under the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. Besides its mediation role, CEQ oversees the environmental impact statement process, coordinates interagency programs and reports annually on the state of the environment.

That CEQ still exists may surprise some. President Reagan tried to eliminate the White House agency in the early 1980s because he opposed its mission. President Clinton tried again in 1993, because he wanted to use a different approach to managing environmental policy. While both attempts were unsuccessful, CEQ's staff today is about half that of 1992. Nevertheless, President Clinton requested more than $3 million for CEQ in fiscal year 2000, up 15 percent from 1999.

Although still relatively new in his job at CEQ, Frampton recently sat down with Government Executive to discuss his views on the state of the environment and of CEQ, and on some of the environmental challenges facing federal agencies. Following are excerpts of Frampton's remarks.

On the state of the environment:

A lot of the easiest environmental problems have already been met. We have made tremendous progress in cleaning up our air, water and toxic waste sites. This administration has cleaned up three times as many Superfund sites in the last six years as in the previous 12.

We have also made tremendous progress in designing programs to protect our endangered wildlife.And we have begun to combat worldwide problems like climate change and the worldwide loss of biological diversity.

Now we are facing problems that are much more complicated and systemic in that they have much more to do with the way we live. These include controlling urban and agricultural runoff, stopping the gradual accumulation of persistent organic pollutants, preserving green space, developing livable communities and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global climate change.

These problems will require new approaches that will have to be regional or global in scope and emphasize partnerships.These problems will also require much more sophisticated science and much more data than we have relied on before.

That will lead us to focus on sustainable development rather than just more government regulation. Through innovative strategies like emissions trading, we can harness market forces and turn the challenge of global warming into a tremendous opportunity to put both developed and developing countries on the path to sustainable economic growth.

On the major environmental problems facing government:

Loss of biological diversity. Habitat loss. Climate change. Leveling up environmental protection in developing countries. These are all huge environmental problems that will require new ways to deal with them.

On President Clinton's environmental initiatives:

This administration has undertaken some big policy initiatives that will help state and local authorities make their communities more livable. They will be able to integrate environmental protection and preservation of open space into regional planning programs to improve the quality of life for everyone. The livability issue is our backyard version of the global challenges like climate change and loss of biological diversity.

We've worked very hard to line up economic incentives in the President's [fiscal 2000] budget like the Better America Bonds, open space grants and agricultural land protection to make our communities more livable. I know it goes against conventional wisdom, but I think there is an enormous amount we can do on the environmental front in the last two years of an administration.

On the effect of regulatory reform:

That portion of regulatory reform designed to streamline and rationalize environmental regulation has been good. Regulatory reform has been a big part of the Vice President's reinventing government efforts. Regulatory reform encompasses a large part of what we have done in this administration to make programs aimed at protecting endangered species more acceptable to landowners and to reform the Superfund program to make it more effective.

But much of what some people have promoted as regulatory reform [since the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994] is not really regulatory reform. It is an attempt to blunt environmental protection. It is an illegitimate attempt to make our enforcement of environmental laws harder.

So far, though, the impact of regulatory reform has not been too negative. Cost-benefit analyses, although sometimes onerous, have been somewhat beneficial. We have supported efforts to reduce regulatory impacts on small businesses and to ensure that reporting requirements impose as little burden as possible.

Fortunately, the potentially most harmful aspects of regulatory reform have failed to win public support and were dropped. The Senate dropped a bill passed by the House last year that would have exposed state and local governments to costly litigation in federal court whenever they enacted reasonable controls on development. We hope the Senate will reject another bill passed by the House that would make it much harder to enact legislation to protect public health and the environment, even when the benefits far outweigh the costs.

On reauthorization of environmental laws:

The Clinton administration has worked very hard to reform and win reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act, Superfund and the Clean Water Act. We worked very hard to get good bills enacted and almost succeeded. We almost got Endangered Species reauthorization to the Senate floor.

We put together a centrist coalition to support Superfund reauthorization. After 1994, some in industry wanted to shoot higher. That killed [Superfund] reauthorization. We won't accept any bill that would weaken the law. You have to have a constituency in Congress and the American public for good legislation. We're at an impasse until Congress is willing to entertain real reform that doesn't simply let polluters off the hook.

In the meantime, we've moved ahead with administrative reform to make the laws work better. We've used habitat conservation plans, for example, to add millions of acres of privately owned lands that were not covered by the law to protect endangered species. We've also ramped up the Clean Water Act to deal with [pollution that can't be traced to single sources]. It has been a six-year effort to make the endangered species, clean water and Superfund laws work better in the face of Congress' inability to reauthorize those acts.

On making environmental programs work:

We've shown that government programs work best when you can define a set of objectives that are shared by most people with a stake [in the issue being addressed]. You need to build a broad base of support for the program from the beginning. You have to keep people with a stake in the program involved. And you have to line up financial and economic incentives for people to support the program. Sometimes that means using market incentives rather than government regulation, as the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments did.

We involved a lot of people and groups in south Florida who wanted or had a stake in Everglades restoration. Similarly, we tried to find ways in the President's budget to line up incentives like the Better America Bonds and the Lands Legacy Program. All of these programs appear to have built a broad base of public support.

I'm not sure we have come to a sufficient public consensus on the steps needed to take on an effective program to combat global warming yet, but that is beginning to change. A number of business groups have said in recent months that they were willing to invest in technology to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions now, even though no law requires it. We have proposed that Congress enact legislation to provide tax credits for fuel-efficient cars and appliances so people can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

It may take six or seven years to build a consensus for programs to combat global warming, as it did for the Everglades. [Fighting global warming] will require significant changes in how we meet our energy needs, for instance, by improved energy efficiency and greater reliance on renewable energy sources. There will be some costs, though far more modest than some would suggest, and they may be offset by savings from energy efficiency and electricity restructuring. Support will take time to mature. But I'm convinced we will reach a point in the next few years where more progress will be possible.

On CEQ's performance:

We have done a good job of advising the President and Vice President on environmental issues, on overseeing the [National Environmental Policy Act] process and on making sure all federal agencies speak with one voice on the environment.

CEQ has done a good job on those issues where we have had the resources to do something. CEQ was very helpful on the issue of overflights of national parks. We helped the National Park Service and Federal Aviation Administration develop a pretty good rule for the Grand Canyon, but it was a struggle. That is why you need a CEQ.

But we've only got 18 or 19 people and a budget of only $3 million. We're understaffed. We could put 60 people on and still not meet all the demands on us. We would settle for another four or five people.

But CEQ is stronger today even though we're undermanned and underwomanned. We've strengthened our role as a policy adviser to the White House and as an independent agency that can serve as an honest broker working to harmonize the government's environmental policies. We can deliver an honest assessment on where we as a nation need to go.

We are helped by a growing realization that most environmental problems require an interagency and interdisciplinary approach. There is only one crossroad where environmental problems facing different agencies come together, and that's CEQ.

On why he returned to government:

When the Vice President called and asked me to take this job, I couldn't say no. These are issues I care about. I couldn't refuse. This job is very challenging and very important. Not many people can say their work is important for the environment and for the country. I also like working where the people are totally committed to what they are doing. That's very valuable. It makes up for a lot of the grief.

Jeffrey P. Cohn is a Washington-area journalist who writes frequently for Government Executive.