Environmental Administration

ENVIRONMENTAL ADMINISTRATION
with Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith

UC Davis, Fall Term 2003
[Environmental Science and Policy 166, Policy Making in Natural Resource Agencies]

The Course Mail Archive (inactive)

Research Sources

Writing Assignment

* * * * * *

State Law

Federal Law

News Network

California News

THE SYLLABUS: UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF AGENCIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

INSTRUCTOR: Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith, Department of Political Science and Department of Environmental Science and Policy.
Office: 1263 Social Sciences. gawsmith@ucdavis.edu
Office Hours: Fridays, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., and by e-mail and by appointment. (530) 752-0966, for phone messages. (530) 752-8666, for Fax.

CLASS MEETINGS: Tuesdays and Thursdays (TR) 12:10 to 1:30 p.m. in Room 146, Olson Hall.

There are no discussion sections associated with the course this year.

FIRST WEEK CHECKLIST:

1. Make sure that your UC Davis computer account is active and that your password is valid.
2. Check to see that you have an up to date Web browser installed on your home computer. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 is the course standard.
3. Check to see that you have an up to date word processor installed on your home computer. Microsoft Word 2002 is the course standard.
4. If you are still using the campus e-mail program called Pine to read and manage your e-mail on one of the campus mail servers, switch to either Geckomail <geckomail.ucdavis.edu> or the mail functions of MyUCDavis <my.ucdavis.edu>, so that you can easily receive and manage e-mail attachments, whether they are Web pages, Word files, or pdf (Adobe Acrobat) documents. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on the computer you use regularly. If you want to download a free copy of the Reader, go to www.adobe.com

A WORD ABOUT BOOKS AND READING MATERIALS: All of the reading and study material for this course is in multi-media form or it is on-line, either on the course Web server or on other servers that are distributed across the Internet. Reading assignments in addition to those noted, below, will be given from time to time, in the classroom and by e-mail.

The course will make extensive use, this term, of the programs and related on-line materials developed by California Connected, a new and innovative program on California politics and public affairs developed for broadcast on public television stations, statewide, with support from the Hewlett Foundation and the Irvine Foundation. Students are encouraged to look through the California Connected archives for programs about topics other than resource management and environmental protection.

For a basic reference work on environmental and natural resource management agencies in the United States, Canada, and at the international level, see CONSERVATION DIRECTORY 2003: THE GUIDE TO WORLDWIDE ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, 48th ed. (Covelo, CA: Island Press, 2003, for the National Wildlife Federation). This title is normally held at the BioAg Reference Desk on the 3rd Floor of Shields Library. The BioAg Reference Desk is open and staffed between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. each weekday. Ask the librarian at the desk to let you use the book, and then return it.

Background Books Purchase Recommendation: For students who feel the need for useful introductory texts on natural resource agencies, the following titles are recommended and can easily be purchased, probably at greatly reduced prices, from amazon.com or from one of its used book affiliates:

Charles Davis, ed., WESTERN PUBLIC LANDS AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS, 2d ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), and

Jeanne Nienaber Clarke and Daniel C. McCool, STAKING OUT THE TERRAIN: POWER AND PERFORMANCE AMONG NATURAL RESOURCE AGENCIES, 2d ed. (Albany, NY; State University of New York Press, 1996). These books deal, however, only with the principal federal resource management agencies that operate in the West and have almost nothing to say about state natural resource agencies.

In addition, and also easily available from amazon.com, are two more recent titles, nicely representative of contrasting analytical styles in the study of agencies and agency behavior:

Tomas M. Koontz, FEDERALISM IN THE FOREST: NATIONAL VERSUS STATE NATURAL RESOURCE POLICY (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2002), and

Craig W. Thomas, BUREAUCRATIC LANDSCAPES: INTERAGENCY COOPERATION AND THE PRESERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

REQUIREMENTS: There are three course requirements, all of which must be met to pass the course.

(1) Complete an individual piece of agency analysis on an environmental protection or resource management agency that has active programs in the state and is on the list of approved agencies presented and discussed in class. Agency selection will be made in Week 2 and finalized in Week3. The paper is to be written and presented in accordance with the MLA system of citation. Look here.

This analytical paper is due on the last day of instruction, which is December 5th, 2003.

(2) Short mid-term examinations in Weeks 4, 6, and 8.

(3) The final examination, which will be held according to the Fall Term 2003 Schedule and Directory from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm on Friday, December 12th, 2003.

Requirement values: (1) 50%; (2) 30%; (3) 20%. All of the course requirements must be completed to earn a passing grade for the course.

BASIC HYPERLINKS

| Agency List and Links | State Agency Formation |

PRELIMINARY COURSE OUTLINE AND TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF WORK:

Week 0 -

September 25th.

Introduction to the Course

Week 1 -

September 30th.

The Nature of Agency in American Politics and Policy Making: Constraints on Choice

October 2nd.

Allocating Water in the Klamath Basin: Focus on the Bureau of Reclamation

[The following text is excerpted from the California Connected web site. The embedded hyper-links lead to the reading assignments].

Reading: Rivers do not abide by state lines. Nor does the weather respond to our economic interests. The story of the Klamath river and its tributaries is a poignant example of the environmental challenges that Californians must confront as we attempt to regulate and exploit our natural resources.

The Klamath river originates in Klamath Lake, Klamath County, Oregon where melting snow from the Cascade Mountains feeds a chain of lakes and marshes. It travels southwest into California, passing through the Klamath Mountains and six hydropower dams, before reaching the Pacific Ocean just south of Crescent City. These dams not only produce electricity, they also control the flow of water to 210,000 acres of California farmland.

Under the 1902 Reclamation Act, both California and Oregon ceded parts of the Klamath Basin to the federal Bureau of Reclamation for agricultural homesteading. Many of the 359,000 acres of wetlands were drained and offered for homesteads to WWI and WWII veterans. In 2001, it provided water to over 240,000 acres of California farmland (PDF). Potatoes are the principal crop of this $300 million a year agricultural region, the northernmost extension of California's mammoth irrigation system: the Central Valley Project.

Unfortunately, the Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Basin Area Office is also obliged by law to provide some of this same river water to the fishing industry and the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin Native American tribes because the Klamath river and its tributaries were once the third largest salmon producing river system in the west coast (PDF).

When the Cascade Mountains receive less snow during the winter, there is a resultant decrease in the amount of river water running through this system. At the end of this multi-stage "road", are the fisheries, tourist destinations and Native Americans. Such was the chain of events that led to the latest round of lawsuits and disputes over the Klamath river in 2001.

Because salmon are anadromous fish, meaning that they spawn in freshwater, rear in the oceans and return to spawn in their natal freshwater streams, adverse conditions in the Klamath river and its tributaries ultimately impact fisheries along the coast. Along with commercial and recreational fishermen, Klamath tribal fisheries have been largely closed since 1986 because of declining fish populations. Although there is much debate as to the reasons for this decline, the shortnose and Lost River sucker fish are considered endangered as is the Coho salmon according to the Endangered Species Act, as enforced by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. As an example of the vicissitudes of this conflict, the Klamath river steelhead salmon was but is no longer considered to be endangered.

The resulting conflict between farmers, fishermen, tribes, environmentalists, and various government agencies is centered on the timing and volume of water discharges along the dams on the Klamath river and its tributaries. At the Iron Gate Dam in Siskiyou County, California, the water flow is also tied to rates set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Thus, federal and local governmental agencies must negotiate between themselves as well as the parties listed above before arriving at the scope and origins of the problem, let alone how to resolve the attendant disputes.

Numerous lawsuits have been issued by a myriad of parties, though the most significant in recent months was brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, on behalf of farmers in the Klamath basin region, against the Bureau of Reclamation for its April 5, 2001 decision to cut off water to the farmlands in order to protect the sucker fish. That decision was the result of another lawsuit, brought by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, against the Bureau which relied heavily on environmental laws. By March 29, 2002, the farmers had effectively championed their cause as part and parcel of the Republican administration's domestic policy: water flows to the farmland were restored.

Meanwhile, the Klamath tribes argue that they have senior water rights with a "time immemorial" priority date and fishing interests contend that the Klamath basin farms are antiquate and inefficient businesses, threatened by NAFTA more than they are by environmental laws or ongoing fishery restoration efforts.

Week 2 -

October 7th.

A Reconnaisance of California Resource Management and Environmental Protection Agencies

Reading: The hyper-linked items in the agency file and the CERES web.

October 9th

A Reconnaisance of Federal Resource Management and Environmental Protection Agencies

Reading: The agency file and the CERES web.

DEADLINE: By October 10th, select a state or federal agency for the agency analysis paper due on December 5th. Review of this selection will occur during Week 3 and will then be final.

You will find the web form on which to declare you choice of agency, the reasons for the choice, and the approach you will adopt HERE.

Week 3 -

October 14th

An Overview of Agency Work and Accomplishment: Identifying Effort and Assigning Responsibility in Management of the Headwaters Forest

Reading: The California Connected film and web site on Headwaters.

the EPIC slide show

October 16th

Agency Work and Accomplishment: A More Detailed, Analytical Look at the Headwaters Controversy

Reading: The CERES and California BLM web sites on Headwaters.

Week 4 -

October 21st

Mid-Term Examination on this date

State Management of Exotic Species: Lake Davis Pike

[The following text is excerpted from the California Connected web site. The embedded hyper-links lead to the reading assignments].

In the early 1990's, on the tranquil waters of Lake Davis in northern California, a fisherman caught himself a large Northern Pike. Dubbed the "Water Wolf", the Northern Pike is the largest and most voracious predator of northern waters. Muscular and full of teeth, it has an appetite for anything that moves -- even other fish. But beyond its unsatiable appetite and violent jaws, the Northern Pike is not known to be adept at interstate highway travel.

In other words, someone introduced this Minnesota native into the trout-friendly, man-made waters of Lake Davis and that someone has unleashed a veritable monster.

Unfettered by the absence of its natural enemies, this natural born killer is reproducing at exponential rates and quickly devouring every other fish in the lake. But the problem of the Northern Pike is not limited to Lake Davis and its popular trout-fishing waters. Lake Davis, as it happens, is surrounded by tributaries.

According to the California Department of Fish and Game, errant Northern Pike in the state's delta system would lead to a widescale ecological disaster. To prevent this calamity, the state has already poisoned the lake, installed gates in the nearby Grizzly Valley Dam, erected electrical barriers, used "electrofishing", detonated explosives and continues to patrol all adjacent lakes and reservoirs on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, these efforts have largely failed to exterminate the preternaturally reproductive and aggressive Northern Pike. Meanwhile, the cost of such drastic measures is adding up. To date the state has nearly $15 million in its efforts to prevent the so-called water wolf from taking over downstream waterways, especially salmon fishing areas. Scientists estimate the Pike is only one of 50 invasive exotic fish species in California.

Reading: The Northern Pike page at the Ca. Dept. of Fish and Game
The Lake Davis Pike Management Campaign
What is electrofishing?
California's Invasive Exotics
Federal research center for the nation's invasive exotics

October 23rd

Agency Issues in National and International Invasive Species Policy Making

Reading: Introduced Species in U.S. Coastal Waters (Pew Oceans Commission report by Carlton)
Invasive Species: Guide to Agencies & Organizations
California Native Plant Society's Introduction to National and State Policy on Exotic Plant Species
Northeast-Midwest Institute Reports on Biological Pollution (including details of the proposed National Aquatic Invasive Species Act of 2002)
IMO Global Ballast Water Management Program (links page)

Week 5 -

October 28th

California Policy Making for Air Quality: Controlling Central Valley Smog

[The following text is excerpted from the California Connected web site. The embedded hyper-links lead to the reading assignments].

Reading: Many of those who live in California's San Joaquin Valley moved there to experience bucolic farm life and raise their families away from the city. But what's considered a big-city issue has been steadily increasing in this idyllic valley over the years, and it's threatening the health of adults and children alike. The problem? Smog. And cited as the major source of San Joaquin Valley's smog are the very farms meant to sustain its population.

In 1976, agriculture was granted an exemption from the Federal Clean Air Act. Emissions from farm equipment, diesel irrigation pumps, livestock waste and agricultural burning -- all causes of smog -- were unregulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. But the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, along with several other groups, sued the federal EPA to stop turning a blind eye to California's agricultural exemption. In the future, farmers will have to comply with clean air standards like the rest of the state or apply for a permit for emissions that exceed the standards.

The farmers of the San Joaquin Valley complain that they feel singled out. They agree that smog is a huge problem in the Valley, but argue that gusty winds blowing smog into the Valley from the San Francisco Bay Area is part of the problem. While cars in Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valley have to pass the tougher emissions standards of Smog Check II due to their high smog problem, motorists in the Bay Area do not. In fact, the Bay Area is the only major metropolitan area in the state that hasn't been required to participate in the program.

The result, according to Central Valley air regulators, is a huge amount of bad air blown in on winds during the summer months, adding to the pollution problems of a region facing harsh consequences from federal regulators if it doesn't start cleaning up its air by 2003. In response, Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza (D) introduced AB 2637, which will impose Smog Check II regulations on the Bay Area. The bill passed the assembly and currently faces review by the California senate, where it may face a tough fight by Bay Area senators who feel that Smog Check II emissions standards are too expensive and unnecessary for their districts.

Meanwhile, if farmers don't comply with the EPA by May of 2004, California would lose its federal highway funding. The legislature now has 17 months to enact legislation to remove the agricultural exemption.

October 30th

Agency Issues in National Policy Making for Air Quality Improvement

Reading: The History of the California Air Resources Board
United States Environmental Protection Agency History (Air)
Environmental Protection and Administrative Process
Air Quality Standards Decision Making: Ozone and Particulate Matter (CRS Report)
Supreme Court Review of Agency Policy Making: Whitman v. American Trucking Associations (CRS Report)
Full Text of Whitman v. American Trucking Associations (2001)

Week 6 -

November 4th

Mid-Term Examination on this date

California Water Resource Development Policy Making and the Environmental Impacts of Water Transfers

[The following text is excerpted from the California Connected web site. The embedded hyper-links lead to the reading assignments].

Located in the shadow of towering Sierra Nevada mountains, hundreds of miles away from any big city, the Owens Valley should be one of the least polluted places in America.

But when the winds begin to gust across the Valley's 110-square-mile dry lake bed, enormous,clouds of choking dust are sent billowing into the air, blanketing the valley in haze and sending particulate pollution levels soaring to over 100 times the federal standard.

The dust storms are not only an annoyance to residents of Sierra foothill communities like Independence, Bishop, and Lone Pine, they threaten the health of children, the elderly and people with heart and lung problems.

Owens Valley residents blame Los Angeles for turning their isolated corner of California into the state's dust bowl. Nearly a century ago, in one of the most controversial chapters in state history, L.A. acquired water rights in the Valley, and then built an aqueduct to send the water flowing to the thirsty and growing city 230 miles to the south. The diversion of water decades ago dried out the Owens Lake, creating today's spawning grounds of dust storms.

Now Los Angeles is trying to clean up the mess it created and repay a historical debt to the Valley.

In an unprecedented, multi-million dollar engineering project, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is using millions of gallons of valuable drinking water bound for L.A. and pouring it into the dry lake bed to create giant mud flats dozens of square miles in size. It's hoped the project will finally end the Owens Valley's dust storm nightmares. As one Water and Power official says, "mud don't blow."

Reading: Owens Valley Committee, activist group
L.A. Dept. of Water and Power Dust Mitigation effort
Owens Valley Land Grab, history page at USC
The mitigation agreement memorandum

November 6th

Persistent Agency Problems in Water Resource Development Policy at the Federal Level

Reading: The Army Corps of Engineers (Grunwald Series from the Washington Post)
National Wildlife Federation: Greening the Corps
Classic Work: Arthur Maass, Muddy Waters: The Army Engineers and the Nation's Rivers (1951)
FY 2003 Federal Budget for Energy and Water Development: CRS Analysis
California Resource Agencies Budgets: PPIC Analysis

Week 7 -

November 11th

Resource Policy Making in Desert Recreation Areas

[The following text is excerpted from the California Connected web site. The embedded hyper-links lead to the reading assignments].

Reading: After World War II, thousands of U.S. veterans returned to California to launch some of the most distinctly American past-times of the 20th century: surfing, hot rods, and, this case, sand or dune buggies.

California's beaches, those of our southern neighbor, Baja California, Mexico, the Oceano and the Imperial Sand Dunes in Southern California set the scene for these recreational hobbies by providing motorsport enthusiasts and their families with an exciting backdrop for exploring nature and conquering its formidable geological formations.

Hill climbs, long distance treks and sand dune rides have become increasingly popular since the 1960s as the off-highway vehicles that make these sports possible have become somewhat cheaper through mass-production. In most cases, off-highway has meant on public lands and the California [Department of Parks and Recreation] administers a half-dozen such Vehicular Recreation Areas.

The Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area (ISDRA), also known as the Glamis or Algodones Dunes, is one such popular destination due to its 165,000 acres of challenging terrain, the largest expanse of these desert formations in North America. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Imperial Dunes are regulated by a Recreation Area Management Plan (RAMP) which outlines the rules for public use of this land, its maintenance and the financing of this care. Rather than an adversarial relationship, many BLM employees are also OHV enthusiasts and volunteer extra hours in order to keep the dunes area open and safe for future use.

But on March 16, 2000, the Center for Biological Diversity, California Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Sierra Club sued the BLM in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California alleging that the government office was in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act. According to the lawsuit, the BLM has allowed the impacts of livestock grazing, off road vehicles, mining and other activities within the California Desert Conservation Area to threaten such endangered species as the desert turtle and Peirson's Milkvetch, a silvery, short-lived perennial plant.

The lawsuit would have led to the closure of the Glamis Dunes until such time as the BLM could obtain a biological opinion from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding potential impacts of the CDCA management plan upon species like Peirson's Milkvetch. Several months of intense negotiations and legal maneouvers followed and a coalition of OHV enthusiasts and related businesses fought the prohibition, eventually arriving at a compromise closure of 49,000 acres in October of 2000. Among these OHV groups are the High Desert Multiple Use Coalition, the Desert Vipers, the San Diego Off-Road Coalition, the California Association of 4 Wheel Drive Clubs and the BlueRibbon Coalition of Idaho.

In the two years following the initial restrictions to and threatened prohibition of OHV use in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, groups like the fledgling American Sand Association, which after two years of campaigning claims a membership of 20,000 and the Off-Road Business Association have filed a petition with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Peirson's Milkvetch from the endangered species, monitored the plants livelihood and helped enforce BLM restrictions so as to prevent any further encroachments on OHV use in the area.

The ASA even paid for its own scientific study (MS Word) of the Peirson's Milkvetch which found the number of plants affected by OHV to be 0.93% of all counted, "primarily because drivers avoid vegetated basins due to the potential for tire damage." Additionally, the ASA along with the California Off-Road Vehicle Association and District 37 of the American Motorcycle Association have filed their own lawsuit against "the entity that is responsible for managing the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area for not following proper procedures in enacting the environmental closures." Many of these groups are lobbying the state and federal government for an intervention in their favor.

Meanwhile, the BLM continues with their 2 year-long effort to rewrite the Recreation Area Management Plan and Amendment to the California Desert Area Plan while holding public meetings to incorporate the viewpoints of both conservationists and OHV enthusiasts and related businesses.

November 13th

Persistent Agency Problems in the Management of Park and Recreation Resources: Parks, Wilderness, Forests, and Wildlife Refuges

Reading: National Park Service Missions and Funding: CRS Analysis
National Park Service History
Wilderness in the National Parks
Roadless Areas in National Forests: CRS Analysis
History of Wildlife Refuges: Upper Sacramento Valley

Week 8 -

November 18th.

Mid-Term Examination on this date.

Conflicts in Federal-State Policy Making Where Air and Water Policy Making Intersect: MTBE

[The following text is excerpted from the California Connected web site. The embedded hyper-links lead to the reading assignments].

Reading: In 1963 the United States Congress passed the first version of the Clean Air Act, Public Law 88-206, which would later be amended in 1970, 1977 and in 1990. The monumental CAA regulates the amount of pollution we release into the atmosphere, whether from massive factories or tiny motor scooters, and has established standards for the types of engines that can be built and/or used in the U.S. as well as, most recently, the types of fuels at our disposal.

While gasoline and diesel compounds fuel 99% of our nation's vehicles, we also import over 50% of our oil from foreign powers. Moreover, gas and diesel are not the cleanest burning fuels when compared to such alternatives as ethanol, hydrogen, methanol, electricity and, yes, solar energy, many of which are actually byproducts of our robust domestic agriculture industry.

With these considerations in mind, the 1990 revision of the CAA called for the development of a cleaner-burning, reformulated gasoline (RFG). One method for improving the energy output of oil in an engine is to introduce oxygen into the mix and this can be done through the introduction of chemicals known as "oxygenates." One such oxygenate, MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether), was already in use as a fuel additive because it enhanced engine performance.

Whereas other oxygenates like ethanol can also help an engine more fully consume its gasoline fuel, MTBE is cheaper to transport and, according to some industries, cheaper to manufacture. By the mid 1990s, 30 percent of the gasoline fuel used in the U.S. was reformulated, of which about 87 percent contained MTBE. In California, the rate of MTBE usage is even higher.

According to the CAA, cities with serious air quality problems such as ground-level ozone or "smog", the kind that first afflicted L.A. in 1943 and continues to do so today, must use RFG year-long. With southern California alone accounting for more than half of the state's gasoline consumption, over 90% of the gas sold in the state contains MTBE.

Unfortunately, one of MTBE's characteristics is also its greatest threat to the public safety: it dissolves easily in water. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory believes it has found over 10,000 leaking underground MTBE storage tanks. Santa Monica lost 75% of its drinking water wells due to MTBE contamination and the South Lake Tahoe Public Utility District has lost over one third of its drinking water wells to MTBE. Water tainted with MTBE tastes like turpentine.

While the detrimental health effects of MTBE are the subject of an international dispute, the federal Environmental Protection Agency claims MTBE is a potential carcinogen when consumed by humans. On March 15, 1999, in response to a series of studies and related legislative measures, Governor Gray Davis directed that MTBE be phased out as California's RFG additive.

However, the federal CAA mandates that California use certain technologies, and, notably, fuel additives like MTBE, to improve air quality. In response, California argued that today's car engines are sufficiently fuel efficient as to render RFG unnecessary. Davis attempted to procure a waiver from the federal EPA and President Bush in order to discontinue the use of additives altogether. Bush denied the request, possibly as a response to pressure from the manufacturers of the most likely MTBE replacement: ethanol.

Currently, a Canadian company is suing the government of California for $970 million in order to prevent it from discontinuing the use of MTBE while the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is suing the federal government in order to discontinue the use of reformulated gasoline. Meanwhile, the South Lake Tahoe Public Utility District has reaped millions in damages [Note: amended URL] from its lawsuit against petroleum companies on the grounds that MTBE renders gasoline into a defective product. Efforts to contain and remediate MTBE groundwater contamination are expanding throughout the state. Governor Davis has postponed the full phase-out of MTBE until 2003.

November 20th

Agency Problems in the Management of Water Quality

Reading: History of the California State Water Resources Control Board
United States Environmental Protection Agency History (Water)
An Introduction to the Clean Water Act

Water Quality Management in California
Surfing a Watershed
Location (by city)
Davis and the Lower Sacramento
Groups at Work
Water Use
Impaired Waters
Dischargers (search the national database for NPDES permits in the Davis zip code, 95616)

Who Keeps Track of All This and are Policies Enforceable?

Sample Violation and Order

Enforcement as the Exercise of Discretion

Fines, Penalties, and the Maintenance of Continuing Relationships

Federal Delegation and State Enforcement Policy in Water Quality Management

Week 9 -

November 25th

Tutorial and Individual Consultations on the Agency Analysis Paper

November 27th

Thanksgiving Holiday

Week 10 -

December 2nd

A Local Government Perspective on Agency Problems: Joint Powers Agency and the Management of the Salton Sea

Colorado River Basin RWQB Salton Sea Page

[The following text is excerpted from the California Connected web site. The embedded hyper-links lead to the reading assignments].

Reading: The Salton Sea is an inland sea fed by the Alamo and Whitewater rivers which carry pesticides from agricultural spraying and the New River which carries untreated sewage from Mexicali, Mexico. It smells bad and is thick with salt but, nonetheless, manages to sustain a large wildlife population, including fish and birds.

San Diego wants to buy this runoff water from the Imperial Valley farmers at the tune of $50 million per year. But this is the same surplus that currently sustains the Salton Sea. Without external water sources San Diego County can sustain 50,000 residents. San Diego county is home to 2.6 million people.

The Los Angeles Times once described the San Diego-Imperial Valley deal as "the largest transfer of water from agricultural to urban users in the nation's history." But, if the Salton Sea becomes smaller and saltier, it could produce toxic dust storms that would endanger its environs, including Coachella Valley which already contends with stagnant smog from Los Angeles. Both federal and state laws would make those responsible for this potential eco-meltdown financially responsible.

Scared off by the potential risk of lawsuits, the Imperial Irrigation District started to think twice about the water sale to San Diego. But the time for a decision is was running out: without this transfer Southern California would continue to depend on the Colorado River for its water and the federal Department of the Interior, at the behest of neighboring states, had already placed a deadline on terminating this dependency.

Enter Congressman Duncan Hunter (R), of the 52nd Congressional District, consisting of eastern San Diego County and Imperial County, and his bill H.R. 2764. This law would provide a $60 million "insurance policy" to prevent an ecological meltdown by funding habitat enhancement projects at the Salton Sea as well as off-stream water management reservoirs.

December 4th

Agency Problems in the Management of Resources and Environmental Quality

Reading: The History of National Wildlife Refuges
The Feather Trade and the American Conservation Movement
Wildlife Law Enforcement

Multiplying Public Concerns (as interests and values shift)----->
Multiplying Mandates (as legislatures respond and agencies are charged with "problem solving"----->
Expanded Discretion in Agency Decision Making (as agencies seek to satisfy important constituencies with limited and imperfect resources)----->
Agency Interpretation of Legal Mandates (as a necessary precondition for agencies doing something, at least)----->
New/Revived Public Concerns/Dissatisfactions------->
Revised/New Mandates------->

Is this a "model"?

How similar are agencies, and in what ways?

How similar are resource management and environmental protection problems, and in what ways?

[Should all agencies be similar, and in what ways?]

Additional Considerations:

Agencies "never" die (although they are occasionally reorganized)

Processes of decision making become ever more numerous and complex

Perennial Challenges:

Keeping Track of Agency Interpretations of Law and Policy

Through formal institutions (what are they?)

Through informal institutions (what are they?)

Keeping Agencies in Check

Through formal processes (what are they?)

Through informal processes (what are they?)

How do agencies successfully live in a world (achieve some degree of stability, effectiveness, and respect) they are constantly trying to change?

December 5th Instruction Ends

DEADLINES: Submit Agency Analysis, December 5th before 5:00 p.m.

Final Examination: Friday, December 12th, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

End of Term: Saturday, December 13th, 2003.

Last updated: May 22, 2007 | Copyright © Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003. All federal and state copyrights reserved for all original material presented in this course through any medium, including lecture or print. Graphic design by Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith. Web development also assisted in part by a grant to UC Davis from the Mellon Foundation.