Environmental Policy 101

Climate change is on the forefront of many minds nowadays, and protesting, changing personal habits, and encouraging your government to take actions are all common strategies to mitigate (no pun intended) our climate anxiety and hopefully make some change. However, climate change isn’t going to be fixed by you switching to bamboo compostable toothbrushes - it’s going to take big action. Many people, however, have no clue what happens inside the doors of congress or the oval office - how does policy become law? And, more specifically, does environmental policy work differently than other types of policy? This post will go into both of those things and more, aiming to provide you with a solid understanding of the policy process, as well as specific concerns related to environmental policy.

In the United States, the policy process has many facets, and there are many areas that can be considered policy. However, here we will focus on how a bill becomes law. Personally, I like to look at this process in a more visual way, and so have included a diagram below explaining it:

Image created by Mike Wirth

While the process looks quite complex, the essence is as follows: an issue is introduced, it is drafted into a bill, reviewed by the house and senate who can both pass or not pass it, and then is approved or not approved by the President. For further review of this process, you can check out the classic School House Rock video “I’m Just a Bill”.

This is clearly quite the lengthy ordeal, so what motivates someone to pursue it? Well, most everyone has issues that they care about, and so if someone wants something to happen and knows the right pathways to pursue, they might try to get a law created that reflects their concerns around certain issues.

In regard to the environment, there are many groups and individuals with stakes in what happens. In fact, all of us will be impacted by climate change and environmental health in one way or another. However, two groups tend to use their voice on this issue the most - big business, and climate activists. Coming from opposing viewpoints - no limitations on emissions and business as usual vs. drastically reducing emissions and restructuring the way we live - these two groups both have strong environmental policy interests. Big business, however, is often motivated by self-interest in terms of profit, while climate activists are often motivated by creating a survivable future. In considering the policy process and how complex it can be to navigate, one can see how this might create problems when you have corporations with practically endless funds and expertise going against grassroots organizers. In the end, for environmental policy to be successful, we need to stand behind these organizers and advocate for big business to make changes.

To conclude, the policy process is just like many other processes we experience on a day to day basis - there’s a start, middle, and end, with some parts taking longer than others, and some things needing to be redone. When it comes to the environment, it’s really not much different. However, the motivators to get people to act are a little different than say, cancelling student loan debt. In the end though, justice and intersectionality, as well as the end of capitalist exploitation, will go a long way in making change.