Endangered Earth Update U.S. Agenda Government Get Going, Mr.Bush

By EUGENE LINDEN

A new American role in world affairs, that of bystander, has been defined by the Bush Administration's reaction to two epochal events. But while it may be wise for the U.S. to refrain from meddling too much in Eastern Europe's current upheaval, the global environmental crisis cries out for presidential leadership. Michael Deland, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, admits that "this country is the most wasteful on the face of this earth."

Candidate Bush produced fine environmental rhetoric, but this commitment has gradually given way to mixed signals and throat clearing. Lack of federal leadership has led to regulatory chaos as states and municipalities, going it alone, have passed scores of differing environmental statutes. Other nations now find it easy to dismiss American calls for action. If the Bush Administration is to assert its promised international leadership, it must take action to reassure the world that it is serious about dealing with environmental threats.

A small but symbolically important first step would be to halt deforestation of ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Incredibly, the Government spends $40 million yearly building logging roads and subsidizing the destruction of virgin forests on public lands. If the U.S. protected its last old-growth woodlands, American officials would have more credibility when asking tropical nations to stop the relentless cutting of their rain forests.

Another simple but vitally important move would be to reinvigorate the U.S. commitment to family planning at home and abroad. Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, points out that humanity consumes or wastes 40% of the total amount of energy stored by photosynthesis in terrestrial vegetation. No one knows how much more people can devour before they begin to exhaust resources and crowd out vital ecosystems. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute argues that global annual food production already falls short of human consumption and that environmental degradation reduces yields 1% annually at a time when world population is growing 2%.

Despite this trend, the Reagan Administration slashed aid to international family-planning programs, and President Bush has not restored it. He recently vetoed a $15 billion foreign aid package because he feared that a tiny $15 million targeted for the U.N. Population Fund might help support abortion services in China. Getting birth-control information and devices to the 2.5 billion people beyond the present reach of family-planning programs will require $8 billion annually, a $5 billion rise from current levels. In 1989 the U.S. contributed $245 million to such programs, less in real terms than in 1979. Unless America reverses its present policy, it sends a message to the world that the U.S. considers mass starvation preferable to the termination of unwanted pregnancies.

Similarly, the U.S. needs to revamp its technical assistance to poorer nations. In the past, development agencies have tended to promote pell-mell progress, leading many nations to conclude that environmental destruction is an integral part of economic advance. Senator Albert Gore, a Tennessee Democrat, advocates that assistance be refocused on "leapfrogging" technologies, like low-emission power plants, so that nations may better the lives of their people without repeating the mistakes of the industrial world. But to develop better technologies, says Harvard atmospheric scientist Michael McElroy, the U.S. will have to bolster its faltering science education.

Because of its prestige, the U.S. has the potential to do enormous good in promoting international treaties to heal the planet. Agreements like the 1987 Montreal Protocol, governing the release of ozone-damaging gases, serve the important function of reassuring nations that protecting the environment will not put them at a competitive disadvantage. So far, though, the Bush Administration has squandered the momentum generated by the Montreal agreement. Administration negotiators outraged nations in Africa, a prime dumping ground for hazardous wastes, by opposing important safety provisions in an international agreement on the shipment of toxic refuse.

Such precedents are not encouraging if the U.S. is to grapple with global warming, the climate change that might follow from overloading the atmosphere with gases like carbon dioxide. To date the Administration has been slow to react to the greenhouse threat because scientists are still debating how serious the problem is and because taking strong steps against it could cause severe economic dislocations. The U.N. is sponsoring a major study that could provide the basis for a coordinated international approach to global warming. American leadership is critical to this effort, just as it was to the Montreal Protocol.

In the meantime, the U.S. should begin to take unilateral action. The centerpiece of such a policy should be a comprehensive drive to cut gaseous emissions by conserving energy. Whether or not global warming is an imminent threat, curbing energy use would produce a more breathable atmosphere and reduce American dependence on unreliable foreign sources of fossil fuels.

The best way to do this is to raise energy prices and let free-market forces do the job of stimulating conservation. First, the federal gasoline tax should be increased substantially -- to at least 60 cents per gal., from the current 9 cents per gal., over the next four years. At the same time, the Government could begin setting up a program to tax the use of all fossil fuels. The size of the tax should vary according to how much carbon is released into the atmosphere when a particular fuel is burned. That would encourage a shift in consumption patterns away from high-pollution fuels like coal to cleaner ones like natural gas.

Such tax penalties could be broadly applied to all forms of pollution. Senator Gore suggests that pollution fees could be collected in an Environmental Security Trust Fund, which would be used to reward environmentally responsible behavior like the insulation of homes. At the moment, most economic incentives work in a perverse direction. J. Gustave Speth, president of the World Resources Institute, notes that consumers have to pay extra for additional pollution gear if they want a cleaner vehicle -- exactly the opposite of what should be the case.

Ultimately, the U.S. needs a whole new way of evaluating economic growth. Gross national product and other standard measures of progress merely look at increases in output. They do not take into account the loss of irreplaceable natural resources and the damage that pollution from higher production does to the environment. For instance, ozone pollution, largely from auto emissions, reduces crop yields 5% to 10%, in effect making farmers subsidizers of commuters. The U.S. should lead the world in promoting "resource accounting," a process that adjusts economic measures to reflect environmental costs of industrial activity.

To meet environmental threats effectively, the Government will have to reorganize its efforts. The Bush Administration inherited a structure designed to deal with problems in a fragmentary manner, but by their very nature environmental problems require an integrated, holistic approach. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed revisions of the Clean Air Act without input from the departments of Energy or Transportation. Such lack of communication will continue until the President designates one agency to coordinate policy on the environment throughout the Government. Kathryn Fuller, president of the World Wildlife Fund, goes further and argues that the environment should be at the foundation of policy review in all departments.

Finally, there is the question of who will pay for cleaning up the environment, particularly with the budget deficit looming large. Increased penalties for polluters could help raise money, but the Government will still have to reallocate its scarce resources. In view of the reduced tension between East and West, there is a growing consensus that the defense budget can be cut. While it would be naive to think that much of the military- industrial complex can be quickly dismantled or that there will not be fierce competition for any savings, protecting the environment certainly has a strong claim to a larger share of the budget.

This is a timely idea. The West has spent trillions over the years in anticipation of a threatened invasion of Western Europe. When it came, it involved East German day trippers and shoppers rather than armies. It is time to recognize that environmental degradation has become perhaps a greater threat to security than the possibility of military conflict.