Environmental Policy Research Paper

Module Assignment 3: Draft of Environmental Policy Paper There is no doubt that environmental concerns are growing more and more important within political agendas. We are seeing now more than ever a new focus on energy and climate change in a time when society is placing the environment high on our priority list. It seems like this phenomenon is only growing and will only grow in the future, as issues with the environment and climate keep coming up and will continue to until we make changes. While is is difficult to ever say that one issue is more important or more serious than the next, we are talking about our own planet. Without that, we have nothing, so we should be taking these policies extremely seriously. As Havelock Ellis once said, “The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hand( Environmental Quotes).” We are the only ones who are threatening the world we live in, and we need to make sure we are taking care of it. There have been numerous policies and agendas set out to make different changes and help our environment, hopefully allowing us to address key problems in the world that we live in and change them for the better. Environment policy refers to the group of laws and regulations that concerns issues with the environment. It includes legislation and the governmental action that regulates how different things impact the environment. Environmental policy is a recently new phenomenon, not really gaining any power or momentum until the 1960's. Prior to this era, we did not really think about the environment at all in our day to day lives. Things such as trains and the industrial area undoubtedly created harm to the environment, but it was something that we just did not focus on. Due to our growing knowledge as a society and our rapid scientific developments over the years, the environment has become much more relevant to where we are at in society today, therefore being more important today than in any other time in history. One statute created about environmental policy in 2007 is the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court says that the Environmental Protection Agency is required to limit the amount of carbon released into the air if the agency determined that these gases have the potential to endanger the health and welfare of the public. The EPA did indeed find this conclusion in 2009, therefore putting is a limit on vehicles, power plant facilities, and other sources that emit carbon pollution (EPA). This policy was introduced after the realization that pollutions could affect the well being of human beings and was a huge step to eliminate some unnecessary toxins from our air. Another related policy to the Clean Air Act are the Clean Car Standards. This policy calls for a reduction in pollution by vehicles, which also increases the mileage that cars get, saving people money at the gas pumps. Standards that were set under the Clean Air Act in 2010 and 2012 said that new vehicles produced will only emit half of the pollution that older vehicles did and will double their average fuel economy, which means they will be a lot more eco-friendly and better for our environment (Energy, Climate Change, and Our Environment). The newest policy imposed by Obama in regards to energy is called All-Of-The-Above Energy Strategy. The overall goal of the plan is to make America more energy efficient with renewable resources. The specific aspects and focuses of this plan are: reducing dependence on foreign oil, safe domestic oil production, carbon sequestration, clean energy, energy efficiency, developing clean fuels, and investing in coal communities. The White House's website says that due to this policy, domestic energy related emissions has drastically decreased, we are producing more oil, and we are becoming more self and energy sufficient overall. This plan was developed as something all-encompassing when it comes to dealing with

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