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Dear Sacha,
Although
it does not directly impact purchasing, this week's news is in keeping
with my focus on the environment. This is particularly
interesting because this news involves the development of, essentially,
a national database of information to track environmental changes and
to act on them if necessary. It is, without a doubt, a great and
promising step to take care of our world.
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| 'Going DHS' on Environmental Problems |
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A joining of forces.
The
National Academy of Public Administration and the five federal agencies
responsible for environmental concerns - the Council on Environmental
Quality, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture,
the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration - put their heads together to address the
environmental concerns of the future. Many federal and state
agencies collect their own environmental indicators.
Unfortunately there is no means for someone to access all of this
information and, to make matters still more difficult, these indicators
are not always collected in a consistent manner nor are they always
complete.
The Panel created by the National Academy and the five
federal agencies recognized that if all of this information could be
pooled a very powerful tool would be created to help face current and
future environmental challenges. It would be a kind of Department
of Homeland Security aimed at protecting and improving the
environment. Best of all, it would allow for concerted efforts to
be implemented on a large scale rather than engaging in piecemeal
efforts. Efforts that, even individually, may not be as effective
as they could be.
In short, it would allow those who are concerned about the environment to fight smart.
"Think big, start small and ramp up fast."
That
is the mantra the Panel has developed to indicate the necessary steps
to make this system viable and get it working quickly. To start,
the federal agencies must "think big" and include every feature that
may be needed and every source of information available. One
vital ability is for the system to be able to track changes over time
to measure environmental degradation as well as to track the
effectiveness of preventative measures. The system should also
draw on information available from state and local governments as well
as non-governmental organizations.
The agencies will determine
the overarching design for the system. Each agency will also assign
deputy directors to provide initial leadership. The benefit of
"starting small" in this manner is that someone will be in place to
provide some drive and guidance. Their task is to fine tune the
broad strokes of the system's design. This neatly sidesteps the
inevitable delays that would have been caused by trying to figure out
who should ultimately be in charge. Their responsibility, for
now, focuses on determining what kind of information the system needs
to provide to achieve the goal. The goal is to obtain indicators
for policy, planning, and management activities.
An important
interim goal is to set up and run a pilot project to determine new and
improved ways to work with states and non-governmental organizations,
improve inter-agency coordination, and show Congress and others the
value of the information the system can provide.
The ability to
"ramp up fast" is the most critical aspect of this project. Naturally
the deputy directors must be able to count on strong support to make
quick headway, especially in two different arenas. The first is for the
action plan they must develop to make the system operational in the
next three years. The second is the one on which any project will sink
or swim: its budgeting. This is especially important for this
project because the emphasis is to ramp up fast.
The complete report is called "A Green Compass: Institutional Options for Developing a National System of Environmental Indicators".
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mantra to "think big, start small and ramp up fast" is hardly limited
to building the kind of system that will provide the kind of
information on which policy decisions can be based. Those words
can just as easily be applied to smaller scale efforts. In its
simplest incarnation the mantra encourages you to take into account
everything you will need, start only with what you can manage and make
certain there is progress, and plan to build on that initial progress
quickly.
Sincerely,
Sacha Hartmann
YSER Inc.
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