This paper examines the environmental ethics of the United States government by analyzing the mission statements and legal mandates of key federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of Land Management. It highlights landmark legislation such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act — using the California Condor recovery program as a case study — to demonstrate the country's stated moral commitment to environmental protection. The paper then contrasts the environmental records of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, documenting specific policy rollbacks under Bush and renewed commitments under Obama, to assess how closely federal practice aligns with official environmental ethics.
The paper demonstrates effective use of institutional sources — government websites, agency mission statements, and advocacy organization reports — to build an argument about policy alignment. By juxtaposing official language with documented violations, the author practices a form of policy analysis that holds institutions accountable to their own stated standards, a technique common in public administration and environmental studies writing.
The paper opens with a framing question about U.S. environmental ethics, then moves systematically through agency mission statements (EPA, DOI, BLM) before narrowing to the Endangered Species Act as a concrete case. It broadens again to cover NEPA and Congressional action, then pivots to a critical section documenting Bush-era violations, and closes with the Obama administration's corrective steps. This funnel-and-compare structure is well suited to policy evaluation essays.
What kind of ethical posture does the United States Government put forward with reference to the environment? Is the U.S. considered a nation that protects and nurtures wildlife and its habitat? Are there policies and mission statements in the federal government that reflect a deep moral concern for protecting the planet? These are all excellent questions, and the answer overall is that yes, the United States Government, through its laws and stated policies, most certainly has an environmental ethic. That having been said, it is also true that because of very different executive styles of managing resources and responding to environmental challenges, the United States Government does not always live up to its stated mission regarding the environment. This paper points to the official pronouncements of the U.S. Government and its lawful duties, statutes, and promises to protect the environment, and it also identifies areas where those statutes and missions have been abused, ignored, or otherwise not followed in lawful ways.
The most visible of all departments within the executive branch of the U.S. Government is, of course, the White House. President Barack Obama, early in his first term, took creative and innovative approaches to cleaner energy sources, to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases being released into the environment, and to the preservation of wild lands and the wildlife living there. The ethical responsibility for environmental stewardship ultimately rests with the President of the United States, and these were difficult times with many environmental challenges facing the country.
There is no official mission statement for the president's office specifically regarding the environment, but Obama included a section on the White House website called "Guiding Principles." The president stated that he wished to "take this country in a new direction" and help pass "comprehensive legislation to protect our nation from the serious economic and strategic risks associated with our reliance on foreign oil" and the "destabilizing effects of a changing climate" (White House). The president pledged to create "new jobs in the Clean Energy Economy" and to "invest in the Next Generation of Energy Technologies," which would reduce the need for fossil fuel-based electrical energy production and dependence on foreign oil. These statements represent the closest equivalent to an environmental mission statement from the executive branch.
Obama pushed through Congress a massively expensive Recovery and Reinvestment Act — despite significant opposition — and within that bill $80 billion was earmarked for clean energy investments. Preserving the environment means more than cleaning up toxic waste dumps and preventing pollution from ruining air, land, and water. Putting forth an environmental ethic also entails ensuring that homes are properly weatherized in winter and summer, dramatically reducing the energy needed to heat and cool them; Obama committed $5 billion to weatherize low-income homes.
An environmental ethic also means increasing fuel economy standards for automobiles and making common household appliances more energy efficient — both goals spelled out in the president's "Energy & Environment" page on the White House website. Finally, President Obama pledged to work toward "Closing the Carbon Loophole" by promoting a "market-based cap" on polluting industries such as coal and oil-fired electrical generating plants. The revenues generated through this cap could, and should, be used to help communities and businesses become more energy efficient.
The mission statement of the Environmental Protection Agency firmly establishes that the environmental ethic of the United States is grounded in law: "To protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment — air, water and land — upon which life depends" (EPA). The purpose of the EPA is listed in seven key areas. EPA's purpose is to ensure that: (a) all Americans are protected from "significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work"; (b) "national efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best available scientific information"; (c) federal laws protecting human health and the environment "are enforced fairly and effectively"; (d) environmental protection is an integral consideration in U.S. policies "that relate to natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade"; (e) all communities, individuals, businesses, and state, local, and tribal governing bodies have "access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks"; (f) environmental protection contributes to "making our communities and ecosystems diverse, sustainable and economically productive"; and (g) the U.S. plays a "leadership role in working with other nations to protect the global environment" (EPA).
The mission statement of the Department of the Interior (DOI) is straightforward: "The U.S. Department of the Interior protects and manages the Nation's natural resources and cultural heritage; provides scientific and other information about those resources; and honors its trust responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated Island Communities."
The DOI is charged with oversight of land use and protection of the natural world through intelligent land use planning. For example, the DOI issued a news release in November 2009 announcing that it was "taking immediate actions to strengthen oversight of state surface coal mining programs" (Mali). The action was designed to eliminate a loophole that the previous George W. Bush Administration had put in place.
The Bush "stream buffer zone" rule had allowed a "surface coal mine operator to place excess material excavated by the operation into streams if the operator can show it is not reasonably possible to avoid doing so" (DOI). That loophole allowed companies engaged in mountaintop removal strip mining to dump their excess material — which contained pollutants — directly into nearby rivers, lakes, and streams.
The DOI announced it would review all permits allowing surface coal mining and ensure that operators comply with guidelines under the Clean Water Act. When an operator holds a state-issued license to exploit coal resources, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) would, "for the first time since coal-producing states assumed responsibility for their regulatory programs," independently conduct inspections of those projects to verify compliance with existing environmental law.
An agency that falls under the stewardship of the DOI, the BLM's mission statement reads: "The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for stewardship of our public lands. The BLM is committed to manage, protect and improve these lands in a manner to serve the needs of the American people." The resources under the BLM's purview include "recreation, rangelands, timber, minerals, watershed, fish and wildlife habitat, wilderness, air and scenic quality, as well as scientific and cultural values."
Under the auspices of the BLM and the DOI is the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), whose mission is to "conserve, protect and restore nationally significant landscapes recognized for their outstanding cultural, ecological and scientific values." The NLCS presently oversees the environmental protection of over 27 million acres of precious natural landscapes.
Under the auspices of the Department of the Interior is the Endangered Species Act, a critically important law in terms of conservation and ethics. The Endangered Species Act — which demonstrates that the United States employs an ethical environmental approach through law — has been responsible for the preservation of vital species that otherwise would have become extinct. The California Condor is a perfect example of this environmental ethic.
The California Condor flourished by the thousands in the western part of the North American continent — from British Columbia to Baja California — for centuries. The condor fed on the carcasses of large creatures that once roamed the land, such as mastodons and giant sloths. The giant birds, with wingspans of nine and a half feet, also fed on the carcasses of marine creatures like sea lions, whales, and elephant seals (Peeters, 2005, p. 113). But when the mastodons became extinct and hunters killed "large congregations of sea lions and elephant seals to supply oil for heating and lighting" — and whales were hunted to near extinction — the main food sources for the California Condor were severely diminished.
Careless people also shot condors indiscriminately, and when ranchers put out poison to kill wolves and grizzly bears, condors that fed on those poisoned carcasses died as well. In 1937, the U.S. Congress set aside a refuge for condors in Santa Barbara County, and another in Ventura County in 1947, in an effort to protect these great birds (Peeters, p. 114). By 1987, only eight California Condors remained in the wild, prompting the decision to capture the remaining birds and begin a captive breeding program.
The Endangered Species Bulletin explains that the San Diego Wild Animal Park took the last pair of breeding condors into a captive breeding program, and subsequently, in 1992, condors began to be released back into the wild (Behrens et al., 2000). Today approximately 175 condors have been released into the wild. They are located in federally protected sanctuaries in California, including Big Sur on the Central Coast, Pinnacles National Monument east of the Salinas Valley, and Hopper Mountain in the Sespe Wilderness of Ventura County. Condors have also been released in the Grand Canyon area and in Baja California.
One of the greatest ongoing threats to condor survival is lead poisoning. Hunters kill deer and other prey with lead bullets, and condors — which feed on any dead animal — ingest the lead when consuming those carcasses. "The digestive tract then becomes paralyzed and starvation results," Behrens writes. Hunters are being encouraged to use non-lead ammunition, and California passed a law in 2008 making it illegal to hunt with lead ammunition in prescribed areas where condors are attempting to make their comeback. California has demonstrated over time that it too has a strong environmental ethic.
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