You are the head of a large, national environmental group with a long history of activism in favor of environmental causes. Now, you are eager to prove that your group can be influential and capable of producing policy. Your membership is spread across the country. Currently, there is a Republican in the White House, and the Democrats have a slim majority in both the House and Senate. The next presidential election is three years away. Your organization is in favor of environmental policy that would impose tighter pollution restrictions against polluting the nation’s rivers, lakes, and oceans. There is a general agreement for this policy within Congress, yet the president has announced his opposition to the policy. You must develop a strategy for your group in hopes of getting something passed into law. Do you choose to:
1. Advocate a sweeping environmental bill that would impose stiff penalties on polluters and that finds support among most of your group's members.
2. Push for a more modest bill that allows for some pollution to continue while further cleaning up the nation’s water. This bill might be attractive to the president.
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Personally I would choose the second answer because it is better to accumulate money for your programm of defending the environment and to win some time. You can create a blog and have a lot of supporters on the Internet and when you become more powerful you can even organise a political party. So, we see that it is very important not to fight directly but to wait and do everything step by step.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, nowadays it is still more providently to choose the second way. The question of polution is very complicated in our industrialized world, which means that it is practically impossible to extirpate polution. A modest bill gives you an opportinity to press on severe cases,whereas some polution continues. This means that your program will suit interests of strong adherents of greens' theory and interests of industrialized organisations.
ReplyDeleteI think I’ll have to go with option 2. However, I’d use a different argumentation then that of a modest bill being “more attractive to the President”. In a sustainable scheme that stipulates law-making, presidential approval is the last stage, but not the ultimate one.
ReplyDeleteAll things considered, I think it is safer to go with a more modest bill for a variety of reasons:
·First and foremost, considering that the margin of democratic majority is really slim, a “sweeping” bill may just stumble on the threshold or face the obstruction of perpetual filibustering;
·Secondly, radicalism is likely to make the republicans quite unyielding in their choice. The general public may also be reluctant to accept such scenario.
·Thirdly, sweeping changes in environmental policy will inevitably affect big business (penalties being the worst effect). This would again diminish possible republican support to an uncertain level;
·It is a popular belief that a rigid system of penalties is by far not the best policy for such sensitive issues as environment;
·Best case scenario – a “sweeping” bill becomes a law: how many enterprises will claim some law-exempt status?!
·Rome was not built in a day: jump-starting something really huge (like a radical “sweeping” bill) may jeopardize the future of all prospective and relevant legislation.The possible outcomes of jumping the gun would be impossible to forsee and difficult to cope with.
Therefore, it is equally important to lay the ground for the programms. In the meantime I’d concentrate on networking and collaboration with larger masses of people to gain more public (and political) weight and influence. This would facilitate further promotion of our ideas.
I would not rely too much on the President's support in this situation and think about the first opportunity. President, of course, could help to put the principles needed in a bill. But in order to pass into the law we need the Senate's support. In case of its opposition to the President it could be tabled. Despite the possible opposition the first position would probably allow me to accumulate resources i.e. money within the group. In law-making regulations it could be the decisive factor in passing "something" into the laws. But anyway the group's strategy would depend on the real situation and on the number of factors:
ReplyDelete1. the members of group, their social positions and opportunities they can use to influence the public opinion
2. situation in the Senate and in the White House. How much power and influence the president has, how many supporters the group has etc.
So, in many respects everything depends on particular realities. But we would rather support the views of the majority of the group as otherwise we can simply lose the control over them and consequently the group could just split up.
Pollution is now a major concern in the US, as in many other countries. I believe that rapid and radical measures are not really good to solve this very important problem, so I'd probably choose the second variant and enlist the President's support, while becoming more powerful and creating new ways to fight with the pollution. We should understand, that pollution can't disappear at all, it will continue, and neither sweeping nor modest bill will make it vanish. The modest bill is more likely to become a law, than the sweeping one, it will help the group to become stronger and make further steps in their commitment to fight pollution.
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ReplyDeleteIf I want my group to be influential and capable of producing policy I would definitely choose the second answer . First of all I think it is wise to create new project , especially if I’m the head of large national environmental group , so everyone can participate nationwide bringing some perfections to the project . And then we can draft our own bill and introduce it to the congress .
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with my group mates that statement “bill can be attractive to the president” is not very strong argument . Because we all know that there is a system of checks and balances that does not give a president the right to create and sign a law on his/her own . Before the president even gets to read a bill it has to go through different procedures . Like Senate should study it first and then House of Representatives and only after both Senate and House of Representatives study and make some corrections they pass it to the President . But very often bill never becomes a law, because the Congress votes it down.
Besides that I think the first answer can be a failure . Advocating a sweeping environmental bill is not quite reasonable ,because “sweeping” bill has less chances to become a law. Even though the problem of pollution is a main concern in the USA nowadays the Congress still is not quite ready to support a sweeping bill, it can be too radical for members of congress , so they can easily throw it out .
Practically everybody has chosen the second option. Dasha's point of view was the most supportive. Only she paid attention to the slim margin of democratic majority. Nobody took into consideration that "the next presidential election is three years away".
ReplyDeleteNikita's answer was not convincing enough.