ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
affected government agencies, professional experts, interest groups and the
public. The aim of EIA is to encourage the developer, whether government
department or private company, to incorporate environmental considera-
tions into its decision-making processes. The USA led the way in the use
of EIA when its National Environmental Policy Act 1969 required that an
EIS accompany all major legislative proposals or federal actions that might
affect the human environment. After an initial burst of some 2,000 EIA
reports in 1971, the annual figure has settled down to around 500 since the
mid-1980s (NEPAnet 2006 ). In the European Union, an EIA is required for
awide range of public and private projects. Approximately 14,000–15,000
EIAs are carried out each year within the EU, although the number in each
state ranges widely from around 10 in Austria to 7000+ in France (European
Commission 2002 :51).
Risk assessmentevaluates the potential harm to human health and the envi-
ronment from exposure to a particular hazard such as nitrates in drinking
water, lead in the air or toxic waste on a derelict industrial site. Risk is often
expressed as a dose–response assessment, which measures quantitatively the
relationship between the amount of exposure to a substance and the degree
of toxic effect from it, or as an overall risk characterisation, which assesses
thehealth risk from exposure to a hazard; for example, the additional risk
of developing cancer from exposure to a particular chemical over an average
lifetime might be estimated at one in a million people. Risk assessment is
now used extensively to evaluate environmental risk, especially in the USA
where it is ‘the dominant language for discussing environmental policy in
the EPA’ (Andrews 2006 :215).
Cost--benefit analysis(CBA) is a long-established economic technique that
can be applied to almost any decision. The costs and benefits of an interven-
tion, such as a plan to build a new road or regulate the use of a harmful
pesticide, are weighed up to determine ‘objectively’ whether the proposal
will increase or decrease total social welfare. To ensure that like is com-
pared with like, CBA places a monetary value, or shadow price, on every
potential cost and benefit. Historically, CBA tended to ignore or undervalue
environmental costs, allowing many environmentally damaging projects to
proceed. Yet many environmental economists argue that, as most decisions
are made on financial grounds, an extended CBA that properly values envi-
ronmental harms can be an excellent way of protecting the environment. By
valuing the environment in the same ‘currency’ as other costs and benefits,
policymakers are forced to look beyond the narrow economic benefits of a
proposal to give proper consideration to its environmental impact (Pearce
et al. 1989 ).^3 CBA is used worldwide across all areas of public policy, although
it is applied to environmental regulation much more extensively in the USA
than in Europe. Pearce ( 1998 : 4–5) offers two explanations for its relative
popularity in the USA. First, CBA has been regarded, especially by Republi-
cans, as an instrument to improve the efficiency of government. Secondly,
the widespread use of liability legislation and a greater proclivity to use