Technology-based controls starved the environmental data base needed to evaluate them

Evidence

Finally, notwithstanding environmental law’s many and varied information disclosure and planning requirements, it still suffers from a dearth of basic scientific information about actual environmental conditions, necessary both to target those areas where environmental problems may be the greatest and to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs. As previously explained, the extraordinary complexity of ecological cause and effect prompted lawmakers to seek out environmental controls, such as technology-based pollution controls, that did not depend on the development in the first instance of a fuller understanding of the workings of the ecosystem. An unfortunate casualty of those laws, however, is that relatively few resources have been directed to create the kind of environmental data base needed now, thirty years later, to understand where pollution controls have and have not worked well, and how the laws could be better directed. The development of a broad and deep data base of scientific indicators is long overdue. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 823

Categorization

• XREF: The structural irony that avoids needing ecosystem understanding yet undermines later evaluation connects to Eco-Justice’s monitoring gaps theme. — connects to: The same scientific complexity that drove Congress to technology-based rules blocked water-quality enforcement. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 773; Complementary monitoring strategies never combined because agencies hoarded information

Broader Connections

• Complementary monitoring strategies never combined because agencies hoarded information #corroborates (0.82)