Norton promised a new era of federal-state cooperation. The Department of Interior is your ally she said. We must move past geographic and partisan barriers to bring state and local priorities to Washington. Today, too many regulations stand in the way of creativity in problem solving. Third, we have to reinforce incentives for self-motivated environmental stewardship by businessmen, farmers and individual private citizens, said Scarlett.
Regulators can t be everywhere.
Our challenge is to allow regulated folks to innovate while at the same time keeping a high performance focus and expectation. Examples of the New Environmentalism, Scarlett told the gathering, are the pork and poultry producers in some states putting together environmental assessment programs in cooperation with local officials and input from environmental experts. Scarlett called on Congress to support the New Environmentalism by reducing legal uncertainty for companies involved in alternative environmental programs. She also urged federal environmental officials to move from enforcement bean counting to performance indicators. In Florida, Scarlett said, state environmental officials have established a set of performance indicators for industry that are producing better environmental results, not just more regulatory activity.