One of the best ways states can assist in providing for science-based environmental initiatives is to provide better data with which to make judgements about the problems and decisions about potential solutions. An excellent example of this is data about water quality. States have the ability to increase the number of monitoring sites in rivers and streams systematically so any problems can be identified, sources can be located, and, working together, solutions can be developed and implemented. During the Allen administration, Virginia increased the number of monitoring sites by over 20 percent and established the program and protocols to include citizen and student monitoring in the data-gathering program. Solid scientific data provide a much better basis for making judgements about the environment than do computer modeling or campaign-motivated political science.
Some people say the federal government is the nation's biggest polluter.
All governments are big polluters, and the federal government takes a back seat to no one. While circumstances surrounding moments of heightened national security concerns may result in lessened attention to potential pollution problems in certain security-related locations, government activities that are unrelated to national security should have no exceptions . Today, we see national parks with sewage overflows or inadequate treatment facilities and commuting bureaucrats contributing to ozone alerts in metropolitan areas. If EPA is demanding reduced ozone levels, the federal government should be the first place to reduce activities contributing to those ozone levels. No new land should be acquired by the federal government, particularly while lands already owned by the federal government are managed at different environmental standards than those imposed on local dry cleaners and laundromats.