Winds of Change Evident in U.S. Environmental Policy

Daniel Reifsnyder, a 25-year State Department veteran, knew even before President Obama was elected that U.S. environmental policy was going to change. So in early November, he called a couple of his Environmental Protection Agency counterparts about drafting documents to lay the groundwork for endorsing a treaty to curb global emissions of toxic mercury. By Feb. 20, the efforts of Reifsnyder and dozens of other rank-and-file federal employees had borne fruit: After the United States voiced support for the idea of a new, binding mercury treaty, the world community embraced it in Nairobi. The rapid policy reversal is just one of more than a dozen environmental initiatives the new administration has undertaken in its first two months. In nearly every case, the decisions were based on extensive analysis and documentation that rank-and-file employees had prepared over the past couple of years, often in the face of contrary-minded Bush administration officials. After years of chafing under political appointees who viewed stricter environmental regulation with skepticism, long-serving federal officials are seeing work that had been gathering dust for years translate quickly into action. After years of behind-the-scenes disputes with their superiors who favored regulatory restraint, many longtime federal workers are now what Cox calls "more in sync" with the new political hires running their agencies. This shift has helped produce broad policy reversals that encompass such issues as writing new regulations and prosecuting violators of old ones, with still more in the pipeline...Washington Post