Exploring Regulatory Options for Controlling the Introduction of Non-Indigenous Species to the United States
By Eric Biber
INTRODUCTION
News stories from the past twenty years provide numerous examples of the risks and environmental harms caused by the introduction of new species to the United States by human activity. A new species of mollusk arrives in the Great Lakes, clogging water systems with its rapid growth. A species of snake spreads across the island of Guam, causing the extinction or extirpation of several bird species. Gypsy moths defoliate large stretches of the Northeast in the 1980s. Killer bees and parasitic mites threaten American bees, the main source of pollination for many major fruit crops. Malathion is sprayed by planes over residential neighborhoods in California and Florida to stop the spread of a European species of fruit fly.
National Park Service employees fight to remove an Australian tree species that is spreading rapidly across the Everglades, eliminating native ecosystems and converting the “river of grass” to a dry forest. Whether introductions of non-indigenous species are intentional or unintentional, the consequences can be drastic and often unforeseen. Yet, in response to threats posed by such introductions, the policy response of federal, state, and local governments within the United States has been uncoordinated, inconsistent, and often ineffective.
This paper argues that human introductions of non-indigenous species (“NIS”) pose a grave environmental harm, one for which current governmental action is insufficient and inappropriate. Instead, an entirely new policy and regulatory structure must address the threats and risks posed by NIS.
The relative lack of federal or state regulation in this field presents an opportunity as well. We are presented with essentially a “blank slate” on which to develop an entirely new regulatory program and to apply the lessons and insights developed from over twenty-five years of environmental law and regulation in the United States. Our search for a solution to the NIS problem mightbest be started by understanding which environmental programs have worked best and why they have worked and which programs have failed and why they have failed. Those lessons can then be used to develop a preliminary outline of what an NIS regulatory scheme should look like within the United States. The paper concludes with an endorsement of a mixed regulatory scheme embracing both traditional and new regulatory techniques, with each regulatory element addressing different segments of the complex NIS problem.
Part II of this paper outlines the scope and nature of the NIS problem facing the United States. Part III describes the current statutory and regulatory framework of federal and state governments that address NIS and the current critiques of that framework. Part IV lays out the various options that have been proposed or might be applicable to NIS control and describes similar environmental problems from which lessons about environmental policy can be drawn. Part IV also provides a survey of the literature regarding the success (or failure) of the various options, brings together those results, and applies them to the specific situation of NIS control. Part V concludes with tentative recommendations as to which policy options will be more or less successful in addressing NIS.
News stories from the past twenty years provide numerous examples of the risks and environmental harms caused by the introduction of new species to the United States by human activity. A new species of mollusk arrives in the Great Lakes, clogging water systems with its rapid growth. A species of snake spreads across the island of Guam, causing the extinction or extirpation of several bird species. Gypsy moths defoliate large stretches of the Northeast in the 1980s. Killer bees and parasitic mites threaten American bees, the main source of pollination for many major fruit crops. Malathion is sprayed by planes over residential neighborhoods in California and Florida to stop the spread of a European species of fruit fly.
National Park Service employees fight to remove an Australian tree species that is spreading rapidly across the Everglades, eliminating native ecosystems and converting the “river of grass” to a dry forest. Whether introductions of non-indigenous species are intentional or unintentional, the consequences can be drastic and often unforeseen. Yet, in response to threats posed by such introductions, the policy response of federal, state, and local governments within the United States has been uncoordinated, inconsistent, and often ineffective.
This paper argues that human introductions of non-indigenous species (“NIS”) pose a grave environmental harm, one for which current governmental action is insufficient and inappropriate. Instead, an entirely new policy and regulatory structure must address the threats and risks posed by NIS.
The relative lack of federal or state regulation in this field presents an opportunity as well. We are presented with essentially a “blank slate” on which to develop an entirely new regulatory program and to apply the lessons and insights developed from over twenty-five years of environmental law and regulation in the United States. Our search for a solution to the NIS problem mightbest be started by understanding which environmental programs have worked best and why they have worked and which programs have failed and why they have failed. Those lessons can then be used to develop a preliminary outline of what an NIS regulatory scheme should look like within the United States. The paper concludes with an endorsement of a mixed regulatory scheme embracing both traditional and new regulatory techniques, with each regulatory element addressing different segments of the complex NIS problem.
Part II of this paper outlines the scope and nature of the NIS problem facing the United States. Part III describes the current statutory and regulatory framework of federal and state governments that address NIS and the current critiques of that framework. Part IV lays out the various options that have been proposed or might be applicable to NIS control and describes similar environmental problems from which lessons about environmental policy can be drawn. Part IV also provides a survey of the literature regarding the success (or failure) of the various options, brings together those results, and applies them to the specific situation of NIS control. Part V concludes with tentative recommendations as to which policy options will be more or less successful in addressing NIS.