In a Polarized Era, Assessing the State of the Environment on a Local Level Takes on Extra Importance 

To cut through the polarization and promote effective environmental governance, experts at Vanderbilt are advocating for a more regional spin on a one-time federal initiative: the “State of the Environment” report.In a forthcoming article in the GW Journal of Energy & Environmental Law, Mariah Caballero, Ethan Thorpe, and Michael Vandenbergh outline how data-driven reports on the state of the environment at regional, state, and local levels can inform unbiased, effective environmental governance, even in the continued absence of federal information-driven initiatives.The authors found that efforts on these levels, as well as public-private collaborations, have been “particularly influential regarding climate change.” More reporting on key environmental indicators, they argue, could enable public and private decisionmakers to better allocate resources and stimulate the development and execution of effective solutions to many types of environmental problems across the U.S.“The integration of local, state, and regional processes can benefit from ‘embedded upscaling,’ in which communities learn from other communities while meeting national, regional and state regulatory standards and developing the capacity to catch up to their leading counterparts,” they write.Their proposal draws inspiration from a long-standing federal initiative of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Under Section 201 of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the CEQ submitted annual State of the Environment reports to the President and Congress, assessing the state of the environment, projected trends, and recommendations for related legislation. The CEQ terminated the reports in 1997 as part of paperwork reduction efforts included in the Federal Reports Elimination and Sunset Act of 1995.“In light of the continued strong consumer, employee, and investor demand for environmental quality that has occurred despite the swinging pendulum of federal support for environmental protection, this Article suggests that it is an auspicious time for regional, state, and local efforts to fill the gap left by the termination of the annual CEQ State of the Environment Report,” the authors write.The article offers a detailed case study on the Tennessee State of the Environment report, created by the Energy, Environment & Land Use Program (EELU) at Vanderbilt Law School. The report leverages publicly available national, regional, and state-specific data on several key environmental indicators. The results were presented at EELU’s inaugural State of the Environment conference, where academic participants and community leaders discussed findings and recommendations.“The report and process discussed in this Article are just the first of what will likely be a long series of State of the Environment reports, and enhancements are underway to create an even more transparent process by sharing the data and code used to generate the report be