Portney Endorses Bureau of Environmental Statistics, Cautions Congress about Scope

Turning to the proposed Bureau of Environmental Statistics (BES), I could hardly be more enthusiastic, though this will not be surprising. While there have been many calls over the years for better environmental data collection and dissemination to elected officials and the public, I believe I was the first to call (in an article I wrote for Resources in 1988) for the creation of a BES. I felt then, as I do now, that the creation of such a bureau would have a number of favorable effects.

I believe the bureau should have the same quasi-independent status as the Bureau of Labor Statistics enjoys within the Department of Labor or the Bureau of Economic Analysis has within the Commerce Department. That is, ideally the director of the BES should be appointed by the president for a fixed term (H.R. 2138 envisions a four-year term, though I might prefer a slightly longer one), one that the director should be able to complete even if the president who appoints him or her is no longer in office. Moreover, ideally the director should be someone with a reputation for independence and experience in matters related to environmental data collection and dissemination. It is essential that the director not be seen as someone who might slant the presentation of environmental data for political purposes.

I'd like to raise a word of caution with respect to the language in Section 8(c)(1)(A) and subsequent sections of the bill dealing with the information the BES will collect. There the director is charged with "collecting, compiling, analyzing and publishing a comprehensive set of environmental quality and related public health, economic, and statistical data..."

I understand full well the reasons for suggesting that the bureau go beyond the collection and dissemination of data on environmental quality. After all, we care about environmental quality at least in part because it bears on public health, and also because pursuing it sometimes entails unpleasant economic tradeoffs. Nevertheless,... [b]ecause it will be a great challenge for the bureau to reach agreement on environmental quality measures alone, I would prefer to see its attention focused there. If it must also wrestle with more traditional public health measures, or measures of economic performance, I fear that the bureau's attention could be spread too thinly and also that its mandate will begin to infringe upon that of the [Bureau of Economic Analysis] or the National Center for Health Statistics. For that reason, I would urge you to think carefully about the types of information that you would ask the bureau to collect, compile, analyze, and publish. We would not want to let the "best be the enemy of the good" in this case.