Decisions in one policy area often impinge on many other areas. Environmental policy cannot be discussed apart from energy policy or from policies concerning economic growth. The institutions of government, however, frequently do not provide mechanisms for rectifying these conflicts of values. Each policy area is treated separately, according to its own constellation of interests and professional standards and with an eye on the political returns to each set of constituents. As both national resources and government resources dwindle; however, decisions by such “subgovernments” may be a luxury the United States can no longer afford. There is a need for enhanced policy coordination across several areas, but Washington works better within policy areas than across them, and conflict rather than cooperation is the common outcome.

        The coming years may be the time when some important questions are decided about the relationship between Americans and their physical environment. The country must decide how much value to attach to a clean and relatively unspoiled environment, compared with the value attached to the mastery of that environment through energy exploration and economic growth. Although renewable energy resources and some shifting of attitudes about the desirability of economic growth may soften these hard choices, the choices must still be made. The choices will arise with respect to specific questions, such as whether to open more Alaskan lands to energy exploration or how to manage the oil shale of the western states. They may also arise over issues such as the disposal of increasing quantities of toxic industrial wastes and the need to develop cleaner means of producing the goods to which Americans have become accustomed. In the process, Americans will be asked what they are willing to give up for a cleaner environment. Are Styrofoam cups worth the emission of CFCs into the environment and the swelling of solid waste dumps? Are people willing to spend an hour or so every week recycling materials to prevent pollution and conserve energy? The sum of these individual choices, along with the regulatory choices that government makes, will say a good deal about the quality of life in the United States for years to come.