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Environmental research
Q: In part because EPA is buying research time?
MR. COSTLE: EPA has to be smart about how it buys science and smart about how it leverages such purchases to maximize its knowledge. Environmental research is a field in which the more, the merrier. The more people doing it, the better, as long as there is some sort of overall discipline about methodology and peer review.
I never agreed with those who maintain that you can't mix science and cops. I can understand all the problems associated with doing that. But the cops aren't going to be reasonable if they are not held back a little by the scientists. Likewise, the scientists aren't necessarily going to look at the right issues if the cops aren't demanding answers to their immediate needs. And ultimately, you need to be able to turn some part of EPA's cop/scientist resources loose to think about the future. That's hard to do in tight budget times.
Q: Pragmatically, would it be worth it, do you think, if you were facing a tight budget, to invest in people who are thinking ten years down the road? Or could private industry, on its own, perhaps develop that capacity?
MR. COSTLE: Private industry, basically, will not develop the problem identification capacity, because they are not in the business of giving themselves a hot foot. So they are generally not going to be looking out longer-term to determine what is going to be expected of them five or ten years out -- unless, that is, they are exceptionally well-managed companies. During the Clinton transition, I advised the incoming administration: In Year One, go identify and evaluate all the research needs you can, and define the agenda for five years out. Then launch that research, because what comes out of that will dominate the public agenda. If you really want some control over that agenda, start that research right away; otherwise, you'll never get past the mode of crisis manager.
Q: You identify the research needs and start down that track with part of your team. What else do you do in Year One?
MR. COSTLE: Obviously, that depends on where the Agency is when you get there and on what you inherit. Today that answer would probably be different than it was when I arrived. As the administrator, you have to make some early decisions about your priorities. Then you have to discipline yourself to address them. That means you have to build your relationships with the White House and the Executive Branch. You have to build your relationships with Congress. You have to become familiar with the organized interest groups that are going to affect your ability to do your job, and let them become familiar with you and the principles upon which you intend to make decisions. You have to spend quality time inside the agency, so that staff learns your priorities. By and large the Agency staff wants to be helpful. They want you to succeed, but they can't help if you can't tell them what you expect from them. That's a tall order.
In our case, that initial process was flushed out by a number of specifics. We wanted the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts cleared from the Hill by August. This was our major legislative opportunity to shape the organic statutes that we administered, that would guide the next several years of environmental protection efforts in this country.