National Academies Press: OpenBook

Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages (2013)

Chapter: 2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages

« Previous: 1 The Challenge of Managing Connected Systems
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

Chapter 2

The Impediments to Successful
Government Linkages

As discussed in Chapter 1, issues of sustainability are by their nature complex, involving multiple domains, multiple exigencies, multiple locations, and multiple time frames. But the federal government is generally not organized or operated to deal with this complexity. Rather, for a variety of reasons, federal agencies generally focus on one arena (e.g., health, energy, environment), with programs addressing one exigency (e.g., natural disaster, statute) in one domain (e.g., air, water, land use) and one time frame (e.g., dictated in statute, term of office). Specifically, impediments or barriers to successful governance linkages come from legal limitations in the form of structural or vertical fragmentation of authority; funding mechanisms that favor short-term, single-agency initiatives rather than longer-term cross-agency projects; a lack of access to or coordination of such foundational elements as research and information/data; and the culture of government. The absence of a national sustainability policy means there are very few institutional bridges, practices, or processes that incentivize building and sustaining the necessary linkages. The difficulties of creating or forging such ties were evident in many of our fact-finding examples, as were the ways in which such impediments or barriers could be overcome. The examples provide a basis for our recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of governance linkages discussed in Chapter 5.

AUTHORIZATIONS—FRAGMENTED AND DIFFUSE

One of the most significant challenges to governance linkages is that the basic framework of government, established by law, is one of separated and dispersed authority, and an essential part of that framework is that government agencies at all levels—federal, state, local, tribal and even international—can only do what they have been authorized to do by their governing authorities—namely, Congress, state legislatures, etc. (U.S. Supreme Court, 1988). Some authorizing statutes provide general grants of authority, but others are quite pre-

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

scriptive, limiting the agency to the terms of the statute (for example, the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act).

In addition, many authorizing or enabling acts focus on a single mission or a single domain—water or energy, for example—even if the domain is part of an interconnected resource system. For example, as noted in Chapter 1, water and energy are interrelated in many circumstances, yet water quality is within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and water supply and flow are largely governed by state law and several federal agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) at the Department of the Interior (DOI), while energy is within the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy (DOE), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management at DOI, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Nonetheless, within this complex institutional context and statutory provisions, there is often delegated discretion and hence maneuverability—so-called “white space”—for creative or innovative individuals and agencies.

The pejorative, but nonetheless accurate, description for this fragmentation of authority is the stovepipe or silo effect: Each agency focuses on implementing its own statutory mandate (Kettl, 2002). There is a rational justification for this phenomenon—namely, the agencies were created as repositories for expertise and experience in a particular area (Kagan, 2001), so they appropriately concentrate on that area and not on matters outside their jurisdiction. But there are consequences for concentrating in this way: It often leads to silo-based approaches to interconnected systems.

Within each agency, there are scientists, economists, engineers, lawyers, and other personnel all focused on the same set of issues, enabling the agency to bring an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving in that domain. Their reach does not, however, extend to connected domains. In fact, when two or more agencies (or distinct parts of a single agency1) share responsibility for an interconnected system or a single geographic location, the reality of fragmented authority is a huge challenge for successful collaboration. Multiple agencies often share responsibility for a domain. Consider the Mojave Desert, where the land is subject to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service; four separate agencies within DOI, including BLM, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the National Park Service (NPS); DOE (which has responsibility for a large alternative energy facility); and the Department of Defense (DOD) (which has six military bases with all branches of the service present). The presence of multiple agencies means multiple and sometimes conflicting goals, as well as multiple leaders who have to sort out their respective roles and responsibilities while remaining faithful to their agencies’ mandates.

_______________

1For example, both air and water are within the jurisdiction of EPA, although each is housed in a separate office, operating under two separate statutes, the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7401 et. seq, and the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. Sec 1251 et.seq.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

There may also be challenges even when a single agency has sole place-based authority, for example, land management agencies such as BLM or the Forest Service, which have responsibility for air, water, species and habitat protection, mineral resources, grazing and energy leasing, recreational uses, and other activities for a particular geographic area. These cases can be challenging because the issues the agencies must deal with, particularly if they are undertaking activity on that land, are subject to statutes (often prescribing one-size-fits-all approaches) enforced by a sister agency.2 Executive Branch policy has been made clear through Executive Orders in effect for several decades3 that all activities on federal land are subject to all applicable federal and state laws and regulations.4 In these cases, agencies may be limited to activities prescribed in statutes, such as one-size-fits-all approaches that may not be in line with sustainability efforts. In addition, the place-based agency often has to interact with its sister agencies that have different agendas and priorities, which can lead to conflict rather than collaboration.

Federal agencies are subject not only to substantive laws, but also to procedural laws that affect the way they may address issues. One of the most significant is the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 551 et seq., which sets forth requirements for issuing regulations. The most prevalent regulatory process is “informal” rulemaking under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 553, a process that has the advantage of promoting public participation—an element that is critical to successfully addressing sustainability connections, but which is also very time consuming and costly. The Federal Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C. App. 2, also prescribes how federal agencies can work with stakeholders and advisors from outside the government; regrettably for purposes of enhancing engagement of affected entities, the Act has in practice often proved to be confining and rigid, even when the need for inclusiveness and flexibility are at a premium.5 Another type of constraint comes from federal acquisition laws, which generally require competitive bidding for the acquisition of goods and services.6 The provisions

_______________

2For example, the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7401 et seq., and the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1251, et seq., enforced by the EPA or the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1531 et seq., enforced by FWS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

3Executive Order (EO) 13148, Greening the Government Through Leadership in Environmental Management (2000) and EO 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance (2009).

4One notable exception is for border security infrastructure, in which the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was given special statutory authority to waive all other laws in implementing the provisions of the act.

5Among other things, while the Act provides greater transparency, it often operates to restrict the number and role of involved stakeholders and may impose significant costs and time delays on the sponsoring agency.

6See Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 2.101, 35.003…266 and 41 U.S.C.2302-2213 (1994) and Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1979 (31 U.S.C.6301 et seq.) For a discussion of use of cooperative agreements and challenges in their use, see

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

are wholly appropriate to ensure best value for federal dollars when purchasing big ticket items, but may not be well suited to implementing multiparty, multi-issue consensus-based partnership activities, where an expenditure of funds is an integral ingredient.7

In addition to the horizontal structural fragmentation that comes from federal agencies operating as separate and distinct silos, there are also vertical structural challenges, especially when statutes set forth explicit roles both for the federal government and for affected state, local, and/or tribal governments. For example, our environmental laws require EPA to set standards that are implemented or enforced by state, local, and tribal governments.8 This kind of shared responsibility is the norm, not the exception, throughout the regulatory world, from agriculture to transportation and from health to housing.

Shared responsibility is also the norm in place-based contexts. A central driver of many landscape-scale sustainability challenges is land use. Yet land-use decision authority is typically widely distributed among many federal agencies on public lands, is shared with state land authorities, and is highly distributed among local and private interests. Drawing again on the Mojave Desert example, there were, in addition to the interests of the federal agencies listed above, 10 state parks, eight county jurisdictions, and 37 federally recognized Native American Indian tribes on the land.9

It is also important to recognize that governmental entities do not and cannot operate in a vacuum. Rather, in any project involving environmental, economic, and social interconnections, there will also invariably be a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as well as private-sector entities who will have a stake in the outcome and whose decisions and actions vitally affect the success of federal agency activities. The participation of these entities can be

_______________

DOI Office of Inspector General. 2007. Proper Use of Cooperative Agreements Could Improve Interior’s Initiatives for Collaborative Partnerships. Report No. W-IN-MOA-0086-2004. For implementing policies, see OMB. 1978. Implementation of the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977. Federal Register 43 (161):36860 and OMB Circulars.

7In these cases, in providing funding to a partner, the federal government is not purchasing a good or service but rather working with the partner to provide a public good. There are tools such as cooperative agreements available for use in these partnerships, but the circumstances in which such agreements can be used is both unclear and limited in some circumstances.

8For example, see U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 2012. EME Homer City, L.P. v EPA et al., No 11-1302.

9While not the focus of this report, international institutions and other national governments are sometimes involved in domestic sustainability connections. Consider the Great Lakes example involving water matters as well as birds that migrate across international boundaries. The Great Lakes project itself is the subject of an international treaty, and representatives of the Canadian government at various levels work side by side with U.S. federal and state officials.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

critical to progress. NGO participation in the committee’s examples ranged from small local organizations such as the Philadelphia Horticultural Society to larger national organizations such as the Nature Conservancy. The USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, a decentralized competitive grants and education program operating in every state and island protectorate, is one of the federal programs that has engaged stakeholders substantively both in technical review process and within the grants themselves (mandatory) since 1988 (SARE, 2013).

As suggested above, one consequence of fragmented authority is that there is often overlapping or even conflicting authority for a particular initiative. At the other end of the spectrum is when the various entities do join together but the resulting “coordinating committee” or “managing directorate” is without any formal authority. This was the limitation faced by the Desert Managers Group (DMG) in the Mojave Desert—a situation that ultimately prompted California to create a legal entity, the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Group, complete with regulatory authority.

FUNDING CHALLENGES

Government entities can undertake activities only if funds are appropriated for those activities. Yet budgets are prepared on an agency-by-agency basis, and agencies typically promote and defend their own initiatives rather than multiagency initiatives. There are a few existing vehicles available for cross-agency funding,10 and occasionally agencies prepare cross-cut budgets for high-priority initiatives of an administration. However, such ventures are often difficult to administer. Even when the requests for funding multiagency projects are accompanied, as they generally are, with a solid business case that demonstrates significant savings from a coordinated rather than unilateral agency approach (Kaufman, 2012), such requests are often resisted by budget overseers.

The role of budget overseers cannot be overstated. While budgets are prepared by the agencies, and after review and modification by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) presented as the President’s budget, the actual federal budget is what is ultimately enacted by the Congress and signed by the

_______________

10One successful and longstanding program (operating since 1978) is the National Toxicology Program. The program is housed at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) but is supported by NIEHS, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Executive Board has broader agency representation. The Executive Committee is made up of EPA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), DOD, National Cancer Institute (NCI), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), NIOSH, NIEHS, and FDA. See http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/?objectid=7201637B-BDB7-CEBA-F57E39896A08F1BB. A less formal device is called “pass-the-hat,” whereby several agencies are asked to contribute to a project on a per-use or per-capacity basis.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

President. In practice, therefore, the fate of the President’s budget is subject to the organizational and natural inclinations of the congressional appropriations committees. Some of the committees are congruent with one or more specific agencies,11 while others have only a part of an agency.12 Some committees have jurisdiction over connected domains13 but not jurisdiction over all of the pieces or players in an interconnected resource system, including related economic or social aspects of the issue. Absent a national sustainability policy or a legal entity charged with developing or implementing such a policy, there are limited mechanisms to fund projects and programs designed to address sustainability issues.

In addition, congressional appropriations committees often seek to ensure that the funds they appropriate are spent by the agency within the committee’s jurisdiction on the activities approved by that committee. NPS, for example, is generally prohibited from spending any of its funds outside of national parks unless otherwise specifically authorized at a particular park.14 In the same way, committee members are reluctant to appropriate funds for matters they view as the responsibility of another committee, even if those matters relate to the mission of an agency that is within their jurisdiction. This line-of-sight approach enhances accountability because agencies get the message about the need to stay within their boundaries in the clearest, most concrete way, but it makes cross-agency funding appreciably more difficult, even for projects related to the agency’s core mission.

The challenge for funding governance linkages is further exacerbated by the fact that budgets are approved on an annual basis, but most sustainability initiatives require efforts over many years’ duration. While the private sector often embraces sustainability as an organizing principle because it can save

_______________

11For example, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development has jurisdiction over DOE programs, and various agencies that manage hydropower.

12For example, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, oversees the budget for all Interior Department agencies except the BOR, which is under the jurisdiction of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water.

13Energy issues, which have a significant nexus with water, involve actions of the BLM, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, while the BOR, which has both energy and water responsibilities, falls under the jurisdiction of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water.

14The Land and Water Conservation Fund limits acquisition spending to within park boundaries; operating funds for the park system have generally been interpreted in annual appropriations to be allowable only within the park system. Supporting this interpretation, parks seeking to invest outside of park boundaries on projects that benefit adjacent national parks have sought special authorizing legislation for those purposes.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

money in the long term,15 government appropriators are often driven by short-term results notwithstanding business cases predicting positive longer-term results. In the committee’s experience, a further challenge is the implicit incentive budget managers feel to “use it or lose it” in order to maintain future funding. This approach to budget allocation leads to inefficient use of capital and can further complicate the ability to address sustainability over the long-term. In any event, the current fiscal environment is obviously putting enormous pressure on existing agency funding, and new money is very hard to come by, especially for discretionary programs that may not enjoy significant bipartisan support.

FRAGMENTATION OF FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS:
INFORMATION AND RESEARCH

One of the observed consequences of fragmented authority and the silo effect is that agencies have traditionally generated or compiled the data they need or have undertaken research for activities they view as their own, independent of their sister agencies.16 This approach presents additional impediments to creating and sustaining governance linkages.

First, even though data or research generated by an agency may be directly tied to that agency’s particular needs and purposes, it could at the same time be invaluable to sister agencies and to the public. Indeed, in the Mojave Desert example, it appeared that not all offices within BLM, let alone the other federal agencies, have access to the same maps of the area for which they were responsible. Some agencies are sharing data in certain areas, and recent administration initiatives have further encouraged agencies to identify their useful data sets and, to the extent feasible, make them available online.17 In specific situations, agen-

_______________

15For example, the Corporate Eco Forum (CEF) is a membership organization for large companies that have committed to the environment as a business strategy issue. The mission is to “help accelerate sustainable business innovation by creating the best neutral space for business leaders to strategize and exchange best-practice insights. Members represent 18 industries and have combined revenues exceeding $3 trillion” (CEF, 2012). A report released by the CEF in 2009 noted that research shows that “becoming environment-friendly lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use. In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better products or enables companies to create new businesses. In fact, because those are the goals of corporate innovation, we find that smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation’s new frontier” (Nidumolu et al., 2009). A list of CEF member companies can be found at http://www.corporateecoforum.com/contact/index.php.

16For example, coordination among federal agencies in the critically important area of regional-scale water resource modeling could be greatly improved and expanded. Current efforts at NOAA and NWS would benefit from additional partnering with USGS, DOE, and other agencies that are pursuing individual efforts.

17For example, see Orszag, P. R. 2009. Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies. Open Government Directive at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

cies have also begun to create coordinated and integrated databases.18 These are particularly valuable when several agencies share responsibility for a particular place or domain.

Nonetheless, combining (or having the ability to access) disparate data sets is not a panacea. Many agencies have specific statutory authorities that require the generation of specialized information that may not be readily combined with other data sets. Even when not set by statute, protocols for data collection and compilation vary widely across agencies, making data integration across domains and even within domains extremely challenging. For example, DOI, USDA and other agencies were interested in linking information on various aspects of water, but there were over a dozen significant databases housed in multiple agencies that contained both duplication and inconsistencies. As a result, agencies found it very difficult to merge these data and present coherent and cohesive information on water flow, quality, and other relevant variables.19 In addition, any so-called commons for information presents its own problems. Agencies are often legitimately concerned about losing control of their data or having someone else assume responsibility for it. Moreover, there may be technical issues, privacy concerns, and the need to commit significant agency resources to post the data, ensure its accuracy, and maintain its currency. As a result, such common repositories are often underused. Cloud computing20 has

_______________

18Examples include the Landscape Conservation Cooperative (which establishes 22 ecosystem regions through which federal agencies are working with states, tribes, local governments, NGOs, and the academic community to coordinate data, identify information gaps, and develop shared strategies for generating and using scientific information), with information available at: http://www.doi.gov/lcc/index.cfm; and LANDFIRE (which has attempted to provide seamless multi-layer-data set maps and information relevant to fire management and fuels treatment decisions.) Details of the LANDFIRE data tool are available at: http://www.landfire.gov/participate_refdata_sub.php. The tool includes spatial data from several federal agencies, state governments, municipalities, academic institutions, and others.

19There is no readily available list of databases pertaining to water quality, though individual agencies maintain information about some databases. See, for example, USDA’s information on data that pertains to water and agriculture at: http://wqic.nal.usda.gov/databases-0, which lists data sources for USDA, USGS, and EPA. Other agencies also maintain water quality databases, including, for example, the Army Corps of Engineers, FWS, Tennessee Valley Authority, and NOAA. Reporting on data integration and other water management challenges, see U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 2010. Responding to National Water Resources Challenges. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Civil Works Directorate.

20Cloud computing is defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as “a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (Kundra, 2011). See Mell, P., and T. Grance. 2011. The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing. NIST Special Publication 800-145. Online. Avail-

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

the potential to play a major role in addressing these issues and improving government operational efficiency (Kundra, 2011) by helping agencies that are grappling with the need to provide highly reliable, innovative services quickly despite resource constraints.

A similar fragmentation frequently happens with basic and applied research. While there is some coordination among agencies in constructing research portfolios and ensuring that results are available to all participating agencies21, individual agencies generally undertake research within their silos, directed at meeting their needs or tailored to their programs. Again, this approach enhances expertise and accountability, but it frustrates the initiation of cross-agency research, even for shared domains. Also, as with funding requirements, information gathering for sustainability purposes should extend beyond the short term. Indeed, research needed to understand the connections among domains and the mechanisms that sustain critical functions often requires studies that extend for decades, rather than the typical three-year grants given by research agencies. A notable exception to short-term research relevant to sustainability is the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program; however, it represents only a modest investment relative to the scale of the need. Further long-term research investments grounded in practical questions and knowledge gaps identified by decision makers are needed.

CULTURE OF GOVERNMENT

A discussion of the impediments or barriers to successful governance linkages must also include the nature of government service or what is often referred to as the “culture of government.” This is a very broad and well-researched subject on which a great deal has been written (Rainey, 2009; Kettl, 2009a; Kettl, 2009b; McKinney et al., 2010; Bardach, 1998; Daley, 2009). The starting point is typically an acknowledgement that the underlying principles of good government—what is expected of government employees—are themselves in tension: specialization versus integration; certainty versus adaptive management; and uniformity versus flexibility (see Box 2-1).

For our purposes, one of the more prevalent characteristics of government service flows in part from the silo phenomenon—namely, agencies and their personnel tend to go it alone. To be sure, many agencies recognize the importance of collaboration and are trying to coordinate in appropriate circumstances. A number of tools for consultation and collaboration have been devel-

_______________

able at http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-145/Draft-SP-800-145_cloud-definition.pdf. Accessed February 25, 2013.

21An example of a success story in this realm is the Tox21 collaboration http://epa.gov/ncct/Tox21, which features well coordinated research, shared across programs, with results made publicly available.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

oped and are being deployed.22 Similarly, there are a number of leaders (at both the senior and staff levels, as we will see in Chapter 5) who are risk takers or innovators. Nonetheless, the prevailing view is that such efforts are often very difficult, much more difficult than they should be. Simply stated, for the most part, agency personnel tend to focus on the agency’s statutory mandates and proceed in the conventional way. Recognition, promotion, and other rewards are all based on advancing the agency’s agenda in a competent but orthodox fashion.23 Risk aversion is the norm, for if something goes wrong when taking initiative or doing something unusual, there are likely to be adverse consequences from senior administration officials, congressional oversight, regulated entities, and/or the press; the notion that failure can be beneficial in that people can learn from mistakes is not something that has salience in the world of government. Not surprisingly, therefore, training is traditionally focused on existing agency practices and processes rather than adaptive management, collaboration, or other efforts to innovate and integrate actions across agencies.

BOX 2-1
Governance and Institutional Design

All governance models—of whatever scale or purpose—are ultimately judged by four criteria: legitimacy, fairness, effectiveness, and efficiency. Yet each of these features may be achieved through a number of procedural and structural characteristics, which are themselves often in tension with one another. These tensions may be particularly evident in efforts to govern through networks in contexts that involve multi-issue integration, complex connections, multiple decision makers, and uncertainties about present or future conditions and how governing will affect those conditions. Legitimacy requires uniform application of laws, for example, while effectiveness and efficiency may require flexibility and adaptability, both of which may be in tension with uniformity. Effectiveness requires clear accountability, but fairness in a context of issues affecting intergovernmental partners and the private sector may require diffused and shared responsibilities. There is the perennial tension between timely decision making and stakeholder inclusivity and involvement. With respect to structural and procedural characteristics, there may be tension between specialization and multi-issue integration, or between expertise and accessibility. Similarly, there may well be tension between the goal of predictability or certainty on the one hand, and the importance of adaptability or resilience on the other.

_______________

22Executive Office of the President Office of Management and Budget and Council on Environmental Quality. 2012. Memorandum on Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution. Online. Available: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/OMB_CEQ_Env_Collab_Conflict_Resolution_20120907-2012.pdf. Accessed December 10, 2012.

23One manifestation of this is in the implementation of some governmentwide management statutes such as the Government Performance Results Act, in which managers have tended to identify goals that are agency-specific, or even program-specific, rather than more integrated ones; and it is well established that people do what is being measured.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

Another reason collaboration is rarely emphasized is because part of the government culture is to “stay in your lane”—that is, work your area of responsibility and avoid getting involved in a sister agency’s activities. If there is no budget, there is no cover or incentive for going beyond the established boundaries and eliciting the charge of “mission creep.” In other words, lanes and silos have much in common. There are exceptions to this rule, especially in the interagency processes conducted by OMB (such as in the realm of regulations), but these are clearly the exception and generally require some senior official in the Executive Office of the President to act as a convener or honest broker (or both) if interagency approaches are to be effective.

In sum, a number of impediments or barriers frustrate federal government efforts to create linkages to address sustainability issues. The structural fragmentation, funding constraints, lack of coordination of information and research, and the culture of government are simply not conducive to partnerships or to extensive collaboration with other affected or invested entities. Because many sustainability issues cross agency boundaries and require long-term investment, these situations create challenges to effective government response. But these challenges can be overcome, as we will discuss in the following chapters.

REFERENCES

Acquisition Central. 2007. Federal Acquisition Circular. No. 2005-17. Online. Available at https://www.acquisition.gov/far/fac/FAC%2017%20Looseleaf_r.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2012.

Bardach, E. 1998. Getting Agencies to Work Together. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Bingham, L. B. 2010. The Next Generation of Administrative Law: Building the Legal Infrastructure for Collaborative Governance. Wisconsin Law Review l:297-356.

CEF (Corporate Eco Forum). 2012. About CEF. Online. Available at http://www.corporateecoforum.com/contact/index.php. Accessed October 29, 2012.

Daley, D. 2009. Interdisciplinary problems and agency boundaries: Exploring effective cross-agency collaboration. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 19 (3):477-493.

DOI (U.S. Department of the Interior), Office of Inspector General. 2007. Proper Use of Cooperative Agreements Could Improve Interior’s Initiatives for Collaborative Partnerships. Report No. W-IN-MOA-0086-2004. Online. Available at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-DOI-IGREPORTS-2007-g-2005/pdf/GPO-DOI-IGREPORTS-2007-g-2005.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2012.

DOI. 2012. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. Online. Available at http://www.doi.gov/lcc/index.cfm. Accessed November 5, 2012.

EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). Summary of the Clean Air Act. 42 U.S.C. §7401 et seq. (1970). Online. Available at http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/caa.html.

EPA. 2013. Tox 21. Online. Available at http://epa.gov/ncct/Tox21. Accessed April 19, 2013.

Executive Office of the President Office of Management and Budget and Council on Environmental Quality. 2012. Memorandum on Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution. Online. Available: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/OMB_CEQ_Env_Collab_Conflict_Resolution_20120907-2012.pdf.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

Accessed December 10, 2012.

HHS (Department of Health and Human Services). 2013. National Toxicology Program. Online. Available at http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/?objectid=7201637B-BDB7-CEBAF57E39896A08F1BB. Accessed April 19, 2013.

Kagan, E. 2011. Presidential Administration. 114 Harvard Law Review 2245:2261-2262.

Kaufman, D. 2012. Forging Interagency Linkages on Sustainability: Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Perspective. Presentation to the National Research Council Committee on Sustainability Linkages in the Federal Government 6th Meeting. October 11, 2012.

Kettl, D. F. 2002. The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for Twenty-first Century America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kettl, D. F. 2009a. Administrative Accountability and the Rule of Law. Political Science and Politics 42(1):11-17.

Kettl, D. F. 2009b. The next government of the United States: Why our institutions fail us and how to fix them. New York, NY: Norton & Co.

Kundra, V. 2011. Federal Cloud Computing Strategy. Online. Available at http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/digital-strategy/federal-cloud-computingstrategy.pdf. Accessed February 25, 2013.

LANDFIRE. 2013. Contribute Data. Online. Available at http://www.landfire.gov/participate_refdata_sub.php. Accessed April 19, 2013.

McKinney, M, L. Scarlett, and D. Kemmis. 2010. Large Landscape Conservation: A Strategic Framework for Policy and Action. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Mell, P., and T. Grance. 2011. The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing. NIST Special Publication 800-145. Online. Available at http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-145/Draft-SP-800-145_cloud-definition.pdf. Accessed February 25, 2013.

National Archives. Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. Appendix 2). Online. Available at http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/laws/fed-advisory-committee. Accessed November 5, 2012.

National Science Foundation. 2011. Long-Term Ecological Research Program: A Report of the 30 Year Review Committee. Online. Available at http://portal.nationalacademies.org/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_412321_4829_954_425760_43/collab/docman/download/337538/0/0/0/LTER-A%20Report%20of%20the%2030%20Year%20Review%20Committee.pdf. Accessed October 4, 2012.

Nidumolu, R., C. K. Prahalan, and M. R. Rangaswami. 2009. Why sustainability is now the key driver of innovation. Harvard Business Review 87.

OMB (Office of Management and Budget). 1978. Implementation of the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977. Federal Register 43(161):36860-36865. Online. Available at http://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2011/september/omb-grants-and-contracts-guide-1978.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2012.

OMB. Circulars. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars_default. Accessed November 5, 2012.

OMB. Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Related Materials. Online. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/mgmt-gpra/index-gpra. Accessed November 5, 2012.

Orszag, P. R. 2009. Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies. Subject: Open Government Directive. Online. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive. Accessed November 5, 2012.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×

Pressman, J. L., and A. Wildavsky. 1973. Implementation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Rainey, H. G. 2009. Understanding and Managing Public Organizations. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. 42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq. Online. Available at http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/emrrp/emris/emrishelp5/resource_conservation_and_recovery_act_legal_matters.htm. Accessed November 1, 2012.

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. 2013. Online. Available at http://www.sare.org. Accessed March 12, 2013.

The White House. 2000. Executive Order 13148—Greening the Government through Leadership in Environmental Management. Federal Register 65(81):24607-24611.

The White House. 2009. Executive Order 13514—Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. Federal Register 74(194):52117-52127.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 2010. National Report: Responding to National Water Resources Challenges. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Civil Works Directorate.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 2012. No. 11-1302, August 21, 2012. EME Homer City Generation, L.P., Petitioner v. Environmental Protection Agency, et al., Respondents. Online. Available at http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/19346B280C78405C85257A61004DC0E5/$file/11-1302-1390314.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2012.

USDA National Agricultural Library. Water Quality Information Center Databases. Online. Available at http://wqic.nal.usda.gov/databases-0. Accessed November 5, 2012.

U.S. House of Representatives. Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977 (31 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.). Online. Available at http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/31C63.txt. Accessed November 5, 2012.

U.S. Senate. 2002. Endangered Species Act of 1973 [As Amended Through Public Law 107-136, Jan. 24, 2002]. Online. Available at http://epw.senate.gov/esa73.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2012.

U.S. Senate. 2002. Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.). Online. Available at http://epw.senate.gov/water.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2012.

U.S. Senate. 2004. The Clean Air Act [As Amended through P.L. 108-201, February 24, 2004]. Online. Available at http://epw.senate.gov/envlaws/cleanair.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2012.

U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. Online. Available at http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/sc-energy.cfm. Accessed November 5, 2012.

U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies. Online. Available at http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/scinterior.cfm. Accessed November 5, 2012.

U.S. Supreme Court. 1988. Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204 (1988) at 208. Online. Available at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=476&invol=355. Accessed October 1, 2012.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 26
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 27
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 28
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 29
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 30
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 31
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 32
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 33
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 34
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 35
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 36
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 37
Suggested Citation:"2 The Impediments to Successful Government Linkages." National Research Council. 2013. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13471.
×
Page 38
Next: 3 Examples of Sustainability Connections and Linkages »
Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connections and Governance Linkages Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $46.00 Buy Ebook | $36.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

A "sustainable society," according to one definition, "is one that can persist over generations; one that is far-seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or its social system of support." As the government sector works hard to ensure sufficient fresh water, food, energy, housing, health, and education for the nation without limiting resources for the future generations, it's clear that there is no sufficient organization to deal with sustainability issues. Each federal agency appears to have a single mandate or a single area of expertise making it difficult to tackle issues such as managing the ecosystem. Key resource domains, which include water, land, energy, and nonrenewable resources, for example, are nearly-completely connected yet different agencies exist to address only one aspect of these domains.

The legendary ecologist John Muir wrote in 1911 that "when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Thus, in order for the nation to be successful in sustaining its resources, "linkages" will need to be built among federal, state, and local governments; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and the private sector. The National Research Council (NRC) was asked by several federal agencies, foundations, and the private sector to provide guidance to the federal government on issues related to sustainability linkages. The NRC assigned the task to as committee with a wide range of expertise in government, academia, and business. The committee held public fact-finding meetings to hear from agencies and stakeholder groups; examined sustainability management examples; conducted extensive literature reviews; and more to address the issue. Sustainability for the Nation: Resource Connection and Governance Linkages is the committee's report on the issue.

The report includes insight into high-priority areas for governance linkages, the challenges of managing connected systems, impediments to successful government linkages, and more. The report also features examples of government linkages which include Adaptive Management on the Platte River, Philadelphia's Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Managing Land Use in the Mojave.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!