scholarly journals Legislation and Policy

Author(s):  
Faith T. Campbell ◽  
Hilda Diaz-Soltero ◽  
Deborah C. Hayes

AbstractIn the United States, biological invaders are managed by all Federal agencies that have responsibility for natural resources, as well as the States, territories, and occasionally regional entities. Federal agencies’ invasive species programs are implemented under the mandates and guidance provided by dozens of laws, which include statutes enacted by the Congress, Executive Orders issued by the President, and regulations adopted by the relevant agencies. Although there are numerous laws implemented by the States or occasionally regional entities, this chapter will focus on Federal legislation and regulations that guide work on all public and private forests, rangelands, and grasslands in the United States. There are three categories of laws: (1) laws to prevent introduction or initial spread; (2) laws for management or control of invasive species; and (3) more generally defined land management laws which serve as an umbrella for invasive species activities.

Author(s):  
Deborah C. Hayes ◽  
Becky K. Kerns ◽  
Toral Patel-Weynand ◽  
Deborah M. Finch

AbstractInvasive species are a historical, long-term, and continually growing threat to the ecology, economy, and infrastructure of the United States. Widely recognized as one of the most serious threats to the health, sustainability, and productivity of native ecosystems, invasive species issues have commonly been viewed as problems specific to Federal, State, and private landowners. However, it is increasingly apparent that the impacts from these species are all encompassing, affecting ecosystem processes in addition to the economics of land management, public and private infrastructure, the energy sector, international trade, cultural practices, and many other sectors in the United States.


Author(s):  
William R. Burch ◽  
Gary E. Machlis ◽  
Jo Ellen Force

This chapter demonstrates how the Human Ecosystem Model (HEM) offers a unity of understanding with shared concepts, a framework, and a model for resolving complex human ecosystem problems. With it, decision-makers from different organizations—public and private—may coordinate their work with that of local citizens. The emphasis is on the whole system, which combines issues such as trends in crime, housing, education, health, natural resources, and community stability into an integrated network. The chapter illustrates how the framework and model was applied in a major city in the United States: Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore story emphasizes that certain universal problems and solutions confront all human societies. The universality of problems and the search for integrated solutions required a framework like the HEM to identify, apply, and store learning.


Author(s):  
Andrew Rudalevige

The president of the United States is commonly thought to wield extraordinary personal power through the issuance of executive orders. In fact, the vast majority of such orders are proposed by federal agencies and shaped by negotiations that span the executive branch. This book provides the first comprehensive look at how presidential directives are written — and by whom. The book examines more than five hundred executive orders from the 1930s to today — as well as more than two hundred others negotiated but never issued — shedding vital new light on the multilateral process of drafting supposedly unilateral directives. The book draws on a wealth of archival evidence from the Office of Management and Budget and presidential libraries as well as original interviews to show how the crafting of orders requires widespread consultation and compromise with a formidable bureaucracy. It explains the key role of management in the presidential skill set, detailing how bureaucratic resistance can stall and even prevent actions the chief executive desires, and how presidents must bargain with the bureaucracy even when they seek to act unilaterally. Challenging popular conceptions about the scope of presidential power, the book reveals how the executive branch holds the power to both enact and constrain the president's will.


1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1107-1114
Author(s):  
J. Kerwin Williams

Final adjournment of the Seventy-fourth Congress, which like its immediate predecessors turned out a substantial grist of bills affecting cities, brought into focus once again the question of what is happening to our “sovereign states” and their political subdivisions. Federal contacts with cities are not, of course, an entirely new phenomenon in the United States. For a number of years prior to the depression, certain federal agencies had maintained informal contacts with municipal governments by offering them services, information, and advice, and such services are still being utilized. Until July, 1932, however, with the passage of the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, congressional statutes had never touched municipal governmental functions except indirectly through grants-in-aid to the states, the federal government had never entered into important contractual relations with cities, and Congress had never sat in legislative session to deal with the problems of cities as political units.


Author(s):  
Anne S. Marsh ◽  
Deborah C. Hayes ◽  
Patrice N. Klein ◽  
Nicole Zimmerman ◽  
Alison Dalsimer ◽  
...  

AbstractInvasive species have a major effect on many sectors of the U.S. economy and on the well-being of its citizens. Their presence impacts animal and human health, military readiness, urban vegetation and infrastructure, water, energy and transportations systems, and indigenous peoples in the United States (Table 9.1). They alter bio-physical systems and cultural practices and require significant public and private expenditure for control. This chapter provides examples of the impacts to human systems and explains mechanisms of invasive species’ establishment and spread within sectors of the U.S. economy. The chapter is not intended to be comprehensive but rather to provide insight into the range and severity of impacts. Examples provide context for ongoing Federal programs and initiatives and support State and private efforts to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species and eradicate and control established invasive species.


2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah K.M. Rodriguez

Between 1820 and 1827 approximately 1,800 U.S. citizens immigrated to northern Mexico as part of that country’s empresario program, in which the federal government granted foreigners land if they promised to develop and secure the region. Historians have long argued that these settlers, traditionally seen as the vanguard of Manifest Destiny, were attracted to Mexico for its cheap land and rich natural resources. Such interpretations have lent a tone of inevitability to events like the Texas Revolution. This article argues that the early members of these groups were attracted to Mexico for chiefly political reasons. At a time when the United States appeared to be turning away from its commitment to a weak federal government, Mexico was establishing itself on a constitution that insured local sovereignty and autonomy. Thus, the Texas Revolution was far from the result of two irreconcilable peoples and cultures. Moreover, the role that these settlers played in the United States’ acquisition of not just Texas, but ultimately half of Mexico’s national territory, was more paradoxical than inevitable.


2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-191
Author(s):  
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja

Abstract:While Africans are generally satisfied that a person of African descent was reelected to the White House following a campaign in which vicious and racist attacks were made against him, the U.S. Africa policy under President Barack Obama will continue to be guided by the strategic interests of the United States, which are not necessarily compatible with the popular aspirations for democracy, peace, and prosperity in Africa. Obama’s policy in the Great Lakes region provides an excellent illustration of this point. Since Rwanda and Uganda are Washington’s allies in the “war against terror” in Darfur and Somalia, respectively, the Obama administration has done little to stop Kigali and Kampala from destabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and looting its natural resources, either directly or through proxies. Rwanda and Uganda have even been included in an international oversight mechanism that is supposed to guide governance and security sector reforms in the DRC, but whose real objective is to facilitate Western access to the enormous natural wealth of the Congo and the Great Lakes region.


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