WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- The United States places too little focus on research on natural resources and environmental policy, a Nobel Prize winning economist said during a speech Tuesday at a Washington think tank forum.
"The natural resource base of national economics is as important in the long run -- and may be more important -- than the monetary base of economics," Robert M. Solow, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and winner of the 1987 Nobel prize for economics, said during the Oct. 15 luncheon address.
His comments were made at a symposium sponsored by Resources for the Future, an environmental policy think tank, to mark its 50th anniversary, during a talk titled "The Power of Ideas in the Public Policy Process."
Solow said that America should pay as much attention to developing environmental research and analysis to improve environmental policy, as it does to improving economic policy. He added that such research is critical because society does not have methods to fully understand the ways we use energy and other natural resources, or the effects of our environmental quality policies on air and water.
"We rattle on about this month's buzzwords like sustainable development and biodiversity without stopping to think that these are difficult concepts that will need fresh observations before we can adequately understand what we are talking about," he said. "It is as important as the economics of money and banking."
He said that the United States Federal Reserve employs more than 400 economists to look at monetary policy and to influence economic policy decisions, and that their work is buttressed by academic research at the university and think tank levels. In contrast, there is only minimal support from the government and policy researchers for natural resource policymaking, along with minimal interest in independent research in this area.
Solow added that such research has declined significantly because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has lost much of its influence in the federal government, and because research into natural resources at the university level through agriculture schools has also slowed.
Solow attacked what he characterizes as the "irrationality" of government funding for research. He pointed out that Congress lavishes money on the National Institutes for Health, or NIH, while providing the National Science Foundation, or NSF, with "regrettably little money."
He said this happens because few would say that curing disease -- a principle goal of NIH research -- shouldn't be a high priority, but that it is more difficult for policymakers to understand the less direct interplay between critical policy sectors and the basic science research done at the NSF.
Solow added that he fears that natural resources issues get so little funding because too few people care about improving the underlying data that underpins policymaking in this area.
Solow said that many decisions about resource use and environmental policy are ultimately based not on factual research and analysis, but on political considerations and pressure from interest groups.
"As usual, the cynical view is not all wrong. There are plenty of occasions where power politics and simple ideology runs roughshod over mere evidence and logic," he said.
Despite this, he said there are some instances in which sound ideas and independent policy research win out -- such as the embrace in some regulatory sectors of pollution emissions credits which can be traded among companies that create industrial pollution.
He added, however, that Congress and relevant federal agencies must make more demands before evidence and logic garnered from independent research can effectively overcome politics as the major influence on American natural resource policy.
