Free «Federal Bureaucracy» Essay Sample

The United States’ government has tasked various federal agencies with addressing the causes and determining the existence of climate change, more specifically global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the country’s highest environmental authority; its responsibilities include monitoring atmospheric pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and global warming. Other federal agencies contribute in assisting and complementing the work leaded by the EPA. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), for example, also monitors global climatological change (through its Global Change Data Center); it also conducts space studies to aid in the understanding of climatological change and in the development of climate and radiation projects (in order to counter the effects of global warming). Other federal agencies with stakes in environmental change (specifically global warming) include: Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Agency for International Development (AID); US Geological Survey (USGS); Department of Defense (DOD); Department of Energy; Department of Agriculture; Department of State; Department of Transportation.

Global warming is a major concern; this becomes clear by the fact that federal agencies are becoming increasingly interested in monitoring its development and designing contingencies against it. In fact, several agencies have already taken affirmative action by executing policy responses to assertions of climate change. For example, the NRDC takes a clear stance when it recognized that global warming is a serious cause for concern. Other example of executing policy response to assertions of climate change includes the EPA (with its National Water Program Strategy and its Climate Ready Estuaries Program) and the Department of Commerce (with its Global Climate Change Mitigation Incentive Fund). Based on the fact that all major federal agencies are increasingly concerned and involved with the world’s climate, it becomes quite clear that global warming is a complex climatic phenomenon with serious implications for global safety, sustainability, and survival.