All CGRER members work daily with reshaping the future. In one way or another, through their teaching and research, they assess current trends and then consider how to forge an alternative reality. They may do this by struggling to develop computer programs that are accurately predictive. They may illuminate future changes by examining past environments. Perhaps they outline techniques to deal with expected problems, or design measures which if applied now would decrease the magnitude of those problems. This Faculty Focus looks at the work of three CGRER members concerned specifically with policies that will shape the future of Iowa's environment.

David Forkenbrock is interested in policy issues affecting the state's future development. He is the director of the University of Iowa's Public Policy Center, which examines issues in transportation, health care, and human interactions with technological systems. Dave focuses on transportation. His book, Transportation and Iowa's Economic Future (co-authored with Norman Foster at the University of Iowa and Michael Crum of Iowa State), examines policy options to improve the state's environmental and economic future. Working with over 40 Iowa leaders in business and government, Dave and his colleagues made a series of policy recommendations that have been influential in Iowa and other states. One such recommendation is that Iowa build fewer four-lane highways, and instead upgrade two-lane highways to "super-two" levels (wider shoulders, passing lanes on hills, turning lanes, and occasional bypasses of communities). A governor's blue ribbon panel is currently studying this proposal. A second recommendation is that Iowa oppose proposals to double the current 600-foot length of Mississippi River locks. Users of inland waterways do not pay the full cost of this use; if they did, demand for lock passages would be somewhat lower. Several environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Izaac Walton League have strongly endorsed this recommendation. Dave and his colleagues at the Public Policy Center are now at work on another study that will derive estimates of air pollution and accident costs created by large freight trucks and freight trains. The study team is recommending that these costs be borne by those generating them. Relatively little work has been devoted to measuring these external costs; the study will be useful to federal and state agencies as they determine the magnitude of user charges in the future.

Peter Thorne is lending his expertise as a toxicologist to help reduce industrial air pollutants. As a consultant to the Department of Natural Resources' Air Modeling Task Force, he is helping to revamp the state's industrial emissions permit system. The present permit system does not promote the improvement of emissions systems, even when such modernization may reduce release of airborne toxic substances. Peter is helping DNR and company officials prepare a consensus report that revises the costly and technically-demanding repermit system. The new repermiting system will provide clear guidelines and proper incentives for modernizing air emissions systems, in this way reducing total pollutant emission and improving air quality.

The Public Policy Center and CGRER are co-sponsors of yet another policy-setting document, the Iowa Greenhouse Gas Action Plan, which was prepared for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and published in draft form in June. Written by CGRER affiliates Dave Forkenbrock and Jerry Schnoor along with Richard Ney and Norman Foster, this document proposes a set of actions for reducing Iowa's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. This is the target stated for the nation in Clinton and Gore's 1993 Climate Change Action Plan and also the major goal of the United Nations Climate Convention, which was signed by the United States in 1992 and then ratified by our Senate. This plan would slow (but not stop) the greenhouse gas trend which is predicted to make the Midwest hotter and drier within the next half-century. Some of the 17 specific recommendations include large-scale forestation efforts; management of hog manure and the methane it releases when anaerobically decomposing; decreasing vehicle emissions through discouraging single occupancy trips; industrial self-reporting of large-scale carbon dioxide emissions to the public; and a variety of governmental incentives such as the Iowa Energy Bank Program, Motor Challenge, and Rebuild Iowa model communities. The revised Action Plan will be published this fall; our state government then will consider which of the recommended actions to adopt and implement. Persons interested in receiving a copy of the final report should contact Jane Frank at the CGRER office.