Steve Wolfson is a Senior Attorney in the Office of General Counsel with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with expertise in international and comparative environmental law. In his current position, Mr. Wolfson coordinates international capacity-building activities on environmental law, and he leads the EPA China Environmental Law Initiative. He cooperates frequently with the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Department of State, and other interagency partners to ensure that U.S. trade treaty obligations and environmental policies are mutually supportive. Additionally, Mr. Wolfson counsels EPA officials on World Trade Organization (WTO) law, and his professional experience includes representing the United States in WTO disputes, including the landmark Reformulated Gasoline, Shrimp-Turtle, and GMO cases. He has also worked on limiting the use of dangerous pesticides and protecting the environmental health of children.
While the EPA focuses primarily on the United States, it engages in international work due to the transnational nature of pollution. As Mr. Wolfson puts it, “Pollution doesn’t respect borders, including across oceans.” As part of its efforts to combat transnational pollution, the EPA plays an important role in providing input on environmental treaties. In addition, the EPA seeks to shape international environmental policy to create a level playing field for U.S. companies competing in foreign markets.
Mr. Wolfson sees a link between the environment and rule of law in the “implementation gap.” Despite improvements in environmental laws in countries around the world, improvements to the letter of the law do not always translate into more effective implementation, creating an implementation gap. During his career, Mr. Wolfson has seen a growing emphasis on measurement and evaluation in the field of environmental law, in part in response to recognition of the implementation gap, and he is involved in efforts to develop indicators for environmental rule of law. The biggest challenge he has faced in this facet of his work is deciding how narrow or how broad to make such indicators. As environmental law is broad, encompassing pollution control, deforestation, conservation of natural resources, protection of wildlife, and many other issues, tailoring the scope of indicators is a challenge.
Mr. Wolfson is particularly interested in the intersection of environmental rule of law and vulnerable populations. As he says himself, “the poor are often the most vulnerable.” Through his work at the EPA, he wants to help create avenues for participation that are available to ordinary citizens and vulnerable communities, through broader participation and increased access to information. Children’s health in particular is receiving more attention, and one example Mr. Wolfson notes in this area is in the push for the elimination of lead paint. Although most developed countries have eliminated it, most developing countries have not. By explaining the outcomes of this problem in terms of children’s health and by quantifying it in terms of financial and development costs, advocates such as Mr. Wolfson have attracted more attention to the issue. He is part of EPA’s effort to support a global alliance to eliminate lead paint, led by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, which is helping countries to achieve an agreed goal of enacting laws to limit lead paint by 2020.
Although he works extensively on China-related issues, Mr. Wolfson recently has worked to encourage transparency and improve environmental laws with countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia. Southeast Asia has a significant environmental footprint; according to Mr. Wolfson, Southeast Asian leaders see the various environmental problems that China has faced as its economy has grown, and they want to find a way to achieve growth without facing the same host of problems. In China, Mr. Wolfson has seen significant environmental reforms to improve transparency and effectiveness of environmental laws. Despite this positive sign, however, he still sees countervailing trends in governance and rule of law, such as actions restricting activities of activists, lawyers, and NGOs.
Mr. Wolfson believes strongly in the value of interagency cooperation. He cites the intersection of the environment and corruption as one example. Environment experts, he explains, realize that in some countries, corruption is a significant constraint that can stymie environmental protection. These people are not necessarily anti-corruption experts, however, and must rely on and learn from the expertise of colleagues from other agencies, such as the Departments of Justice, Commerce, or State. Mr. Wolfson believes that JUSTRAC, by building a community of practice across agencies on rule of law promotion, can help those agencies learn from one another, drawing on their respective areas of strength.