PCSD Update

President's Council on Sustainable Development

The President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) was created by Executive Order 12852, June 29, 1993, to comply with one of many mandates set forth in Agenda 21, adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), a year earlier in Rio de Janeiro. What was announced as the tenth and final meeting of the PCSD was held in Washington, DC in November, 1995, to announce completion of the final draft of the Council's report to the President. The report, entitled Sustainable America: A New Consensus, was presented to the President on March 7, 1996, whereupon, the President asked the Council to continue its work through December, 1996.

In January, 1997, the PCSD issued its second report entitled Building on Consensus: A Progress Report on Sustainable America. The President again extended the Council for two more years, and, like most federal agencies, the PCSD appears to be settling into a permanent fixture within the federal government. Through the end of 1998, the PCSD will focus on:

  • Building the new environmental management system;
  • Implementation of policy options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions "without debating the science of global warming;"
  • Policies that promote sustainable communities; and
  • Leadership in international sustainable development.1

The PCSD is not just another do-nothing Presidential Commission, wasting tax payers' money. It is an incredibly significant bureaucracy that is reshaping American society, restructuring the policy-making process, and implementing instructions of the United Nations (Agenda 21) -- while wasting tax payers' money.

There was a time in America when "social engineering" was considered a governmental "no-no." The PCSD exists explicitly for the purpose of reshaping society to make it "sustainable." Such a mission assumes that the status quo is not sustainable. Who made that assumption? The U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to establish national policies, and the Executive Branch is authorized to administer the policies established by Congress. There is no Congressional authority for the PCSD. Congress has not adopted a national policy of sustainable development. The Administration has. A major part of the Administration's sustainable development policy is to by-pass Congress as much as possible, and to transform federal, state and local governments into administrative units for the implementation of UN policies.

The vast majority of Americans are unprepared to hear such bold, direct statements about the PCSD because most of them have never heard of the PCSD, and know nothing about its activity. It is just too bizarre to think that the President and the Vice President of the United States could participate in any activity that would diminish individual freedom, erode private property rights, shackle free markets, or surrender national sovereignty -- in order to promote the policies of the UN. Proponents of Agenda 21, and sustainable development, rely on public ignorance, and divert debate from critically important issues by ridiculing those who advance concerns, and often deny the dominant influence of the United Nations.

The PCSD boasts that during its first three years, the four public meetings it held drew between 200 and 500 people each, and that "more than 5000" persons have followed the 28-member Council's work. In a nation of 266 million people, 5000 who have "followed the Council's work" hardly establishes "a new consensus for a sustainable America." Nevertheless, the policies established by this carefully-selected Council are being promoted by the White House and are being implemented across America through all the relevant agencies of the federal government. The policy recommendations adopted by the PCSD parallel the recommendations of Agenda 21 and encompass virtually every aspect of human life.

The PCSD initially divided itself into eight Task Forces, each of which produced its own set of recommendations, in addition to the 154 general recommendations contained in Sustainable America: A New Consensus. Those Task Forces, and their reports, are:

  • Eco-Efficiency, 1996 (60 pp. plus multiple appendices)
  • Energy and Transportation, 1996 (93 pp.)
  • Natural Resources, June 1997 (not yet available)
  • Population and Consumption, 1996 (97 pp.)
  • Public Linkage, Dialogue, and Education, February 1997 (129 pp.)
  • Sustainable Agriculture, 1996 (19 pp.)
  • Sustainable Communities, June 1997 (not yet available)

With the two-year extension, the PCSD created three new Task Forces:

  • Innovative Local, State, and Regional Approaches
  • New National Opportunities
  • International Leadership

Each of these Task Forces has now issued a preliminary report contained in Building on Consensus: A Progress Report on Sustainable America (January 1997, 57 pp.).2

The purpose of the PCSD is to promote "sustainable development" which is defined by the PCSD "...to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." which comes directly from page 43 of Our Common Future, the report of the UN's 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission, named for its Chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland -- then Vice-Chair of the World Socialist Party. The mission of the PCSD is to:

  • Forge consensus on policy;
  • Demonstrate implementation of policy;
  • Educate Americans on sustainable development; and
  • Evaluate and report progress.3

The first mission, to "forge consensus on policy," ought to read "force acceptance of UN policies."

It must be understood that "consensus" does not mean agreement by the majority. (See cologic March/April, 1997, and May/June, 1997 for a complete analysis of the consensus process).

Consensus means eliminating dissent from those chosen to participate in the process. The success of the PCSD, and of all consensus processes, depends upon those selected to participate and the skill of the facilitator conducting the process. While the PCSD advertises that its process involves "diverse interest" and representatives of "all stakeholders," the opposite is true in actual practice.4

The Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture provides a ready example. Its co-chairs are: John Adams, Executive Director, Natural Resources Defense Council (the organization that orchestrated the Alar apple scare); Richard Barth, President, Ciba-Geigy Corporation; and Richard Rominger, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Task Force members include: John Sawhill, President, The Nature Conservancy; Jonathan Lash, President, World Resources Institute; Carol Browner, Administrator, EPA; A.D. Correll, Chairman, Georgia Pacific; John Hagaman, President, DowElanco; and S.C. Johnson, Chairman, S.C. Johnson & Sons.

The 16-member "Liaison Working Group" includes employees of four environmental organizations; five employees of the companies represented on the Task Force; and seven employees of the federal government. A 12-member "Advisory Panel" included one representative from the American Farm Bureau Federation and two farmers. These carefully selected individuals -- who are said to represent all the stakeholder's diverse interests -- have "forged consensus" on America's sustainable agriculture policy. Policy recommendation number nine of the Sustainable Agriculture Task Force is to "Support the objectives of the International Convention on Biological Diversity."

As an indicator of progress, the Task Force lists "The United States ratifies the Convention on biological Diversity and leads efforts for its implementation."

An hour before the Convention on Biological Diversity was scheduled for a vote in the U.S. Senate, Democratic majority leader, George Mitchell withdrew the treaty from the calender because the Senate was provided with copies of a summary of the Global Biodiversity Assessment, a UN document required by the treaty, which described in great detail how to implement a "system of protected areas" as required by article 8 of the treaty. The Convention on Biological Diversity -- recommended by the PCSD -- through the Global Biodiversity Assessment, calls for setting aside half the land area of the lower 48 states as wilderness, providing that "most of the rest of the land is managed for conservation objectives."5

The UN document explicitly identifies the "Wildlands Project" as "central" to an adequate plan for the protection of biodiversity. The Wildlands Project, conceived by Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First, and now a director of the Sierra Club, was developed by Dr. Reed F. Noss with grants from The Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society. The plan envisions vast "bioregions" that consist of core wilderness areas interconnected by corridors of wilderness, surrounded by "buffer zones," which are managed "collaboratively" by NGOs (non-government organizations) and government agencies, all of which are surrounded by "zones of cooperation" or outer buffer zones, in which human activity is severely restricted. This is precisely the land-management plan the U.S. government agrees to maintain when it nominates a Biosphere Reserve for designation by the United Nations Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (UNESCO).

The Sierra Club has been working with the Wildlands Project for several years toward the creation of bioregions throughout the United States. In 1994, the Sierra Club published a special edition of its magazine in which it illustrated 21 bioregions to replace the 50 states. Bioregions are defined by ecological boundaries, not by political jurisdictions, and therefore, a new system of governance has to be devised to coordinate policy and activity on a transboundary basis. The great northwest was selected as the highest priority bioregion to develop. The spotted owl litigation brought by the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund signaled the full-scale attack on the area. The Cascadia initiative was then launched.6 The area was chosen to launch the first two Ecosystem Management Plans under the new Clinton-Gore Ecosystem Management Policy, and the area -- not surprisingly -- has been chosen by the PCSD for the creation of the first official bioregional council: the Pacific Northwest Regional Council (PNRC).

The PNRC consists of 28 carefully selected members which includes: Jay Hair, former president of the National Wildlife Federation and the International Union for the Conservation of Nauture (IUCN -- which first proposed the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1981); Sara Vickerman, Defenders of Wildlife; Rosita Worl, SeaAlaska Heritage Foundation; Louise Gund, Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund; J. Martin Goebel, Sustainable Northwest; and Angela Wilson, The Skanner Environmental Justice Action Group. The Oregon Lands Coalition -- and virtually all of the more than 100 other property rights groups in the area -- are carefully precluded from participation in "forging the consensus" on policies with which they will be forced to conform.

Of all the policy recommendations being advanced by the PCSD and its 11 Task Forces, none is more dangerous than the "new collaborative decision process" employed exclusively by the United Nations, the PCSD, agencies of the federal government, and "stakeholder" councils across the country. Through this growing network of stakeholder councils, the policy making authority of elected governmental bodies is being usurped. It is no accident, nor is it an unintended consequence. It is a strategy discussed extensively in the Global Biodiversity Assessment, Agenda 21, and throughout United Nations literature. Stakeholder council are created for a wide variety of purposes ranging from economic renewal to watershed management; from emergency response to natural disasters to educational improvement. The emergence of these stakeholder councils is promoted and coordinated in collaboration among the federal government, private foundations, and NGOs.

A common characteristic of these stakeholder councils is that the scope will be multijurisdictional; the impetus for action will come from an NGO that is directly or indirectly affiliated with a national NGO that is a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature; and once organized, the stakeholder council will become an NGO (not-for-profit organization) in its own right -- in order to qualify for direct funding from the federal government and private foundations.

The bioregion is the new unit of governance as envisioned by the United Nations. The Bioregional Council is to coordinate policies and activities throughout the bioregion through its network of subsidiary stakeholder councils. The PCSD says that the "multi-stakeholder decisionmaking model of the PCSD can be applied at every level of government and society." One of the first activities of the new Pacific Northwest Regional Council is "conducting an inventory of organizations with programs on sustainable development" to "work together to promote complementary missions."7

Elected officials are being hoodwinked by the noble-sounding buzz-words and the pomp and circumstance engendered by the President's and the Vice-President's enthusiastic support. The National Association of Counties and the U.S. Conference of Mayors -- at the initiative of the PCSD -- have created the Joint Center for Sustainable Communities (JCSC), with initial funding from the EPA, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Energy. The JCSC will "provide technical assistance, training, sustainable development literature and materials, and funding toward community visioning or collaborative planning."

In a typical multijurisdictional stakeholder's council, one or two "token" elected officials will be selected to provide the appearance of support from local government, and to serve as a liaison with the local government body. Rarely, if ever, is an elected official chosen who is not already supportive of the sustainable development concept. The reports that go back to local government are likely to be presented in glowing terms. Elected officials who are known to oppose expanded UN or federal influence -- are systematically excluded from the process. If those officials present a problem to the leaders of the stakeholder's council, those officials are likely to be ridiculed in the media, marginalized, and their careers are jeopardized.

The Pacific Northwest Regional Council is but the first of several regional councils to be created and coordinated by the PCSD. And the PCSD is only one of 180 similar national councils that have come into existence around the world since 1992, encouraged and coordinated by Earth Council, an NGO created by Maurice Strong, and given voice through the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development. Progress is right on schedule to coincide with the restructuring now occurring at the UN under the direction of Maurice Strong. NGOs accredited by the UN -- primarily the IUCN and its 700 member organizations -- are to serve as the UN's "early warning system" which can alert the UN directly through a new "Petitions Council" and offer policy recommendations directly to the UN General Assembly through the new "Assembly of the People" to be convened in 2000.8

Whether Americans know it or not, or whether they believe it or not, American society is being transformed. The values upon which America created the most prosperous nation on earth -- individual freedom, private property, free markets, and national sovereignty -- are being systematically replaced by the values of sustainable development -- the integration of environmental protection, sustainable economies, and social justice -- as dictated by the United Nations. The ultimate objective is the achievement of global governance, with policies arrived at through the consensus process by unelected UN officials, administered through Bioregional Councils and their networks of sub-regional and local councils, enforced and funded by national and local governments that are bound by international treaties, and subject to sanctions by the World Trade Organization now, and will be subject to even stronger enforcement capabilities as UN restructuring unfolds.

Global governance is not an event that may occur at some future date; it is a process that has been underway for several years. The plan is to have so many elements of global governance sufficiently instilled by the year 2000, that there can be no turning back. The PCSD is the primary instrument being used by the Clinton-Gore Administration to effect the transformation of society, precisely as prescribed by the Vice President in his 1992 book Earth in the Balance. Programs such as Border Region 21, the American Heritage Rivers Initiative, Ecosystem Management Plans, the Scenic Byways Program of the Department of Transportation, and a host of other Administrative initiatives are all part of the broader agenda described by the PCSD, as dictated by Agenda 21. The Clinton-Gore Administration is firmly committed to transforming America into Al Gore's vision of sustainability -- whether the American people want it or not.

-eco-logic staff

Endnotes

l. PCSD Information Packet, April, 1997, p. 4-5.

2. All of these documents are advertised "free of charge" by calling 800-363-3732.

3. Revised Charter, President's Council on Sustainable Development, April 25, 1997.

4. For an analysis of the initial PCSD, see cologic September/October 1995, p. 12, and March/April 1996, p. 10.

5. Global Biodiversity Assessment, (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 993.

6. See cologic May/June, 1996 "Cascadia: Bioregion in the making," p. 10.

7. Building on Consensus: A Progress Report on Sustainable America, President's Council on Sustainable Development, January, 1997, p. 10-11.

8. See cologic July/August 1997 for details on UN restructuring.