The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) today announced the availability of a draft National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions, with comments due by Friday, Oct. 21, stating that the natural capital accounts will mean that “[n]ature will finally be reflected on our nation’s balance sheet.”
Among other things, the draft Strategy notes that natural capital accounts (1) should be pragmatic and support decision-making that advances, among other thing, federal decision-making in programmatic, policy, and regulatory settings; and (2) could provide information needed to track progress toward conservation goals under the 30×30 initiative and help identify places that contribute to economic and non-economic conservation goals at least cost.
Additionally, the draft recommends initially focusing a pilot account on marine natural assets within the boundary of the National Income and Product Accounts used to determine GDP (fish stocks and marine minerals), which it says will allow tracking of progress on marine conservation, identification of areas for improvement, highlighting of trade-offs that may exist related to resource use and in marine planning, and consistently tracking marine ecosystem health and capacity to provide goods and services.
Other recommendations include using Energy Information Administration and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management data on marine minerals and oil and natural gas resources, NOAA vessel survey and Integrated Ecosystem Assessment data, National Marine Fisheries Service quarterly assessment reports, annual commercial landing statistics, and Marine Recreational Information Program data.
The initiative is an outgrowth of President Biden’s Earth Day executive order directing the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue guidance on the valuation of ecosystem and environmental services and natural assets in federal regulatory decision-making.
Areas of particular interest for public feedback include likely and potential applications for U.S. natural capital associated and associated statistics that would improve government or private sector decision-making that are not described in the draft Strategy, established and widely-recognized systems of environmental-economic statistics or natural capital accounts that could strengthen the U.S. system, external factors that may affect the government’s ability to implement the Strategy, and ancillary or indirect consequences of developing natural capital accounts or associated statistics.
The draft Strategy was developed by an interagency working group led by OSTP, OMB, and the Commerce Department, with additional representatives from the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Labor, State, and Treasury, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, the Domestic Climate Policy Office, Council of Economic Advisers, Council on Environmental Quality, National Economic Council, and Natural Security Council.
