Government Policy

1. Government Policy Public and Domestic Policy

2. Public Policy

3. Terms to Know • demographic data: Using vital statistics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, and distribution to make decisions or set policy. These statistics may include information about: age, sex, race, family size, level of education, occupation, income and location of residence. • census : A periodic count of the population. • public policy : The study of specific problems in a society and how the government responds to these problems.

4. What is public policy? • Public policy is the study of specific problems in a society and how the government responds to these problems. • Public policy begins with the people whose interests, problems, and concerns are addressed by government.

5. Public policy may include: Tax policy Social Security and Medicare for the elderly Education services such as interpreters for the deaf or teachers for students who may not speak English

6. Public policy may include: Environmental laws that require special trash pick ups for chemicals such as paint and oil Safety requirements for homes and new cars such as airbags List three public policies that affect your life.

7. Thursday May 15, 2014 • Identify 2 public policies the U.S. government has in place to help the elderly. • What is the Census, and what is it used for? When finished your warm-up, log in to your computer and go to http://ndhsfitz.weebly.com/

8. How do we get demographic information? • Every ten years, the Census Bureau takes a census. • This census asks questions about the characteristics of the people. • The Census Bureau collects and organizes this information and national, state, and local governments use it to make decisions.

9. Demographics • Demographics are the physical characteristics of a population of people. • These characteristics may include: • gender • age • race • education • occupation • marital status • or the number of children in a family.

11. Making Public Policy • The government considers how to provide for these services. To meet the needs of the community, the government can: • increase or decrease taxes • decide where to spend money • award tax credits for saving for a college education, daycare or retirement

12. Domestic Policy

13. Terms to Know • public policy : The study of specific problems in a society and how the government responds to these problems • Regulation: Rules enforced by a government agency to restrict or control economic activity in price setting, product standards, trading standards.

14. Domestic Policy • In general, federal domestic policy focuses on broad goals: • protecting citizens against poverty and personal misfortune (relief for unemployed workers, health care for the elderly, emergency shelters, school lunches for the poor) • protecting national security through domestic policies (censorship, government tip lines, airport security) • improving the quality of life for all Americans (programs to improve air and water, building roads, regulating air traffic, fighting crime)

15. Making Public Policy • Citizens may bring the issue to the attention of media, lobbyists, and interests groups. This attention to this issue may influence the government to act. • One public policy issue that is often in the news is public health. • For example, the issue of drinking and driving in the 1980s brought media attention to the issue of and eventually influenced the passage of legislation on the local, state and national level.

16. Regulatory Agencies • When individuals or groups cannot rely on private businesses to fix all problems, they often call on the government to provide the solution. • One way the government addresses the needs of the people is through regulatory agencies. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

17. Land Use

18. Using your imagination… • Imagine you are to inherit 50 acres of land. • (That is 50 football fields) • What would you do with that land?

19. Population Growth • In Maryland, population has been growing rapidly for over 50 years. • What are the effects of this new growth?  • Did you mention new developments of neighborhoods, businesses, and roads? • New development helps the economy as people spend their money at new stores and to buy new homes. MORE BUILDINGS= SCHOOLS+POLICE+FIRE PROTECTION+ROADS= RISE IN TAXES

20. Land Use • Land use issues are decided by different levels of government. Most land use decisions are made by local governments – counties and towns – through comprehensive plans and zoning laws. • These tools are typically developed by local government planning departments and approved by local elected officials after receiving the public’s input (opinion) at hearings and meetings held throughout the community. • The comprehensive plan (sometimes called a Master Plan) is long range planning for the community to address future growth. • Zoning laws regulate the type and size of development to be consistent with the plan. • For example, zoning laws must be followed when you want to build an addition on your home or put a pool in your backyard. • These laws are typically made by appointed boards in local counties across the state. http://www.rockvillemd.gov/masterplan/towncenter/zoning.jpg

21. Zoning sample

22. Key Terms • carbon footprint: The impact people have on the earth through greenhouse gases, measured in units of carbon dioxide. • Emissions: Gases or particles which are put into the air by various sources. • environmental policy: A course of action focused on problems arising from human impact on the environment. • global warming: An increase in the earth's average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate and that may result from the greenhouse effect

23. Smart Growth • The state government may also influence the development of land. In Maryland, a Smart Growth policy was implemented across the entire state to address issues associated with sprawl. • Smart Growth has three straightforward goals: • To save our most valuable remaining natural resources before they are forever lost • To support existing communities and neighborhoods by targeting state resources to support development in areas where the infrastructure is already in place • To save taxpayers millions of dollars in unnecessary costs for building the infrastructure required to support sprawl.

24. Smart Growth Time Lapse BEFORE SMART GROWTH AFTER SMART GROWTH Citation: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/education/growfromhere http://news.yahoo.com/stunning-30-year-timelapse-shows-earth-s-changing-surface-161911528.html

25. Clean Water Act • The Clean Water Actis an example of Congressional legislation that established a structure for regulating pollutants contaminating the waters of the United States. • It gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry and municipal sewage treatments.

26. Clean Air Act • Air pollution can damage property. • It can dirty buildings and other structures. Some common pollutants eat away stone, damaging buildings, monuments and statues. • Air pollution can cause haze, reducing visibility in national parks and sometime interfering with aviation. • To address and regulate air pollution, the United States Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963, the Air Quality Act in 1967, the Clean Air Act Extension in 1970, and Clean Air Act Amendments in 1977 and 1990.   • Numerous state governments and local governments have enacted similar legislation to improve air quality, improve public health, preserve property, and benefit the environment.

27. Energy • Renewable resources are those resources that can be renewed or grown again.  • Examples of this are wind, water and yes, corn! • Non-renewable resources are those resources that cannot be renewed or grown again during our lifetime.  • Fossil fuels fall into this category.  • Fossil fuels are those resources that have developed over millions of years.  • Examples are oil and coal.

28. Regional Cooperation

29. Regional Cooperation • A regionhas one or more common characteristics or features. • Often, regions work together to address common issues. This is called regional cooperation. • You might be familiar with one area of Maryland- the Chesapeake Bay. There are many regions of Maryland that are concerned with the Chesapeake Bay. • For example, the issues surrounding the Chesapeake Bay promotes regional cooperation among the states that border the Bay. Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. work together to limit pollution in the Bay. http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/graphics/news/soc0017a.png

30. Maryland’s Regions • There are many political and geographic regions in Maryland. The regions defined below include political and geographic regions in Maryland.

31. Carbon Footprint • One way of measuring our individual and collective effect on the world is by measuring our carbon footprint.  • Our carbon footprint is the impact we have on the earth through greenhouse gases, measured in units of carbon dioxide.  • The greenhouse effect is the rise in temperature that the earth experiences because certain gases in the atmosphere trap energy from the sun. http://footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/