Column: Environmental policy at UNC isn't for sale

At first glance, the recent creation of an environmental think tank on UNC’s campus by the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly seems to be a surprising step toward new effective environmental policy. 

The North Carolina Policy Collaboratory's stated goal of providing research and policy recommendations to North Carolina officials and legislators on local environmental issues is both noble and greatly needed. As a state, we face a variety of pressing issues, from rising sea levels to polluted soil and rivers. 

Unfortunately, the current vision of the Collaboratory seems to be one of partisan gamesmanship, corporate pseudoscience and anti-academic aggression.

The idea that N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger would lead the charge on promoting environmental issues — after receiving a five percent legislative rating from Environment America in 2014 and a 33 percent lifetime rating from the North Carolina League of Conservation voters that same year — is not just surprising; it is unbelievable. 

His promotion of the Collaboratory indicates that the organization is more likely intended to create conservative propaganda than effective policy. This is reinforced by recent speculation that his science advisor Jeff Warren is in the running to head the organization. 

Warren is perhaps most notable for his efforts to get rid of necessary regulations on fracking and leading the charge to minimize the importance and reality of rising sea levels. 

An environmental think tank run by Jeffrey Warren and supported by Phil Berger would inevitably feel pressure to ignore the scientific consensus on issues outside the Republican Party line, like the reality of climate change or the danger of coal ash.

This undue influence would likely not end at the N.C. Republican Party. The Collaboratory is currently set to be developed under Brad Ives, UNC's associate vice chancellor of campus enterprises, who played a key role in the privatization of Student Stores. 

Ives' connection to Student Stores and his background in the private sector before working under Gov. Pat McCrory indicates that the University is willing to subject the Collaboratory to the whims of the free market. 

This is incredibly inappropriate because credible academic research on issues like pollution often directly counters the desires of large corporate interests. 

Privatization and business-facing policy might be an effective way to squeeze every penny out of a bookstore, but it is a terrible way to create environmental policy.

Ives’ position not only indicates the primacy of private sector interests, but also the belittling of the UNC academic community. Incorporating the group under his auspices sidesteps the academic aspect of the University, which the Collaboratory claims to represent. 

This means the necessary input of relevant professors becomes undervalued, and faculty boards miss an opportunity to voice concerns. UNC’s faculty should be its primary arbitrators of academic validity, not money-minded campus administrators with a vested interest in profitable findings. 

That this is being ignored bodes poorly for any research the Collaboratory aspires to accomplish.

There is still time to modify the mission and organization of the Collaboratory in such a way that it benefits both UNC and the state more broadly. 

Most important is creating a codified barrier between the partisan wishes of the state legislature and the non-partisan policy proposals the Collaboratory creates. 

Other necessary modifications include faculty oversight with the exclusive power to guide research standards, collaboration and integration with the existing Institute for the Environment and a funding model that avoids both conflicts of interest and elements of privatization.