Vice President Al Gore last week presented Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner with his "Hammer" award for bringing "common sense" reform to environmental regulation.
The award, named after the infamous $600 Pentagon hammer, honors the agency's work on the Common Sense Initiative, which Browner launched in 1994 to simplify the regulatory obstacles facing several industries. (See "Clearing the Air," September 1997.)
"This common sense initiative is reinventing government at its best," Gore said in announcing the award. "Together, government ... and the private sector are finding new, more efficient ways to protect our environment."
EPA officials said the initiative is currently being expanded and intensified in both the agency's regulatory and non-regulatory programs.