Policy memo -Audience: The audience for your policy memo

Policy memo

The topic will be (Wildfire in California)

Audience: The audience for your policy memo is legislators, legislative aides, and lobbyists who are consulting it to come up to speed on an important public issue. Imagine that you work in the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (www.lao.ca.gov) in Sacramento or the Congressional Budget Office in Washington, DC (www.cbo.gov). Your audience is scientifically literate policy participants who may have little specific knowledge of the topic you are discussing. These individuals are usually very busy and want a concise, easy-to-read summary.

Contents: The memo should summarize the policy issues associated with the environmental problem (the writer must find a state or national policy by yourself online, this link may helpful, https://www.doi.gov/wildlandfire/fire-policy), being sure to address the questions below. Some questions may not be answerable given the state of knowledge on the topic; indicate if that is the case.

• _What laws or regulations cause or enable the problem? (You also can consider lack of laws or regulations; 10 points.)

• _What laws or regulations make the problem worse/better? (10 points)

• _What are the societal consequences of the problem? (For example, how does the problem affect public health, income inequality, economic growth, or quality of life? 15 points)

• _What scientific methods are used to identify/measure/describe the problem’s societal consequences? Societal consequences are different from ecological consequences; focus here on societal ones. (10 points)

• _What political or legal uncertainties affect our understanding of the problem and/or its societal consequences? (10 points)

• _What are at least two policies that have been proposed to address the problem? Be specific. (15 points)

800 words, cite laws that you used