EPA Financial Center at Muskie School

USM’s Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service has been named one of only 10 Environmental Finance Centers (EFC) nationally by the EPA.

It will be part of a national network of EFCs involved in research, teaching and technical assistance in alternative approaches to “command and control” regulation by the government. Each center is developing its own focus within that mission. The Muskie School staff is proposing that New England’s EFC focus on land conservation strategies.

The Muskie School EFC will build on and extend studies of techniques of land conservation and protection. The EFC will create education and training programs to help apply the results of the studies in New England and across the country. The center will also offer technical assistance at the local, state, and federal levels.

Richard Barringer, professor of public policy and management, will head the center. “By building on our knowledge of alternative strategies,” Barringer said, “public spending for land resource conservation will be stretched further, private resources may be more readily drawn upon, and resource protection will be maximized.”

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