【正文】 s with a rich array of data for policymaking and analysis. The United States has not been a leader in the environmental accounting arena. At the start of the Clinton administration, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) made a foray into environmental accounting in the minerals sector, but this preliminary attempt became embroiled in political controversy and faced opposition from the minerals industry. Congress then asked the National Research Council (NRC) to form a blue ribbon panel to consider what the nation should do in the way of environmental accounting. Since then, Congressional appropriations to BEA have been acpanied by an explicit prohibition on environmental accounting work. The ban may be lifted, however, once the remendations of the NRC study are made public. Toward Consensus on Method Environmental accounting would receive a substantial boost if an international consensus could be reached on methodology. The UN Statistics Department has coordinated some of the ongoing efforts toward this end since the 1980s. In 1993, the UN published the System for Integrated Economic and Environmental Accounting (SEEA) as an annex to the 1993 revisions of the SNA. SEEA is structured as a series of methodological options, which include most of the different accounting activities described above。 it has been under discussion since the 1960s. Despite the difficulties and controversies described in this article, however, interest is growing in modifying national ine accounting systems to promote understanding of the links between economy and environment. Why Change? Governments around the world develop economic data systems known as national ine accounts to calculate macroeconomic indicators such as gross domestic product. Building a nation’s economic use of the environment into such accounts is a response to several perceived flaws in the System of National Accounts (SNA), as defined by the United Nations and used internationally. One flaw in the SNA often cited is that the cost of environmental protection cannot be identified. Consequently, money spent, say, to put pollution control devices on smokestacks increases GDP, even though the expenditure is not economically productive, some argue. These critics call for differentiating “defensive” expenditures from others within the accounts. Also misleading is the fact that some environmental goods are not marketed though they provide economic value. Fuelwood gathered in forests, meat and fish gathered for consumption, and medicinal plants are examples. So are drinking and irrigation water, whose sale prices reflect the cost of distribution and treatment infrastructure, but not the water itself. While some countries do include such goods in their national ine accounts, no standard practices exist for doing so. When nonmarketed g