ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY
Wilson 21
OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS
Who Governs?
 Why have
environmental issues
become so important in
American politics and
policy-making?
 Does the public get the
environmental laws it
wants?
To What Ends?
 If we wish to have
cleaner air and water,
how far should we go in
making them cleaner
when the cost of each
additional gain goes
up?
 What is the best way
for the government to
achieve an
environmental goal: by
issuing orders or
offering incentives?
CONTROVERSY




Policies create winners and losers
Enmeshed in scientific uncertainty
Mobilizes decision-makers with strong, emotional appeals
Policies af fect states and other nations
 Majoritarian appeal
 Entrepreneurial pressure
 Client benefits
 Interest group fights
AMERICAN CONTEXT
 Policy is much more adversarial than it is in most European
nations
 Conflicts, lawsuits, antagonistic – US
 Business and politics work together, flexible – GB
 Local politics plays larger role
 Dependent on states to enforce rules
 “science” plays larger role elsewhere
ENTREPRENEURIAL
 Global Warming
 Earth Day, 4/22/1970
 Public ground swell
 Cuyahoga River
 EPA
 Clean Air Act
 Water Quality Improvement Act
 Endangered Species Act
 Modern arguments
 Conflicts between elites over ideologies
MAJORITARIAN
 Pollution
 Started as entrepreneurial
 Became majoritarian when localities had to meet air quality
standards
 Local rules
 Smog control
 Export competition
 More targeted since the 1990s
 NEPA – environmental impact studies, low cost
 Gas tax – public push back when costs too high
INTEREST GROUP
 Acid Rain
 High sulfur, coal burning power plants
 Natural resources and tourism
 2 powerful lobbies
 Scientific uncertainty
 Scrubbers added to smokestacks
 Carbon tax and offset market
 Political stalemates
 More groups
 Less fervent than entrepreneurial
 Less deep than majoritarian
CLIENT POLITICS
 Pesticides
 Organized farmers
 Balance costs and benefits
 Too many to test them all
 DDT as example of winning entrepreneurial public campaign
 EPA challenges
 Affects not clear cut
 Public opinion changes
 Strategies to reach goals
 Command-and-control
 Offering incentives
UNCERTAIN SOLUTIONS
 What is the problem?
 What are the goals?
 How do we achieve our goals?
 Offsets – close a polluting factory to open another
 Bubble Standard – meeting total pollution goals
 Allowances or Banks – saving or selling credits
 Superfund example and shift away from rules
 Tax and sue toxic waste dumpers
 Who is responsible
 Expensive clean-up
 Expansion of sites and standards
RESULTS
 High support for environment
 General agreement over degeneration
 Disagreement over problems and solutions
 Considerable improvements in air quality
 Some improvements in water quality
 Little gains in hazardous waste and pesticide use