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This article examines stakeholder involvement and influence as part of voluntary environmental agreements between regulatory agencies and companies. Ten pilot projects that were part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Project XL (excellence and leadership) were examined too evaluate process goals (fairness and competence) and outcome goals (trust and incorporation of public values in decisions). The ten case studies encompass a range of businesses, locations, and ideas for regulatory "reinvention" projects, and they span a spectrum of stakeholder participation process and outcomes. Although results point to numerous problems in implementation, they also indicate that in several cases, stakeholder groups significantly affected the final companies can work collaboratively and constructively with residents of local communities, members of national environmental organizations and other interest groups, and government regulatory officials to craft voluntary environmental agreements that are cooperative and environmentally beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, environmental activists and some academic studies of environmental political issues have portrayed environmental protection as a new social consensus. This view has some, though limited, capacity for explaining the controversial character of many environmental protection issues and the frequent losses that environmental activists experience in political struggles. In an effort to clarify this seeming conundrum, the author delineates the core of the societal consensus thesis' best explanation for the controversial character of many environmental policy decisions. This explanation is contrasted with explanation that draws on conflict among three coherent rival environmental perspectives in contemporary political life. These environmental views are integral, if frequently unrecognized, aspects of familiar general social perspectives distinguished by contrasting principles, values, and practical objectives. A strategy is designed to facilitate responsible environmental protection legislation in light of these three rival perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]