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This study assesses what causes American states to assume the authority to administer federal environmental programs within their borders, rather than leave implementation to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some observers have argued that interstate competition for mobile capital may motivate states to seek this authority so that they may reduce the regulatory burdens imposed on industrial polluters. Other scholars highlight the importance of intrastate political and economic factors or vertical influences emanating from federal officials. I argue that the relative importance of each of these classes of explanations will vary across environmental policy arenas, depending on the amount of implementation discretion that federal programs provide to state agencies. Results from event history analyses of two major environmental programs are generally, though not entirely, consistent with this theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policy in the United States (US) is known for its media-specific approach to problems, and scholars have argued that this is ineffective. To combat these problems, some have argued for a more coordinated, integrated approach to policymaking. With Congressional gridlock prohibiting legislative solutions, the Obama administration offers some examples of a regulatory path to policy integration. Importantly, these efforts do not entail significant organizational remodels, which can be difficult to adopt. Three different 'types' of policy integration from the US Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management are described. These cases serve as a potential roadmap for broader implementation of policy integration within the fragmented US bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a harmful mismatch between how information published by the government is perceived—as highly trustworthy—and the reality that it is often not. This Article shows that the government frequently collects information from third-party private entities and publishes it with no review or vetting. Although this information is riddled with errors and inaccuracies, scholars, policymakers, and the public treat the information with unwarranted confidence because it derives from the government. Further, institutional imprimatur (and consequent trust) attaches to information even tangentially associated with the government and to information where the government explicitly disclaims review. This Article highlights the ubiquity of government platforms for private, unvetted information that is easily misinterpreted as authoritative. For example, the EPA encourages the public to rely on emissions data supplied by companies and unreviewed by the agency, the FDA disseminates official-looking information about drugs that is generated by drug manufacturers and posted without agency evaluation, and the CDC publicizes a database of potential vaccine side-effects to which anyone can submit unverified reports. Many policies push open access to government information under the belief that the public can use this information for valuable ends. Greater access to government information is also touted as promoting transparency and democratizing governance. This Article argues that, contrary to scholarly consensus, policies to promote openness may instead spread misinformation, which often works against the goal of the institution disseminating the information and has broader social harms. These harms are aggravated by a growth in public access to government information via private intermediaries. Existing policy tools—disclaimers and sanctions—offer only an incomplete solution to the problem of government misinformation. This Article proposes new solutions including mechanisms to correct inaccurate information and methods to package information in ways that render it less misleading. Without reform, the push towards open access to government information may erode, not build, trust in government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Supreme Court case West Virginia v. EPA, which rejected the EPA's expansive interpretation of the Clean Air Act regarding greenhouse gas emissions. It explores the implications of "major questions doctrine" invoked by the Court for first time, impacting not only environmental policy but also administrative law principles. It discusses potential ramifications for net neutrality regulations and examines the development and application of the major questions doctrine.

The United States Forest Service (USFS) is the federal agency responsible for overseeing all national forests and grasslands. The agency's forest management duties rest on a careful balancing of interests. On numerous occasions, this balance has tipped in favor of the agency's timber harvesting goals while moving further away from environmental protection. The agency's decision making, under the framework of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), captures this development in several cases. NEPA calls for the agency to conduct objective and detailed environmental reviews of any major actions that it proposes. Fulfilling this responsibility has been compromised by financial incentives that arise from the agency's budget structure. Such incentives prompt an inquiry into whether the agency can approach NEPA reviews on logging projects as a neutral decision maker. This inquiry becomes especially pertinent as environmental concerns increase and forest management grows more contentious. Are financial incentives so entrenched in the agency's timber harvesting and sale activities that it should bear no responsibility at all for conducting environmental reviews of these activities? This Note argues for transferring the duty to conduct such NEPA reviews to another agency entirely, the Environmental Protection Agency. After describing the USFS's relationship to logging and NEPA, this Note provides and evaluates a proposal for reassigning NEPA duties, with the goal of ensuring more objective and transparent environmental reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role of economic analysis in drafting the environmental policy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It notes that the use of economic analysis is subject to the environmental statutes. Executive Order 12291 demands agencies to submit formal economic analysis or the Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) for the creation of major rules. It mentions that RIAs comprise of potential benefits and cost as well as alternative approaches concerning the rule.

A conceptual model of consumer sorting in markets for housing, labor and health care is outlined and used to make three points about how benefit transfers are used for environmental policy evaluation. First, the standard approach to assessing benefits of air quality improvements by transferring the value of a statistical life from labor market studies embeds several untested (but testable) assumptions. Second, if the cost of an environmental policy exceeds its capitalized effect on housing prices, then the capitalization effect is an insufficient statistic for determining whether benefits exceed costs. Third, there are several ways in which equilibrium sorting models may be usefully extended to assess distributional welfare effects of environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In looking at Carol Browner's leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency, this article draws on insights from the literature on women and executive politics, women and the environment, and environmental policy and decision-making, bridging these fields of study to explore the height of US executive environmental politics through a gendered lens. It examines whether Browner articulated a feminist analysis of environmental issues and whether her life experiences differed from those of the men who previously dominated environmental politics, and if those translated into distinctive concerns and policies. Focusing on a selection of Browner's key environmental priorities and initiatives, this article ultimately assesses the impact she had on the development of environmental policy in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a decades-old concept, has recently garnered significant support and investment as a leading method for decarbonizing the atmosphere. However, regulation of CCS technology lags behind its rapid development. In most cases, primary regulatory control belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency, though state regulations also play a role. However, an increasing number of states seek control over their own CCS programs through a process known as primacy. This Comment provides an overview of CCS regulation within states that already have or are currently seeking primacy over CCS from the Environmental Protection Agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the implementation of U.S. environmental protection laws under American Indian tribal governance. The landmark laws of the 1970s that form the core of America's environmental policy regime made no mention of American Indian tribal lands, and the subsequent research literature on environmental policy has given them little attention. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has primary implementation responsibility for environmental protection laws on tribal lands, which offers a unique opportunity to study direct federal implementation apart from typical joint state–federal implementation. Further, because Indian reservations are homes to a disproportionately poor, historically subjugated racial group, analysis of environmental programs on tribal lands offers a unique perspective on environmental justice. We analyze enforcement of and compliance with the Clean Water Act (CWA) and Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to compare the implementation of environmental policy on tribal lands with nontribal facilities. Analysis reveals that, compared with nontribal facilities, tribal facilities experience less rigorous CWA and SDWA enforcement and are more likely to violate these laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industries in Ghana, over the centuries and for the sake of developments, have degraded the environment by polluting the air, water, and land through agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and other processes such as exploration of natural resources. The environmental policies in Ghana have been more of state "regulation" or "management" than "environmental governance" overseen by state ministries and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nevertheless, environmental degradation due to mining activities has been on the increase than ever. This article calls for the need of a change of the environmental policy framework in the mining sector in Ghana from state regulations to environmental governance. It presents "voluntary agreement" as one of the capable instruments in environmental governance for the mining industry. It also addresses the causes of the lack of application of the existing environmental policy framework in the mining industry and the future implications if the government continues with this framework. It also examines the possibility of the state and the mining industry to embrace the paradigm shift in environmental policies. Lastly, due to insufficient literature available on environmental sociology and environmental governance in Ghana, it serves as the literature for future research on other areas of environmental governance and environmental sociology in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the relationship that exists between the citizens and the elected officials in relation to a U.S. state government's accountability for its implementation of the environmental policy. Topics discussed include the impact of public opinion on the adoption of environmental policy at the state level, the state governor's degree of accountability when it comes to the issue of air quality regulations, and the analysis of data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the relationship between localized environmental quality and gubernatorial approval.

The article examines the framework produced by the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its desirability in requiring downwind states to prove cost-effectiveness of pollution controls in section 126 petitions. Topics discussed include the upholding of the rule in the case EPA v. EME Homer, the issues identified in the regulation of interstate air pollution under the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, and the public health benefits of the regulation.

Forty years ago, in Flint Ridge Development Company v. Scenic Rivers Association of Oklahoma, the Supreme Court reserved a critical question that the federal courts have endeavored to answer. In so doing, the lower courts forged the novel common law doctrine of "implied exemption, " which releases agencies from National Environmental Policy Act obligations when they undertake "non-discretionary" actions. This Article tracks the development and consequences of this largely unnoticed but influential doctrine and concludes that, given the chance, the Roberts Court will uphold it. It also evaluates the doctrine's impact on agency behavior and offers modifications that would realign the incentives of agencies and courts as the doctrine matures and spreads to other statutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil rights legal scholars and practitioners have lamented the constraints of the largely intent-based legal framework required to challenge racial discrimination and injustice. As a result, they have sought alternative methods that seemingly require less overt proof of discrimination and are more equipped to address structural harm. One of these proposed solutions involves the use of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)--due to its affirmative mandate to address discrimination by reasonable modification or accommodation--and the framing of issues of racial injustice in terms of disability or the deprivation of medical rights. Environmental justice, an area in which issues of both race and disability are salient and affect one another, is one such context in which advocates have tried to use the ADA to challenge broader structural harm. This Article analyzes cases in which practitioners have used the ADA to challenge issues of environmental injustice to examine the purported utility of the ADA, and disability and medicalization framing, more generally, in addressing structural racism and injustice. Specifically, I discuss the attempted use of the ADA to stop the construction of a petrochemical plant in 'Cancer Alley,' Louisiana and to challenge mold on behalf of public housing residents in New York City. The use of the ADA to challenge environmental injustice has clear legal and social justice narrative benefits that explain its appeal, including the required inclusion of people with disabilities in environmental justice campaigns that disproportionately impact them, but from which they are often left out--except for as examples of the negative consequences of harm. However, the promise of these legal theories has not been adequately tested to proffer the ADA as a true alternative to race-based civil rights laws, and there are many suggestions that it is not. Furthermore, the use of disability as both narrative harm and legal strategy in environmental justice campaigns raises important considerations for racism and ableism as interrelated institutional harms. Therefore, any attempt to expand the disability frame in this direction requires an understanding of racism that does not exclude or otherwise undervalue ableism and vice versa. Otherwise, we risk perpetuating the same problems., Introduction 1723 I. Environmental Justice as a Field of Advocacy 1726 A. History and Origins 1726 B. Environmental Justice and Public Health 1728 II. The Limitations of the Civil Rights [...]

Under President Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was largely successful in at least temporarily achieving the administration's policy goals. It did so, in part, by significantly altering or distorting the processes used under prior Republican and Democratic EPA leadership to obtain consensus opinion of the scientific community on issues pertinent to EPA's science-based regulatory activities. In this article I explore the extent to which these changes reflect replacing the norms of science with norms more appropriate to the advocacy practices of law. Under the Biden Administration, we can anticipate restoration of the norms of science that previously guided the scientific consensus processes used by EPA. However, the lesson of the Trump administration is that these norms need buttressing by developing and strengthening laws that govern the selection of members of EPA's external scientific and technical advisory committees, their deliberative processes, and the literature reviewed by EPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, environmental federalism largely relies on a system for policy implementation that allows the federal government to delegate primary program authority (or primacy) to state agencies. Although it is an ingrained feature of several major federal environmental policies, such as the Clean Water Act (CWA), there is little evidence to indicate what impact delegating authorities has on programs. In order to examine this, the authors use a synthetic control technique to determine how actual CWA program outcomes in five states compare to expected outcomes if EPA retained primary authority. Findings indicate that while there were no significant differences in Texas and Oklahoma, state primacy led to improved program outcomes in Florida, but worse outcomes in Maine and South Dakota. Conclusions suggest that primacy has asymmetrical impacts that largely depend on state implementation systems, which carries important implications for environmental federalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst congressional gridlock, administrative rulemaking is the main pathway for environmental policy making. Scholars have assessed the role of the institutions of government (the president, Congress, and the courts) and key interest groups (i.e., business and environmental interests) in shaping rulemaking outcomes. What is missing from this literature is an assessment of the role of key implementers, state environmental agencies. This research fills this gap by assessing the role and impact of state government agencies in three case studies of rulemaking at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Based on original interviews and a public comment analysis, this research suggests that state agencies play an active and influential role in EPA rulemaking. And, in some cases, state agencies wield more influence than other interest groups. Interviewees argued that this influence stems from these agencies' unique voice as an implementation collaborator. As a result, researchers should incorporate an assessment of the role of these interests to more effectively explain regulatory outcomes at the EPA and potentially across the bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market-based approaches and command and control regulations are the two main tools that policy/decision makers use to implement environmental protection goals; however, these alone have proven to be somewhat ineffective or counterproductive in some cases. Therefore, this study proposes a hybrid environmental policy tool to guide river basin environmental management decisions. The river basin authority and regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as the two leading decision makers, and policy makers and implementers of river basin management, make decisions sequentially in a process similar to a Stackelberg game. This decision making can be mathematically represented using a bi-level optimization model. The proposed model addressed the conflicting equitable resource allocation and economic efficiency objectives to achieve coordinated development of the whole river basin. To verify the model effectiveness, the most considerable pollutant emissions limits and water quality standards were set, and incentive measures (pollution chargers and subsidies) were applied to assess these hybrid instruments' impact on the decision outcomes. The results from a Minjiang river basin case further illustrated that the trade-off between social equity and cost-efficient environmental goals could efficiently achieve, proving that a combination of instruments could be influential in pollution decision-making and delivery of environmental policy. Given the model's proven effectiveness, several proposals are given for solving complex pollution problems that also need to consider the related socioeconomic issues. • A river basin water quality management decision making model with mixed environmental policies is established. • MMarket-based instruments and traditional regulations are integrated to seek more effective environmental outcomes. • The conflicts between socioeconomic development, and environmental protection and bi-level decision-makers are addressed. • A typical case is adopted for illustrating the applicability of the proposed approach. • Adapted pollution rights allocation strategies and environmental management were generated for uncertain scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on environmental law, discussing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, which significantly limits the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act over wetlands. The article highlights the signing of an environmental budget bill in Minnesota that includes funding for various initiatives, clean energy projects, and a comprehensive ban on per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in several consumer products.

The article discusses the implications of the environmental policy issues in the U.S. for the 2008 presidential campaign. These policy concerns include the impact of the European Union's Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), adoption of chemical plant security regulations and the implementation of international agreements on Prior Informed Consent/Persistent Organic Pollutants. It then notes the increasing focus of presidential candidates and congressional leaders on these environmental issues as well as highlights the impact of heightened media coverage on the decision making of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Discusses the improvement in the environmental performance of the U.S. in past few years. Reduction in the number of pollution indicators in the U.S.; Re-establishment of approximately 1,400 abandoned industrial installations under a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Need for the conservation of marine habitats and maintenance of biodiversity in the U.S.

ABSTRACT In an era of congressional gridlock, innovation and pathways for the future of environmental policymaking are needed. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long been an innovator in environmental decisionmaking, reconciling stakeholder differences. Yet, with the decline of negotiated rulemaking ('reg neg'), the purpose of our examination is to offer insights into how a contemporary US EPA creates rules. This exploratory study examines original interview data from actors involved during the creation of EPA rules to suggest that a present-day EPA uses a new approach, shuttle diplomacy, to develop rules. The findings from our research suggest that this new rule development method can help agencies that might operate in an adversarial environment to reconcile stakeholder differences while writing the language of a proposed rule before publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. We argue that this new rule development model is important for understanding the next generation of environmental rulemaking, not only in the US, but internationally as well. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how the relative cost efficiency of three market-based instruments—emission taxes, tradable permits and output taxes—is influenced by the combination of accounting for incomplete compliance and pre-existing labor taxes. First, accounting for violations makes the policy instruments less effective so that environmental damages have to be larger to justify a policy. Secondly, including fines in a second-best setting provides a new means of collecting government revenues and of lessening existing tax distortions. We show that the relative position of grandfathered tradable permits vis-à-vis emission taxes improves considerably when incomplete compliance is incorporated in a second-best setting. A simple AGE model illustrates the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses litigation in relation to global climate change as of January 2012, focusing on issues related to a party's legal standing to bring a claim, as well as an examination of the provisions contained in the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. The authority of the nation's Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the emission of greenhouse gas is addressed in relation to the U.S. Federal Clean Air Act.

The use of remote sensing for environmental policy development is now quite common and well-documented, as images from remote sensing platforms are often used to focus attention on emerging environmental issues and spur debate on potential policy solutions. However, its use in policy implementation and evaluation has not been examined in much detail. Here we examine the use of remote sensing to support the implementation and enforcement of policies regarding the conservation of forests and wetlands in the USA. Specifically, we focus on the "Roadless Rule" and "Travel Management Rules" as enforced by the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service on national forests, and the "No Net Loss" policy and Clean Water Act for wetlands on public and private lands, as enforced by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Army Corps of Engineers. We discuss several national and regional examples of how remote sensing for forest and wetland conservation has been effectively integrated with policy decisions, along with barriers to further integration. Some of these barriers are financial and technical (such as the lack of data at scales appropriate to policy enforcement), while others are political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the implications of the calculation debate for Pigouvian, Coasean, and common-law liability approaches to environmental policy. Increase reliance on competitive market processes; Link between the type of institutional arrangement and the magnitude of the calculation problem; Evaluation on the administrative processes of Environmental Protection Agency.

Abstract: Federal and state environmental agencies are naturally interested in understanding both motivations for corporate environmental behavior (CEB) and likely business responses to available policy interventions. Consequently, the legal and social science research communities’ recent interest in corporate environmental responsibility is welcome, and in fact, is increasingly supported by EPA through science to achieve results (STAR) grants. It is imperative that this type of research shapes the direction of environmental policy for the future. However, to do so, it needs to be well focused and understandable to policy makers. The principal purpose of this paper is to help scholars focus their research to make their results more useful to decision makers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]