ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
Regulation has an obvious appeal to policymakers. It appears to offer pre-
cision, predictability and effectiveness: an exact standard is set, the regula-
torand regulated both know what is expected of them and enforcement is
ensured by a regulatory agency backed up by the force of law. Regulations
can be administratively efficient, especially when a substance or an activity
is completely banned, as they do not require complete information about
aproblem. Assuming there is a high level of compliance, they can also be
inexpensive as there is no need to investigate each individual case. As the
application of uniform standards and rules means that, in theory, all pol-
luters are treated identically, regulations are widely perceived by producers
and consumers as equitable. The political, judicial and administrative back-
up they receive from the state should make regulations reasonably immune
from manipulation and enhance their public legitimacy. There are count-
less examples of successful regulations, ranging from the world’s first com-
prehensive air pollution control legislation, the Clean Air Act 1956, which
dramatically improved air quality in British cities, to the Montreal Protocol
banning CFC production in developed countries.
Yet t heuse of regulations has come under increasing attack from many
quarters. There was a widespread neo-liberal backlash against the ‘regula-
toryburden’, which informed the deregulatory efforts of the Reagan and
Thatcher governments during the 1980s, and later inspired the Congres-
sional Republican Party’s ‘Contract with America’ in the mid-1990s, which
attempted to make a bonfire of ‘unnecessary’ regulations. Most advocates of
wholesale deregulation have little sympathy for ‘environmentalism’. They
are most vocal in the USA where their populist rhetoric has chimed with
industry complaints about an excessive regulatory burden (Kraft and Vig
2006 :18–19). Vitriolic criticism has been heaped upon the many inadequa-
cies of the EPA, the impact on competitiveness of ‘unnecessary’ regulations
and the cost to the taxpayer (see Box11.2). One rhetorical success of the
neo-liberal backlash was to gain wide acceptance of the term ‘command
and control’ in preference to ‘regulation’. In practice, as shown below, reg-
ulations are rarely applied in a coercive way, so ‘command and control’ is
amisnomer. Nevertheless, it represents a clever political achievement; after
all, how many people will opt for coercion over the ‘free’ market (Dryzek
2005 :135–6)?
Notall criticism of regulation is so partisan. Despite the ever-expanding
volume, reach and stringency of environmental regulations in most devel-
oped countries, it became increasingly clear that the overall environmental
record remained poor. Research showed that pollution control policies intro-
duced during the 1970s in the USA, UK, Germany and elsewhere had failed
todeliver the standards, targets and procedures set out in the legislation
(Weale 1992 :17). There were isolated examples of improved environmental
performance, and some countries certainly performed better than others,
but generally it seemed that the huge resources invested in regulatory pro-
grammes had disappointing outcomes. One high-profile example was the US