Policy instruments and implementationSuperfund programme for decontaminating toxic waste sites. Here costs have
multiplied – averaging around $1.6 billion per year in the early 1990s – owing
to the ‘extensive litigation involved in determining responsibility for clean-
ups, wasteful spending on elaborate remediation plans, and long delays in
implementation’ (Vig and Kraft 1999 :376). Congress refused to reauthorise
thetaxes needed for the Superfund in 1995 and although the costs were
eventually borne by the taxpayer, the funds allocated (about $1.25 billion
in 2005) are ‘woefully inadequate for the task’ (Vig and Kraft2006b: 380).
Indeed, despite the enormous cost of the programme, clean-up had been
completed on only 1,244 sites by April 2006, a small proportion of contam-
inated sites (http://www.epa.gov/superfund/). Thus Superfund has, arguably,
failed to achieve its most basic objective.
Broadly speaking, the criticisms of regulation fall into two categories: that
it is inefficient, and that it is ineffective. The allegedinefficiencyof regulation
will be discussed in the section on MBIs below (pp. 332–4). The claim that
it isineffectiveis essentially concerned with the implementation deficit –
defined here as a failure to achieve policy objectives – that characterises
so much environmental regulation. Ineffective regulation can be explained
both by the incapacity of the state to monitor and enforce regulations and
by variations in national regulatory styles.
Critical question 1
How persuasive is the political case against ‘command and control’
regulations?
◗ Implementation deficit and state failure
Regulatory regimes are often weak. The government, or a state agency
such as the EPA, is usually responsible for the monitoring, compliance and
enforcement elements of environmental regulation. These activities can be
verycostly and time-consuming, so problems may arise when inadequate
funding prevents regulatory agencies from carrying them out properly. In
the USA,personnel and budgetary shortages have severely affected the abil-
ity of many agencies to implement environmental policy (Kraft and Vig 2006 :
19–20). As one new environmental programme followed another, Congress
frequently underestimated the workload generated by new regulations that
produced unrealistic deadlines, excessive administrative rules and virtually
unattainable programme objectives (Rosenbaum 2006 :171–3). However, the
full explanation for the underfunding was more pernicious: the Reagan
administration deliberately sought to reduce the power of the EPA and other
natural resource agencies by slashing their operating budgets (Kraft and Vig
2006 :19–20). Problems can be particularly acute where responsibility for
implementation is passed down from one level of government to another.
US states complain loudly about the financial and administrative burden