Cover image for Open for Business : conservatives' Opposition to Environmental Regulation
Title:
Open for Business : conservatives' Opposition to Environmental Regulation
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
xviii, 499 pages; 22 cm
ISBN:
9780262526029

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32100000000478 GE180 L395 2012 Open Access Book Book
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35000000000542 GE180 L395 2012 Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

A detailed analysis of the policy effects of conservatives' decades-long effort to dismantle the federal regulatory framework for environmental protection.

Since the 1970s, conservative activists have invoked free markets and distrust of the federal government as part of a concerted effort to roll back environmental regulations. They have promoted a powerful antiregulatory storyline to counter environmentalists' scenario of a fragile earth in need of protection, mobilized grassroots opposition, and mounted creative legal challenges to environmental laws. But what has been the impact of all this activity on policy? In this book, Judith Layzer offers a detailed and systematic analysis of conservatives' prolonged campaign to dismantle the federal regulatory framework for environmental protection.

Examining conservatives' influence from the Nixon era to the Obama administration, Layzer describes a set of increasingly sophisticated tactics-including the depiction of environmentalists as extremist elitists, a growing reliance on right-wing think tanks and media outlets, the cultivation of sympathetic litigators and judges, and the use of environmentally friendly language to describe potentially harmful activities. She argues that although conservatives have failed to repeal or revamp any of the nation's environmental statutes, they have influenced the implementation of those laws in ways that increase the risks we face, prevented or delayed action on newly recognized problems, and altered the way Americans think about environmental problems and their solutions. Layzer's analysis sheds light not only on the politics of environmental protection but also, more generally, on the interaction between ideas and institutions in the development of policy.


Author Notes

Judith A. Layzer is Associate Professor of Environmental Policy in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is the author of Natural Experiments: Ecosystem-Based Management and the Environment (MIT Press) and The Environmental Case: Translating Values into Policy.


Reviews 1

Choice Review

Layzer (environmental policy, MIT) elucidates environmental politics by demonstrating how ideas and institutions interact to create policies. Focusing on air quality, endangered species, and climate change, she describes the use of administrative discretion in environmental policy implementation, policy learning (revising goals or techniques), and political learning (tactical adjustments in response to experience). In the early 1970s, with few exceptions Americans considered themselves environmentalists. Using archival sources supplemented with interviews, Layzer shows how starting in the 1970s conservatives developed and disseminated a storyline that has succeeded in making environmentalism controversial. There is a plethora of books about environmentalism and environmentalists, but much less research on the tactics conservatives use to weaken the implementation of environmental laws and to forestall government responses to newly recognized threats. The work is solid scholarship, audacious in its breadth, and well documented (1,257 endnotes). The theoretical framework seems somewhat muddled, which may well reflect the multilayered policy world. The book is essential reading for scholars and practitioners who want to understand the conservatives' tactics that have changed how the country has come to understand environmental issues and the policy options available to address those challenges. Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels. R. E. O'Connor National Science Foundation


Table of Contents

Series Foreword: Conservative Ideas and Their Consequencesp. vii
Prefacep. xiii
Acknowledgmentsp. xvii
1 Introductionp. 1
2 Discerning the Impact of Conservative Ideasp. 11
3 The Environmental Decade and the Conservative Backlash, 1970-1980p. 31
4 Ronald Reagan Brings Conservatism to the White Housep. 83
5 Conservative Ideas Gain Ground Under George H. W. Bushp. 135
6 Bill Clinton Confronts a Conservative Congressp. 187
7 George W. Bush Advances Conservatives' Antiregulatory Agendap. 257
8 The Consequences of a Conservative Erap. 333
Notesp. 371
Selected Referencesp. 471
Indexp. 489
Series Listp. 501