Environmental Regulation Trials and Tribulations in Modern United States Policy
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2020
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
Climate change is a major problem. This is a scientifically definable fact: with eighteen of the nineteen warmest years on record coming since 2001 and atmospheric carbon dioxide at its highest levels in 650,000 years (NASA), climate change is an undeniable phenomenon. Given that this specific example and lots of other climate change data comes from government-run organizations (EPA), it is an easy assumption to make that our government is fully aware of climate change and the threat that it poses. The relevance, both politically and intellectually, of environmental regulation cannot be questioned and yet our government seems to resist any regulation that would require even the smallest of changes. This topic is still too broad, however, so I am focusing on the case of Market-Based Instruments (MBIs) of environmental policy. More specifically, I will attempt to answer the following question: why does the United States political system refuse to implement the instruments of environmental regulation that fit best with the political and economic structures of the United States (Schreurs)? MBIs align with the values of free-market capitalism and a weak federal government, and yet we are behind even the European Union, with one of the most involved central governments in the Western world, in terms of MBI usage (Horák et. al). Given that those in positions of elected power have access to more experts, scientific studies, and information on the subject than a layperson could imagine, this lack of action is astonishing (Werrell and Femia). In my research, I have come across many hypotheses for why the United States has resisted implementing major environmental regulation. Some of these posit that it is simply a matter of an opportunity not arising (Repetto) and some say that our politicians have simply made the choice to spend their time on issues where they feel they can enact actual change (Araral). My working hypothesis combines threads of three established theories on the subject while taking into account two concepts embedded in every step of the policy process: framing and political capital. The three aforementioned theories are as follows: Multiple Streams Theory, of which I ascribe to the Three Streams model (Kingdon), Punctuated Equilibrium theory with its ideas on leptokurtic policy distributions (Repetto), and Rational Choice theory with a specific focus on Institutional Rational Choice (Ostrom). Though I as yet cannot tell which of these three theories will provide an answer, or if I will have to combine the strengths of each theory to find such an answer, I am confident that by the conclusion of my research I will be able to present a solution to my research question that will pass muster. I will utilize a comparative model for my analysis, evaluating three recent examples of significant MBIs in the United States. One passed into law, one passed several bureaucratic hurdles but failed due to other circumstances, and one did not make it over any such hurdles. The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments are the seminal example of successful MBI usage in the United States (MacNeil, 23). Under a Republican president, George H. W. Bush, the United States government created a market for sulfur dioxide emissions that is still in use today. On the other side of that coin is the 2007 Boxer-Sanders bill (Global Warming Pollution Regulation Act), which actually would have been another set of amendments to the Clean Air Act (Schreurs, 181). This bill, if enacted, would have focused on increasing performance standards for motor vehicles, with an emissions cap in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2020 and 83% by 2050 (Schreurs, 181). The 2009 Waxman-Markey Bill (a.k.a. American Clean Energy and Security Act) is a case that fits somewhere in between the preceding two. This bill was similar to the Clean Air Act Amendments in may ways: it looked to create an emissions trading system, encountered the same bureaucratic hurdles, and addressed a well-known and scientifically studied phenomenon that threatened American lives. It passed the House, but unfortunately a bill of its kind needs a similar bill to be passed in the Senate, after which the two bills would then be combined and put to the President (Brinkmann & Garren, 15). Unfortunately, no such bill has yet passed in the Senate, so the Waxman-Markey bill is dead in the water. Why, despite such similarities, did the Amendments pass where the Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Sanders Bills failed? Was it an issue of institutional change being impossible? Did the problems, policy, and politics of the bills not intersect at the right time? Or did the government simply think that passing the latter pair of bills was irrational? These are just some of the ‘sub-questions' that I will have to answer in analyzing each of my case studies with my three chosen theories on policymaking.