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Deflated Dreams: The EPA's Bubble Policy and the Politics of Uncertainty in Regulatory Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2019

Charles Halvorson
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Abstract

In the late 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the bubble policy as a central part of Jimmy Carter's plan to reform environmental regulations that many believed had grown too proscriptive and too costly for American industry. Since the EPA's formation, regulators had dictated method and means for reducing air pollution. The bubble returned the prerogative to business. But despite bipartisan support, the bubble never took off. Drawing on EPA records and interviews, this article shows how skeptical regulators intentionally made the bubble unwieldy, driving away businesses wary of uncertainty. Though Ronald Reagan's election seemed to lift the bubble's fortunes, his undiscerning assault on the administrative state ironically deflated the EPA's development of a viable alternative to the proscriptive model.

Keywords

environmental policypollutionregulatory reformEnvironmental Protection AgencyJimmy CarterRonald Reagan
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 93 , Issue 1: Business and the Environment Revisited , Spring 2019 , pp. 25 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2019 

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Ann-Kristin Bergquist, Geoffrey Jones, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and advice on this article as well as Elizabeth Blackmar, Karl Jacoby, Paul Sabin, Richard John, Merlin Chowkwanyun, and Daniel Carpenter for their contributions to the dissertation on which this article is based. The author would also like to thank the former regulators interviewed for this research, especially Michael Levin, who sat for multiple interviews and opened up his personal records.

References

1 Michael Levin, interview with author, 7 May 2015; slides reproduced in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), “Controlled Trading: Putting the Profit Motive to Work for Pollution Control” (Washington, DC, 1980), box W, Papers in Personal Collection of Michael Levin (hereafter, MLP).

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52 US EPA, “EPA Plans to Approve Armco Steel ‘Bubble’ in Ohio,” 20 Oct. 1980, folder “Bubble Issues,” box 6, DCP.

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55 See, for example, Douglas Costle, “Steel and the Clean Air Act,” Los Angeles, 1 Aug. 1980, folder “Steel,” box 57, DCP; Marlin Fitzwater to the Administrator, 3 July 1980, folder “Acid Rain [2],” box 1, DCP.

56 “Talking Points for Drayton Speech at Reg Reform Conference,” Nov. 1980, folder “EPA Conference on Innovation on Environmental Technology, 11/15/80,” box 32, DCP.

57 Drayton to Costle, 22 Dec. 1980, folder “Bubble,” box 5, DCP.

58 Hawkins to the Administrator, 18 Dec. 1980, folder “Bubble,” box 5, DCP.

59 David G. Doniger, “Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the South Atlantic Section of the Air Pollution Control Association,” 9 Jan. 1981, folder “ET – NRDC Comments 1982,” box CC, MLP.

60 Dan W. Lufkin and Henry Diamond to the President-Elect, n.d., folder “Environment – Reagan Task Force,” box 75, Danny J. Boggs Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, CA (hereafter, DBF).

61 Liroff, An Issue Report.

62 Robert Martinott, “How to Limit the Rising Costs of Stricter Regulation,” Chemical Week, 21 Jan. 1981.

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89 See, for example, “Working Agenda: Meeting of Standing Committee on Emissions Trading,” 19 Nov. 1982, folder “ET Standing Committee ’82 Substantive Results,” box P, MLP.

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