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U.S. Environmental Policy and Politics: From the 1960s to the 1990s

Part of: JPH 30th Anniversary Most Cited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Michael E. Kraft
Michael E. Kraft
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Green Bay
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Environmental policy and politics in the United States have changed dramatically over the past three decades. What began in the late 1960s as an heroic effort by an incipient environmental movement to conserve dwindling natural resources and prevent further deterioration of the air, water, and land has been transformed over more than three decades into an extraordinarily complex, diverse, and often controversial array of environmental policies. Those policies occupy a continuing position of high visibility on the political agenda at all levels of government, and environmental values are widely embraced by the American public. Yet throughout the 1990s environmental policies and programs were characterized as much by sharp political conflict as by the consensus over policy goals and means that reigned during the early to mid-1970s. As the twenty-first century approaches, there is considerable value in looking back at this exceptional period to under-stand the nature of the transformation and its implications for the future.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 12 , Special Issue 1: Special Issue: Environmental Politics and Policy, 1960s–1990s , January 2000 , pp. 17 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2000

References

Notes

1. This article draws from my text Environmental Policy and Politics (New York, 1996)Google Scholar , a new edition of which is in progress for Longman, to be published in 2000); Kraft, Michael E. and Vig, Norman J., “Environmental Policy from the 1970s to 2000: An Overview,” in Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-first Century, ed. Vig, Norman J. and Kraft, Michael E. (Washington, D.C., 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Mazmanian, Daniel A. and Kraft, Michael E., eds., Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy (Cambridge, Mass., 1999)Google Scholar.

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3. The role of disasters as catalytic or focusing events in agenda setting is assessed in Birkland, Thomas A., After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events (Washington, D.C., 1997).Google Scholar Birkland investigates the impact of natural disasters, oil spills (both the Exxon Valdez and the Santa Barbara incidents), and nuclear accidents in altering the environmental policy agenda.

4. Bosso, Christopher J., “Environmental Groups and the New Political Landscape,” in Environmental Policy, ed. , Vig and , Kraft.Google Scholar

5. Birkland, After Disaster.

6. The use of such communication strategies to shape the agenda-setting process is described in some detail in Kraft, Michael E. and Wuertz, Diana, “Environmental Advocacy in the Corridors of Government,” in The Symbolic Earth: Discourse and Our Creation of the Environment, ed. Cantrill, James G. and Oravec, Christine L. (Lexington, Ky., 1996)Google Scholar.

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14. , Kraft, “Population Policy,” and Mazur, Laurie Ann, ed., Beyond the Numbers: A Reader on Population, Consumption, and the Environment (Washington, D.C., 1994).Google Scholar As a sign of continuing neglect of population issues, the Carter administration's 1980 Global 2000 Report to the President, which emphasized projections of substantial and harmful population growth, had little apparent impact on policymakers or the public. The report was strongly repudiated by the Reagan White House. The Reagan administration commissioned another set of studies to try to refute the Carter effort, and they were published eventually in an edited volume, Simon, Julian L. and Kahn, Herman, eds., The Resourceful Earth: A Response to “Global 2000” (New York, 1984)Google Scholar.

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20. See Jones, Charles O., Clean Air: The Policies and Politics of Pollution Control (Pittsburgh, 1975).Google Scholar

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23. Jones, Clean Air.

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26. See Vig and Kraft, Environmental Policy, appendices 2, 3, and 4.

27. On the important role of the courts in overseeing such administrative developments and their contribution to the establishment of environmental law, see Wenner, Lettie M., The Environmental Decade in Court (Bloomington, 1982)Google Scholar , and O'Leary, Rosemary, Environmental Change: Federal Courts and the EPA (Philadelphia, 1993)Google Scholar.

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31. See Kraft, Michael E., Clary, Bruce B., and Tobin, Richard J., “The Impact of New Federalism on State Environmental Policy: The Great Lakes States,” in The Midwest Response to the New Federalism, ed. Eisinger, Peter K. and Gormley, William (Madison, Wis., 1988)Google Scholar ; and Tobin, Richard J., “Environmental Protection and the New Federalism: A Longitudinal Analysis of State Perceptions,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 22 (Winter 1992): 93–107Google Scholar.

32. , Rabe, “Power to the States.” See also DeWitt John, Civic Environmentalism: Alternatives to Regulation in States and Communities (Washington, D.C., 1994)Google Scholar ; Ringquist, Environmental Protection at the State Level; and Lowry, William R., The Dimensions of Federalism: State Governments and Pollution Control Policies (Durham, N.C., 1992)Google Scholar

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34. Kraft, Michael E., “A New Environmental Policy Agenda: The 1980 Presidential Campaign and Its Aftermath,” in Environmental Policy in the 1980s: Reagan's New Agenda, eds., Vig, Norman J. and Kraft, Michael E. (Washington, D.C., 1984), 38.Google Scholar

35. Heatherly, Charles L., ed., Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration (Washington, D.C., 1981).Google Scholar The key environmental policy recommendations can be found in Louis J. Cordia, “Environmental Protection Agency,” and James E. Hinish Jr., “Regulatory Reform: An Overview,” in this volume.

36. , Vig and , Kraft, Environmental Policy in the 1980s.Google Scholar See also Eads, George C. and Fix, Michael, Relief or Reform? Reagan's Regulatory Dilemma (Washington, D.C., 1984)Google Scholar.

37. , Vig and , Kraft, Environmental Policy in the 1980sGoogle Scholar ; and Portney, Paul R., ed., Natural Resources and the Environment: The Reagan Approach (Washington, D.C., 1984)Google Scholar.

38. See Shabecoff, Philip, “Reagan and Environment: To Many a Stalemate,” New York Times, 2 January 1989, 1, 8.Google Scholar

39. , Bosso, “Environmental Groups and the New Political Landscape,” 64.Google Scholar

40. See Dunlap, Riley E., “Public Opinion on the Environment in the Reagan Era,” Environment 29 (July-August 1987): 6-11, 32–37.Google Scholar

41. Holusha, John, “Bush Pledges Aid for Environment,” New York Times, 1 September 1988, 9.Google Scholar

42. See Bryner, Gary C., Blue Skies, Green Politics: The Clean Air Act of 1990 and Its Implementation (Washington, D.C., 1995).Google Scholar

43. Kraft, Michael E., “Environmental Policy in Congress: From Consensus to Gridlock,” in Environmental Policy, ed. , Vig and , Kraft.Google Scholar

44. See Swifter, Jacqueline Vaughn, Green Backlash: The History and Politics of Environmental Opposition in the U.S. (Boulder, Colo., 1997).Google Scholar

45. John, Civic Environmentalism; , Mazmanian and , Kraft, eds., Toward Sustainable Communi-ties; National Academy of Public Administration, Setting Priorities, Getting Results: A New Direction for EPA (Washington, D.C., 1995)Google Scholar ; and Kraft, Michael E. and Scheberle, Denise, “Environmental Federalism at Decade's End: New Approaches and Strategies,” Publius 28:1 (Winter 1998): 133–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46. For a history of how the new approach of ecosystem management developed and gradually replaced older paradigms in natural-resources management, see Conner and Moote, The Politics of Ecosystem Management. A somewhat parallel argument in support of using eco-logical principles to shape environmental policy can be found in Chertow, Marian R. and Esty, Daniel C., eds., Thinking Ecologically: The Next Generation of Environmental Policy (New Haven, 1997).Google Scholar

47. United Nations, Agenda 21: The United Nations Programme of Action from Rio (New York, 1992)Google Scholar ; World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (New York, 1987)Google Scholar ; National Commission on the Environment, Choosing a Sustainable Future (Washington, D.C., 1993)Google Scholar.

48. President's Council on Sustainable Development, Sustainable America. A summary of recommendations found in other reports by the PCSD can be found in Sitarz, Daniel, ed., Sustainable America: America's Environment, Economy and Society in the 21st Century (Carbondale, Ill., 1998).Google Scholar

49. See, for example, , Sitarz, ed., Sustainable America, and Hempel, “Conceptual and Analytical Challenges in Building Sustainable Communities.”Google Scholar

50. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, People, Places, and Partnerships: A Progress Report on Community-Based Environmental Protection (Washington, D.C., 1997)Google Scholar , and EPA Strategic Plan (Washington, D.C., 1998).Google Scholar See also , Kraft and , Scheberle, “Environmental Federalism at Decade's End.”Google Scholar

51. National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), Setting Priorities, Getting Results. See also Rabe, “Power to the States.”

52. See , Mazmanian and , Kraft, Toward Sustainable Communities, and Sexton, Ken, Marcus, Alfred A., Easter, K. William, and Burkhardt, Timothy D., eds., Better Environmental Decisions: Strategies for Governments, Businesses, and Communities (Washington, D.C., 1999).Google Scholar

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54. See Bartlett, Robert V., “Evaluating Environmental Policy Success and Failure,” in Environmental Policy in the 1990s, 2d ed., ed. Vig, Norman J. and Kraft, Michael E. (Washington, D.C., 1994).Google Scholar

55. , Davies and , Mazurek, Pollution Control in the United StatesGoogle Scholar ; Ringquist, Evan J., “Evaluating Environmental Policy Outcomes,” in Environmental Politics and Policy, ed. , Lester; and Knaap, Gerrit J. and Kim, Tschangho John, eds., Environmental Program Evaluation: A Primer (Champaign, Ill.)Google Scholar.

56. Environmental Protection Agency, National Air Quality and Emissions Trends Report (Research Triangle Park, N.C.: Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, January 1998).Google Scholar

57. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality Inventory: 1996 Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: Office of Water, April 1998).Google Scholar See also Knopman, Debra S. and Smith, Richard A., “Twenty Years of the Clean Water Act,” Environment 35 (January-February 1993), 17-20, 34–41Google Scholar ; and Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Quality: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report (Washington, D.C., 1997), chap. 13Google Scholar.

58. For a brief review of the evidence, see Kraft and Vig, “Environmental Policy from the 1970s to 2000”; Davies and Mazurek, Pollution Control in the United States; and Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Quality.