Trying to have it both ways: Local discretion, central control, and adversarial legalism in American environmental regulation

Ecology Law Quarterly

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 718-732

  Kagan, Robert A ^a  

^a Berkeley   (United States)

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EID: 22644449799     PISSN: 00461121     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. See Kazamasu Aoki & John W. Cioffi, Poles Apart: Industrial Waste Management and Enforcement in the Untied States and Japan, in REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS: MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND AMERICAN ADVERSARIAL LEGALISM (Robert A. Kagan & Lee Axelrad eds., forthcoming 1999) [hereinafter REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS] (manuscript on file with the author).
2. See Kazamasu Aoki et al., Industrial Effluent Control in the United States and Japan, in REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS, supra note 1.
3. See Holly Welles & Kirsten Engel, A Comparative Study of Solid Waste Regulation: Case Studies from the United States, The United Kingdom, and The Netherlands, in REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS, supra note 1.
4. See Lee Axelrad, Investigation and Remediation of Contaminated Manufacturing Sites in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Netherlands, in REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS, supra note 1.
5. See John P. Dwyer, Richard W. Brooks, & Alan C. Marco, The Air Pollution Permit Process for U.S. and German Automobile Assembly Plants, in REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS, supra note 1.
6. Preliminary results from the research are summarized in Robert A. Kagan & Lee Axelrad, Adversarial Legalism: An International Perspective, in COMPARATIVE DISADVANTAGES? SOCIAL REGULATIONS AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY 146, 156-62 (Pietro Nivola ed., 1997).
7. See generally Daniel Fiorino, Toward a New System of Environmental Regulation: The Case for an Industry Sector Approach, 26 ENVTL. L. 457 (1996);
8. Douglas Michael, Cooperative Implementation of Federal Regulations, 13 YALE J. ON REG. 535, 574-89 (1996);
9. Jody Freeman, Collaborative Governance in the Administrative State, 45 UCLA L. REV. 1 (1997).
10. See Robert A. Kagan, Conclusion, in REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS, supra note 1.
11. See Aoki & Cioffi, supra note 1 (manuscript at 2:37-38); Aoki et al, supra note 2 (manuscript at 3:20); Lori Johnson, et al., New Chemical Notification Laws in Japan, The United States, and The European Union, in REGULATORY ENCOUNTERS, supra note 1 (manuscript at 8:7).
12. See Kagan, Conclusion, supra note 8 (manuscript at 12:11).
13. In some of the case studies, it was difficult for the researchers to obtain independent verification of the equivalence of the environmental control measures that the multinational company took in each country. On the other hand, the researchers were able to obtain detailed verbal descriptions of the measures taken by technical-level company officials with experience in both countries and who appeared to have little incentive to dissemble In this regard.
14. See Kagan, Conclusion, supra note 8 (manuscript at 12:40-44); Aoki & Cioffi, supra note 1 (manuscript at 2:31-32); Aoki et al., supra note 2 (manuscript at 3:3-7).
15. See Welles & Engel, supra note 3 (manuscript at 9:56-57).
16. See Dwyer et al. supra note 5 (manuscript at 11:55).
17. See Kagan, Conclusion, supra note 8 (manuscript at 12:25-36).
18. See id. (manuscript at 12:11-12).
19. See Welles & Engel, supra note 3 (manuscript at 9:27-30).
20. See Axelrad, supra note 4 (manuscript at 10:8-11).
21. See id. at 10:13-14.
22. See Welles & Engel, supra note 3 (manuscript at 9:30, 39, 45).
23. See Aoki & Cioffi, supra note 1 (manuscript at 2:31-35); Aoki et al., supra note 2 (manuscript at 3:25-27).
24. See id. at 3:27. n.54.
25. See Kagan, Conclusion, supra note 8 (manuscript at 12:36-39).
26. See R. Daniel Kelemen, Regulatory Federalism: The European Union in Comparative Perspective, (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Stanford University) (1998) (manuscript on file with the author) (manuscript at 17-29).
27. Id. at 18-20.
28. See Aoki and Cioffi, supra note 1 (manuscript at 2:23); Aoki et al., supra note 2 (manuscript at 3:10).
29. See Welles & Engel, supra note 3 (manuscript at 9:10-15). See also DAVID VOGEL, NATIONAL STYLES OF REGULATION (1986) (environmental regulation in the U.K.);
30. Gjalt Huppes & Robert A. Kagan, Market Oriented Regulation of Environmental Problems in the Netherlands, 11 LAW & POLY 215 (1989).
31. See Richard Briffault, Our Localism, Part I: The Structure of Local Government Law, 90 COLUM. L. REV 1, 1 (1990).
32. See Kelemen, supra note 24, at 91-95.
33. See id. at 102; see also Robert A. Kagan, Adversarial Legalism and American Government, in THE NEW POLITICS OF PUBLIC POLICY 88, 106-07, 113-114 (Marc Landy & Martin Levin eds., 1995).
34. See Terry Moe, The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure, in CAN THE GOVERNMENT GOVERN 267, 274 (John Chubb & Paul Peterson, eds., 1989).
35. See Robert A. Kagan, The Political Construction oj American Adversarial Legalism, in COURTS AND THE POLITICAL PROCESS: JACK W. PELTASON'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO POLITICAL SCIENCE 19, 31-33 (Austin Ranney ed., 1996).
36. See id.
37. See id.
38. See, e.g., Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365 (1987);
39. Federal Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7604 (1990).
40. See, e.g., Solid Waste Disposal Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6926, 6929 (1984).
41. See, e.g., Federal Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7413(a)(5) (1990).
42. Of course, federal oversight does not necessarily succeed in bringing all state programs to equal levels of stringency or effectiveness. My point is only that political demands for federal oversight are partly responsible for the unusual level of detail, prescriptiveness, and complexity of American environmental regulation.
43. See generally R. Shep Melnick, Pollution Deadlines and the Coalition for Failure, in ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS: PUBLIC COSTS, PRIVATE REWARDS 92 (M. Greve & F. Smith eds., 1992).
44. See PAUL PETERSON, THE PRICE OF FEDERALISM 36-37, 69-75 (1995): see also infra notes 48-51 and accompanying text.
45. See generally Paul Van Seters, Magnificent Places: Public Efforts to Protect Natural Resources (1989) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley) (on file with the author).
46. See Kagan, Adversarial Legalism and American Government, supra note 30, at 105.
47. See Welles & Engel, supra note 3 (manuscript at 9:27-29).
48. See id. at 9:57-62.
49. See Kagan, Adversarial Legalism and American Government, supra note 30, at 105, 113.
50. See id. at 113-114. Another distinctive feature of American law that encourages adversarial legalism in these kinds of disputes is the "American rule," absolving parties that lose in court from having to pay the winner's lawyers' fees.
51. See Robert A. Kagan, Political and Legal Obstacles to Collaborative Ecosystem Planning, 24 ECOLOGY L.Q. 871, 874 (1997).
52. See Richard B. Stewart, Controlling Environmental Risks Through Economic Incentives, 13 COLUM. J. ENVTL. L. 153, 154 (1988).
53. See also Henry N. Butler & Jonathan R. Macey, Externalities and the Matching Principle: The Case for Reallocating Environmental Regulatory Authority, 14 YALE L. & POLY REV. 23, 23 (1996);
54. David Schoenbrod. Why States, Not EPA, Should Set Pollution Standards, REGULATION, No. 4, 1996, at 18.
55. See, e.g., Peter P. Swire, The Race to Laxity, the Race to Efficiency, and the Central Role of Public Choice in Justifying Federal Minimum Standards in Environmental Law, 14 YALE J. ON REG. 67, 94-104 (1996).
56. For an empirical assessment of this pattern, see Kirsten Engel, Is There a 'Race' and Is It 'To the Bottom'?, 48 HASTINGS L.J. 271 (1997).
57. See also William Buzbee, Brownfields, Environmental Federalism, and Institutional Determinism, 21 WM. & MARY ENVTL. L. & POLYREV. 1, 23-27 (1997).
58. See, e.g., Swire, supra note 49, at 105-06.
59. See Richard B. Stewart, Environmental Legal Systems and Their Constitutional Institutional, and Administrative Law Contexts, in UNDERSTANDING US AND EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: A PRACTITIONER'S GUIDE 3 (Turner Smith, Jr. & Pascale Kromarek eds., 1989).
60. See Butler & Macey, supra note 48. at 51, 66 (noting that, in contrast to current approaches, the range of circumstances in which localities could be conscripted is limited solely to the case of interstate externalities when there are no other options).
61. See David Kirp, Christopher Bush, and Daniel Schoenholz, Taming Adversarial Legalism, 2 NYU J. LEGIS & PUB. POL'Y (forthcoming 1999);
62. Robert A. Kagan, Adversarial Legalism; Tamed or Still Wild?, 2 NYU J. LEGIS & PUB. POL'Y (forthcoming 1999).