Lessons from the Clean Air Act


Book Description

Examines the successes and failures of the Clean Air Act in order to lay a foundation for future energy policy.




Moving to Markets in Environmental Regulation


Book Description

Over the last decade, market-based incentives have become the regulatory tool of choice when trying to solve difficult environmental problems. Evidence of their dominance can be seen in recent proposals for addressing global warming (through an emissions trading scheme in the Kyoto Protocol) and for amending the Clean Air Act (to add a new emissions trading systems for smog precursors and mercury--the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" program). They are widely viewed as more efficient than traditional command and control regulation. This collection of essays takes a critical look at this question, and evaluates whether the promises of market-based regulation have been fulfilled. Contributors put forth the ideas that few regulatory instruments are actually purely market-based, or purely prescriptive, and that both approaches can be systematically undermined by insufficiently careful design and by failures of monitoring and enforcement. All in all, the essays recommend future research that no longer pits one kind of approach against the other, but instead examines their interaction and compatibility. This book should appeal to academics in environmental economics and law, along with policymakers in government agencies and advocates in non-governmental organizations.




An Interactive History of the Clean Air Act


Book Description

The Clean Air Act of 1970 set out for the United States a basic, yet ambitious, objective to reduce pollution to levels that protect health and welfare. The Act set out state and federal regulations to limit emissions and the Environmental Protection Agency was established to help enforce the regulations. The Act has since had several amendments, notably in 1977 and 1990, and has successfully helped to increase air quality. This book reviews the history of the Clean Air Act of 1970 including the political, business, and scientific elements that went into establishing the Act, emphasizing the importance that scientific evidence played in shaping policy. The analysis then extends to examine the effects of the Act over the past forty years including the Environmental Protection Agency's evolving role and the role of states and industry in shaping and implementing policy. Finally, the book offers best practices to guide allocation of respective government and industry roles to guide sustainable development. The history and analysis of the Clean Air Act presented in this book illustrates the centrality of scientific analysis and technological capacity in driving environmental policy development. It would be useful for policy makers, environmental scientists, and anyone interested in gaining a clearer understand of the interaction of science and policy. Offers an overview of the 1970 Clean Air Act and its subsequent effects Highlights the relationship between policy and scientific discovery Extracts lessons from the United States to apply to other policy and national contexts




Better Air


Book Description

The authorities and responsibilities of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) derive primarily from a dozen major environmental statutes. This book provides a concise summary of one of those statutes, the Clean Air Act. It provides a brief history of federal involvement in air quality regulation and of the provisions added by legislation in 1970, 1977 and 1990. It also explains major authorities contained in the Act as well as key terms and references for more detailed information on the Act and its implementation.




Can We Price Carbon?


Book Description

A political science analysis of the feasibility and sustainability of carbon pricing, drawing from North American, European, and Asian case studies. Climate change, economists generally agree, is best addressed by putting a price on the carbon content of fossil fuels—by taxing carbon, by cap-and-trade systems, or other methods. But what about the politics of carbon pricing? Do political realities render carbon pricing impracticable? In this book, Barry Rabe offers the first major political science analysis of the feasibility and sustainability of carbon pricing, drawing upon a series of real-world attempts to price carbon over the last two decades in North America, Europe, and Asia. Rabe asks whether these policies have proven politically viable and, if adopted, whether they survive political shifts and managerial challenges over time. The entire policy life cycle is examined, from adoption through advanced implementation, on a range of pricing policies including not only carbon taxes and cap-and-trade but also such alternative methods as taxing fossil fuel extraction. These case studies, Rabe argues, show that despite the considerable political difficulties, carbon pricing can be both feasible and durable.







Air Quality Management


Book Description

This book evaluates and reviews the development and application of the air quality management process from a European, North American and Australian perspective. The contemporary approaches and experiences described provide a critical assessment of practice as well as important pointers to the future development of air quality management regimes.




Environment in the Balance


Book Description

The first Earth Day in 1970 marked environmentalism’s coming-of-age in the United States. More than four decades later, does the green movement remain a transformative force in American life? Presenting a new account from a legal perspective, Environment in the Balance interprets a wide range of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, along with social science research and the literature of the movement, to gauge the practical and cultural impact of environmentalism and its future prospects. Jonathan Z. Cannon demonstrates that from the 1960s onward, the Court’s rulings on such legal issues as federalism, landowners’ rights, standing, and the scope of regulatory authority have reflected deep-seated cultural differences brought out by the mass movement to protect the environment. In the early years, environmentalists won some important victories, such as the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision allowing them to sue against barriers to recycling. But over time the Court has become more skeptical of their claims and more solicitous of values embodied in private property rights, technological mastery and economic growth, and limited government. Today, facing the looming threat of global warming, environmentalists struggle to break through a cultural stalemate that threatens their goals. Cannon describes the current ferment in the movement, and chronicles efforts to broaden its cultural appeal while staying connected to its historical roots, and to ideas of nature that have been the source of its distinctive energy and purpose.




The Invisible Killer


Book Description

An urgent examination of one of the biggest global crises facing us today—the drastic worsening of air pollution—and what we can do about it The air pollution that we breathe every day is largely invisible—but it is killing us. How did it get this bad, and how can we stop it? Far from a modern-day problem, scientists were aware of the impact of air pollution as far back as the seventeenth century. Now, as more of us live in cities, we are closer than ever to pollution sources, and the detrimental impact on the environment and our health has reached crisis point. The Invisible Killer will introduce you to the incredible individuals whose groundbreaking research paved the way to today's understanding of air pollution, often at their own detriment. Gary Fuller's global story examines devastating incidents from London's Great Smog to Norway's acid rain; Los Angeles' traffic problem to wood-burning damage in New Zealand. Fuller argues that the only way to alter the future course of our planet and improve collective global health is for city and national governments to stop ignoring evidence and take action, persuading the public and making polluters bear the full cost of the harm that they do. The decisions that we make today will impact on our health for decades to come. The Invisible Killer is an essential book for our times and a cautionary tale we need to take heed of.




The 48 Laws of Power


Book Description

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature. In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling” and “fascinating,” Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.