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New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures (2002)

Chapter: 1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection

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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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Suggested Citation:"1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection." National Research Council. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10401.
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1 Exploring New Tools for Environmental Protection Thomas Dietz and Paul C. Stern M any believe that the nature of environmental policy is changing. In much of the world during the last third of the 20th century, environ- mental policy was dominated by “command-and-control” approaches.1 Under command and control, government agencies develop a set of rules or stan- dards. These determine technologies to be used or avoided; amounts of pollutant that can be emitted from a particular waste pipe, smokestack, or factory; and/or the amounts or kinds of resources that may be extracted from a common pool such as a fishery or forest. The agencies then issue commands in the form of regulations and permits to control the behavior of private firms, other government agencies, and/or individuals.2 This approach is venerable. It can be found in the 4,000- year-old Code of Hammurabi, which prescribes penalties for faulty construction.3 In the past fifteen years, experiments with market-based environmental poli- cies have proliferated. This change came in response both to theoretical develop- ments in economics and to the continued resistance to command-and-control poli- cies by those regulated. In market-based approaches, instead of detailing what can and cannot be done, government places a constraint or tax on pollution or resource extraction and lets those targeted by the policy decide how best to economize on those activities. One of the best known market-based strategies is the tradable environmental allowance (Tietenberg, 1985, 2002; Rose, 2002). Government de- termines an appropriate level of emissions and issues permits to emit that are limited to that level.4 Permits can be bought and sold in the market. The theory is that individual firms and plant managers are in a better position than government regulators to determine how to meet the targets most economically. Because the permits can be sold, firms that are especially efficient at reducing emissions can actually profit from their efforts at preventing pollution. 3

4 EXPLORING NEW TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Another market-based approach flows from the insight that markets do not normally include environmental impacts in the costs of production or the prices of goods and services. When this happens, society, which shares the costs of the environmental impacts, is providing a hidden subsidy for these products. The subsidy can be countered with an environmental impact or pollution tax that would compensate society as a whole and provide an incentive for producers to reduce environmental impacts.5 Current discussions of a carbon tax to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide follow this logic. TOWARD NEW TOOLS Although command-and-control and market-based approaches have domi- nated U.S. environmental policy in recent decades, other approaches have also been employed. Environmental education efforts aimed at both the public and at students have been used since the 1960s. Information-based efforts for ener- gy conservation, such as home energy audits and appliance labeling programs, began in the aftermath of the energy crises of the 1970s. The environmental impact assessment provisions of the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 provided a wealth of new information on proposed policies and projects for stakeholders to evaluate. In much the same spirit, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 required private firms to provide the federal government with information on releases of toxic substances. A major goal of the effort was to inform the public about toxics. Starting in the 1990s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy initiated several plans for voluntary action by industry, while as early as 1989 the Chemical Manufacturers Association (now the American Chemistry Council) began the Responsible Care program—a voluntary effort conducted by the chemical manufacturing industry without direct government involvement. In this volume we refer to approaches that are neither command and control nor market based as “new tools.” What do we mean by “new tools?” As will be clear in this and subsequent chapters, a strict taxonomy of environmental policy tools is not possible and perhaps not necessary.6 Our analysis has been based on a fivefold classification of policy types: • Command and control, • Market-based policies, • Education, • Provision of information, and • Voluntary measures. The first two approaches constitute the “old tools” that have been most prominent over the past quarter century; the last three are the “new tools” that are the subject of current experiments.7 With the old tools, explicit external

THOMAS DIETZ AND PAUL C. STERN 5 controls are placed on behavior: Those who do not do as prescribed face specific tangible sanctions. The new tools rely more on implicit sources of behavioral control, so that the resulting behavior is likely to be perceived as voluntary. Education includes the provision of information in a systematic and structured way, but usually goes further, encouraging deeper understanding and, perhaps, values and norms regarding behaviors. Simple provision of information offers “just the facts.” The line dividing these two categories is not always distinct, but the contrast is useful for comparing, for example, a school- or community-based program of education on toxic substances in the environment with the mainte- nance of the Toxics Release Inventory on the World Wide Web by the EPA. Voluntary measures include agreements between regulatory agencies and private firms, agreements among firms in an industry, and voluntary actions across in- dustries, such as when firms set environmental requirements for their suppliers. Some other taxonomies also include plans (e.g., Andrews, 1994). Clearly plans can play an important role in defining general expectations and setting goals. But we have not included them in our taxonomy because plans require implementation methods that will usually involve the five policy types in our taxonomy. We also do not include the development of new technologies that lead to reduced environmental impact. Policy to encourage technological devel- opment is as complex as policy intended to change the environmental behavior of individuals, communities, or organizations, and thus deserves separate treat- ment. Encouraging technological development may be one of the most effective ways of reducing environmental impact, and that technological innovation may be driven by a range of policy approaches: new tools, direct regulation, and market forces, as well as technological policy per se. Finally, we include codes and norms of “best professional practices” established by professional or indus- try groups within the broad category of voluntary measures. In engineering and management, such practices can do a great deal to reduce environmental impact. They deserve more attention than they have been given to date as a means of reducing environmental impact. The new tools are an evolving set of supplements to command-and-control and market-based methods. They take many forms, as is obvious from the diverse policies considered in subsequent chapters. But they all have one or both of two features. They use education and the provision of information to try to change behavior, and the changes in behavior are voluntary in the sense that they are not driven by specific regulatory directives, externality taxes, or permit mar- kets. Of course, concerns about market threats, opportunities, and risks, such as consumer boycotts, may provide indirect financial incentives. Categorizing an approach to environmental protection as “command and control,” “market based,” or based on “education, information, and voluntary measures,” although useful analytically, overlooks the fact that every tool is actually a hybrid of all these forms. Individual and organizational response is normally a function of prices, the lure of economic opportunities, the threat of

6 EXPLORING NEW TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION sanctions, the availability of useful information, concern with reputation, and various intrinsic motivations. For example, market considerations often influ- ence compliance with regulations. Few major command-and-control regulations in the United States are implemented without lawsuits from both environmental groups and industry. The targets of regulation certainly weigh the economic costs of a lawsuit and its chances of success against the costs of complying with a new regulation. Noninstrumental goals also may drive responses to command- and-control regulations. Some corporate managers operate on a strict profit maximization principle, but many others have serious environmental concerns and want to do as good a job as possible at minimizing their environmental impact within the fiscal limits they face. Given the apparent increase in green consumerism, such motivations are not unrelated to concerns about market share and profitability. Just as command-and-control approaches engage market incentives, so too do market incentives involve some of the characteristics of command and con- trol. Government, often in cooperation with stakeholders, must design the insti- tutions that will implement tradable permits or pollution taxes. They must set the level of pollution allowed or the tax rate, as well as penalties for breaking the rules. They may also require market participants to provide accurate informa- tion on their resource use or pollutant emissions. All these activities involve command and control. New tools based on education, information, and voluntary measures are present in every command-and-control and market-based policy as well. New measures, whether command and control or market based, always involve a learning curve in which those affected must learn how to operate efficiently in the face of the changed environment. The cost of information needed to comply with a new regulation or to strategize effectively in the face of a market-based policy may be high. Those affected educate themselves, sometimes by trial and error, sometimes by imitation of others, sometimes by discussion with those implementing the new regulatory regime. Governments provide information as a part of every command-and-control strategy. One of the major arguments in favor of market-based schemes is the view that markets are fast, accurate, and efficient transmitters of information. So although the distinction among “command- and-control,” “market-based,” and “new tools” approaches to environmental protection is useful analytically, analysis also will benefit from attention to the degree to which each approach is embedded in, and embeds within itself, the others. Calling education, information, and voluntary measures new tools is some- thing of a misnomer. Certainly, command-and-control and economic instru- ments are very old, dating to the earliest states. We alluded earlier to a safety “regulation” in the Code of Hammurabi; taxes to provide public goods or dis- courage undesirable behavior are probably about as old. But the “new tools” based on education, the provision of incentives, reputation, and peer pressure are

THOMAS DIETZ AND PAUL C. STERN 7 even older. Before the state emerged, humans lived in groups with relatively little hierarchy, and the market was not a feature of daily social life. Societies of food foragers and early horticulturalists usually had no permanent political lead- ership and traded mostly for things not produced locally. Governance involved discussion, ritual, tradition, and peer pressure. Although debate continues about how well preagricultural societies managed the parts of the environment that supported their lives, the management tools they used were surely closer to what we are calling “new tools” than to the “old tools” of command-and-control and market incentives.8 Thus, although these approaches may be considered inno- vations in the contemporary policy system, they have an ancient lineage. WHY NEW TOOLS? What changes in the past decade or so have led to the interest in new tools? This is a question that has not attracted as much careful scholarship as it has speculation, so we don’t have a clear answer. But a number of hypotheses are available. New Targets One hypothesis is that the rise in interest in new approaches is a result of a shift in the sources of pollution that need attention. Proponents of this view (reviewed in Rejeski and Salzman, this volume, Chapter 2) argue that command- and-control regulations were effective with the major manufacturing and re- source-extractive corporations to which they were applied from the 1960s on.9 Once their legal resistance to a regulation ceased, these corporations could af- ford the capital investments required to comply with the regulations and could hire technically competent staff from within or from consulting firms to interpret and implement them.10 According to this argument, complying with command- and-control regulations became a normal part of doing business for these firms, and they responded with major decreases in pollution. This arrangement could work because any regulatory agency had a relatively modest number of firms with which to deal, making the tasks of contacting, negotiating, and monitoring manageable. As large firms were regulated, attention turned to other forms of pollution (or in a few cases, the same pollutants) that were emitted by thousands or even millions of sources. These small and “nonpoint” sources were hard to identify and difficult to monitor. Moreover, those responsible for their emissions often lacked the ability to understand or comply with regulations because of cost and technical capacity. Although applying command-and-control approaches to such sources is not possible, it makes sense to try alternative approaches. Proponents of the new-target view also note a growing frustration with the fragmented character of U.S. environmental policy, which involved dozens of

8 EXPLORING NEW TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION separate legislative mandates that were not well coordinated (Andrews, 1999:358- 362; National Academy of Public Administration, 1995; Esty and Chertow, 1997). A single manufacturing plant might be regulated under a dozen different statutes and have to deal with that many or more offices at the EPA and other federal agencies. They sometimes note that other industrial nations are developing inno- vative, integrative, and seemingly effective approaches to comprehensive environ- mental policy that rely on additional tools (Janicke and Weidner, 1996). There is hope the new tools will provide for a more integrated and coordinated approach to environmental policy by encouraging responses that go beyond compliance with assorted regulations to address underlying problems. In parallel with an interest in more integrated approaches to regulation has come exploration of new technologies that allow for multipollutant, multimedia emissions control. Work under the general heading of “industrial ecology” at- tempts to find technologies that reduce overall environmental impacts of produc- tion, consumption, and waste disposal, often by reengineering entire product life cycles rather than focusing on “end of pipe” control technologies. Because, as noted, most environmental regulations are designed to regulate specific kinds of pollutant emissions to specific media, they can sometimes create obstacles to this more holistic approach.11 New Attitudes A complementary explanation for the increased interest in new tools is that attitudes about the environment have changed substantially since around the first Earth Day in 1970. Although survey research on national samples does not provide unambiguous evidence of striking attitude change among individuals, there is evidence of aggregate change, perhaps because older birth cohorts have been replaced by newer ones whose members hold more proenvironmental views (Jones and Dunlap, 1992; Kanagy et al., 1994). So it is reasonable to propose that cohorts who have received their education since about 1970 are far more aware of and concerned with environmental issues than prior cohorts. The increased environmental consciousness of the public corresponds with the rise of green consumerism, which is actively promoted by many environ- mental organizations. In response, some firms may be seeking a niche market defined in terms of minimal environmental impact from their products. Even firms that do not see environmentalism as part of their marketing strategies acknowledge that environmental impacts play some part in the purchasing deci- sions of many consumers. In addition, many firms are sensitive to the possibility of boycotts orchestrated by environmental groups. Not all of the shift in corporate concern should be attributed to external pressures. Some firms have accepted the idea from the emerging field of indus- trial ecology that pollutant emissions are a result of inefficient processes. The precursors to many pollutants are expensive, and the release of the pollution into

THOMAS DIETZ AND PAUL C. STERN 9 the environment is thus a waste of money.12 Furthermore, the current genera- tion of corporate environmental managers and a growing number of senior exec- utives are members of environmentally aware cohorts.13 Although managers always must be attentive to the bottom line, many are also anxious to protect the environment because they believe it is important and ethical to do so. Such a shift in attitudes can provide new opportunities for environmental protection. It may be possible to see many firms not as recalcitrant actors who must be dragged to better environmental practice, but as ready partners with regulatory agencies, environmental groups, and local stakeholders in designing approaches that go beyond what is minimally required by command-and-control regulations. This idea has led to a call for more emphasis on some of the new tools and less on regulation. New Distribution of Power Michel’s notion of agency capture offers another hypothesis about the move toward new tools. This view emphasizes the strong resistance from the private sector to the wave of environmental regulation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The rise of conservatism to power in U.S. politics during the 1980s and 1990s made the highest levels of federal agencies less antagonistic and more sympa- thetic to industry concerns. Evidence includes the observation that many of the political appointees in environmental agencies under the Reagan and two Bush administrations were drawn directly from industry or from think tanks, research institutes, or lobbying firms highly sympathetic to industry. In the view of those who emphasize the shift to conservatism, complete deregulation was not politi- cally viable because of the strong opposition from the public and environmental movement organizations to efforts to eliminate or weaken key federal command- and-control regulations. However, a shift from command-and-control strategies to market-based approaches and to the new tools was a viable way for the new regulatory authorities to make environmental policy less antagonistic to industry concerns.14 Nothing New Yet another possible explanation for the increased interest in new tools is that it is not really a recent phenomenon. Since the start of the new wave of environmental regulation in the late 1960s, considerable emphasis has been placed on education, information, and voluntary measures. Environmental edu- cation directed at individuals has been an important element of both government and environmental organization strategy for decades. Though the relationship between the regulated and the regulators often has been stormy, it also has always involved elements of the education, information flow, and voluntary cooperation that characterize the new tools. What is new is simply the evolution of under-

10 EXPLORING NEW TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION standing. More experience has led to more sophisticated approaches. In addition, the past decade has seen a substantial move toward using education, information, and voluntary strategies not just with individuals, but also with communities and especially with private firms. Toward a Synthesis Each of the hypotheses described has some validity. The new tools are of increased interest now as the limits of command-and-control and market-based controls become better understood (see Rejeski and Salzman, this volume, Chap- ter 2). Partly because of new attitudes, some of the new tools may be more applicable than before to traditional regulatory targets. The new distribution of power has induced regulators to seek alternatives to command and control, and the new tools are attractive options. Whether they are effective for achieving traditional environmental policy goals is still a matter of controversy, however. Reasonable arguments also suggest that the new tools are not a better way to protect the environment or a good way to handle new priorities, but rather the result of increasing resistance to traditional approaches. In this view, they are a weak compromise at best. All these developments in environmental policy offer good reasons for look- ing closely at the potential of the new tools at the turn of the millennium. Com- mand-and-control regulations may be reaching a point of diminishing returns, and their tendency to be monolithic and to slow innovation limits their value. If there is increasing heterogeneity in the kinds of sources generating environmen- tal impact, approaches that allow flexibility of response are required. Market- based mechanisms often are put forward as the way to meet the needs for flexi- bility and for accommodating heterogeneity, but such mechanisms are not always practicable—and when they are, experience with their actual operation shows they do not work well for all environmental problems (Tietenberg, 2002; Rose, 2002). The new tools offer hope that strategies might be tailored to specific contexts. The new tools need to be considered not only on their own, but also in combination with each other and with traditional policy tools. Few propose eliminating regulation entirely—in fact, it is a central element of all policy tools. What changes when new tools are adopted is what is regulated and the balance of emphasis across policy tools. For example, tradable allowance policies still require regulations of the maximum allowable extraction or pollution, though not of the way the limit is met. Information-based policies like the Toxics Release Inventory include a regulatory requirement—not to limit releases, but to provide information to the public on those releases. Policies based on voluntary agreements normally are presented as a way to decrease pollution faster or fur- ther than regulations require. The backdrop of regulation is what motivates participation in voluntary agreements.

THOMAS DIETZ AND PAUL C. STERN 11 With these considerations in mind, examining the new tools provides a new way to think about environmental policy in general. Instead of debating which policy strategy is best or most cost-effective, policy analysts can consider the best policy package for a particular purpose, activity to be controlled, and actor. They can consider a combination of tools and evaluate outcomes from various standpoints, including environmental quality, economic efficiency, and equity. To do this, it is necessary to build an understanding of the behaviors and the individuals or organizations whose behavior is to be changed (see National Re- search Council, 1997). It is also necessary to understand how each available tool works, when it works more or less effectively, and the conditions (including target behaviors, actors, and the use of complementary tools) under which it can produce the best results. This volume begins to undertake this task for educa- tion, information, and voluntary measures. THE GOALS OF THIS VOLUME We do not focus here on controversies about the best policy strategy. Wheth- er one views education, information, and voluntary measures as an important step forward, evidence of a retreat in commitment to environmental protection, or a set of complementary approaches to the old tools of command and control and market mechanisms, the research agenda remains the same. Careful taxono- mies of the new tools are needed, including consideration of whose behaviors they are intended to affect, which behaviors, and how the change is brought about. It is important to examine the theories of individual and organizational behavior that underpin the tools, to view each use of a new tool as an experiment in policy design, and to analyze these experiments to provide for as much social learning as possible. Our goal in this volume is to bring together state-of-the-art research on the new tools for environmental protection. The chapters examine empirical re- search on new tools, extract lessons from adjacent policy and research traditions that can inform work on new tools, and consider the conceptual and theoretical issues that must be addressed. A great deal of excellent research already has been conducted, and much can be learned from it. We hope this volume will provide practical guidance to those who are working to make the new tools more effective. We also hope it will foster the theoretical and empirical research needed to improve new approaches to environmental policy. Many key research questions remain open. There is a real need for concep- tualization, taxonomies, and theorizing, as well as analysis of historical and con- temporary innovations. As is evident from the chapters that follow, research on new tools also addresses a number of important basic social and behavioral science questions about information processing, learning, behavioral and organi- zational change, and other topics. This research also requires attention to some of the central theoretical and methodological questions of the social sciences.

12 EXPLORING NEW TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION The effort to better understand the tools for environmental protection, new and old, will benefit not only efforts to protect the environment, but also the science of human-environment interactions. The book is divided into four sections. Part One, which includes this chap- ter, provides a context for the emergence of interest in new tools. Chapter 2 by Rejeski and Salzman, explores some of the shifts that are (and are not) occurring in pollution sources and outlines some emerging technological developments that are transforming manufacturing and transportation processes and that have profound implications for environmental policy. Chapter 2 suggests that we will need even newer tools to meet the challenges and opportunities that will accom- pany technological and organizational changes. Parts Two and Three are organized around targets and strategies. Part Two examines the potential of information and education campaigns to change the behavior of individuals, households, and communities. Part Three focuses on the private sector and the potential of voluntary agreements between government and industry and among firms. Part Four consists of a concluding chapter of reflections on what we know and need to know about the new tools. NOTES 1 Andrews (1999) provides an excellent history of American environmental policy. Hays (1987) covers most of the period of command-and-control regulation in the United States. Many important experiments in environmental policy have been and are being conducted outside the Unit- ed States; some chapters in this volume draw on these experiences. Ultimately, understanding of environmental policy must be comparative. This book, however, focuses on the U.S. case as a necessary prelude to a more robust analysis that draws on global experience. International compari- sons are beginning to appear (tenBrink, 2002). 2 In the United States, most discussion of command-and-control and market-based approaches to environmental policy assumes the federal government develops regulations or sets up market mechanisms to control the behaviors of private firms. In fact, most U.S. federal command and control regulations apply to federal agencies and to state and local governments as well. In some cases, the state or local government has the responsibility for implementing regulations developed by federal agencies. These complexities are consequential in developing practical strategies and theo- retical understanding. For simplicity of language, in this chapter we refer to federal regulation of private firms, but the other regulators and the others being regulated should also be kept in mind. 3 For example, Articles 229-233 read: If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave to the owner of the house. If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means.

THOMAS DIETZ AND PAUL C. STERN 13 If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.” There are comparable penalties for flooding a neighbor’s field, grazing sheep in a neighbor’s pasture, and other offenses against property. This text is available online at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/ avalon/hammenu.htm. 4 As Tietenberg (2002) and Rose (2002) note, determining how the permits will be allocated initially is a political decision, and one that is often critical to the acceptability of tradeable environ- mental allowance policies. 5 Freeman (1993:93-140) provides an overview of neoclassical welfare economics as applied to environmental problems. Kneese and Bower (1968) were early advocates of the impact tax approach. Of course, hidden subsidies benefit those who profit from the factory’s output. If one factory is receiving such social subsidies by being allowed to generate adverse environmental im- pacts, it has a competitive advantage over a factory that does not receive such subsidies. It is interesting to note that although neoclassical economists and Marxists use different language to describe this situation, their analysis follows the same logic. For a Marxist analysis of environmental problems see Foster (1999, 2000) or Anderson (1976). 6 Kaufmann-Hayoz et al. (2001) offer a thoughtful discussion on the logic of taxonomies of environmental policies. 7 Kaufmann-Hayoz et al. (2001) suggest a parallel fivefold classification of environmental policy instruments: command-and-control, economic, service and infrastructure, collaborative agree- ments, and communication and diffusion policies. Their first two categories exactly match our first two. Their category of service and infrastructure provision includes everything from mass transit infrastructure to recycling centers to databases on pollutant emissions. Although this is an important class of policies, we do not emphasize it here except when the service or infrastructure in question involves the provision of information. Their category of collaborative agreements matches our voluntary measures. Their concept of communication and diffusion instruments overlaps closely with our concepts of education and information provision. Neither our typology nor that of Kauffmann- Hayoz et al. (2001) has a separate place for policies of institutional design, such as those that are central to a large literature on institutions for managing common-pool resources (e.g., Ostrom, 1990; National Research Council, 2002). Although changes in institutions do not fit within any of the categories just listed, they often embody several categories at once. For example, tradeable environ- mental allowances are a market-based institutional innovation that involves much more than eco- nomic incentives: government control and information diffusion are both critical to their operation, and infrastructure and voluntary agreements also may be necessary for measuring and monitoring emissions. 8 Krech (1999) provides an overview of the controversy and an analysis of the sustainability of Native American ecological practices. 9 See Commoner (1992) for a dissenting view regarding how effective such efforts were. 10 Dietz and Rycroft (1987) show there has been a high degree of job mobility among federal regulatory agencies, law and consulting firms, and corporations, so the corporate employees often have experience in regulatory agencies and vice versa. 11 Andrews (1994) provides a seven-nation comparison of policies to encourage clean technolo- gies. See also Allenby (1999). 12 Socolow et al. (1994) introduce the key ideas of industrial ecology. Esty and Chertow (1997) suggest that ideas from industrial ecology can provide a basis for the next generation of environmen- tal regulation. Some theorists have suggested that the insights of industrial ecology along with increased societal demand for environmental quality, are leading to a new form of development termed “ecological modernization” (Mol and Sonnenfeld, 2000). Rosa et al. (2001) offer a some- what skeptical view of ecological modernization.

14 EXPLORING NEW TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 13 The extent to which corporate managers can act with some autonomy from profit maximiza- tion has been a subject of debate at least since Galbraith. It is an important area for research if sound assumptions are to underpin new policy tools. 14 Several of the key innovations in EPA policy that are considered part of the new tools and discussed in subsequent chapters were initiated under the first Bush administration and continued under the Clinton administration (Andrews, 1999). REFERENCES Allenby, B.R. 1999 Industrial Ecology: Policy Framework and Implementation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Anderson, C.H. 1976 The Sociology of Survival: Social Problems of Growth. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press. Andrews, C.J. 1994 Policies to encourage clean technologies. Pp. 405-422 in Industrial Ecology and Global Change, R. Socolow, C.J. Andrews, F. Berkhout, and V. Thomas, eds. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. Andrews, R.N.L. 1999 Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmen- tal Policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Commoner, B. 1992 Making Peace with the Planet. New York: New Press. Dietz, T., and R.W. Rycroft 1987 The Risk Professionals. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Esty, D., and M. Chertow 1997 Thinking Ecologically: The Next Generation of Environmental Policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Foster, J.B. 1999 Marx’s theory of metabolic rift: Classical foundations for environmental sociology. American Journal of Sociology 105:366-405. 2000 The ecological tyranny of the bottom line: The environmental and social consequences of economic reductionism. Pp. 135-153 in Reclaiming the Environmental Debate: The Politics of Health in a Toxic Culture, R. Hofrichter, ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Freeman, A.M., III 1993 The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. Hays, S.P. 1987 Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955- 1985. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. Janicke, M., and H. Weidner 1996 National Environmental Policies: A Comparative Study of Capacity Building. New York: Springer Verlag. Jones, R.E., and R.E. Dunlap 1992 The social bases of environmental concern: Have they changed over time? Rural Soci- ology 57:28-47. Kanagy, C.L., C.R. Humphrey, and G. Firebaugh 1994 Surging environmentalism: Changing public opinion or changing publics? Social Sci- ence Quarterly 75:804-819.

THOMAS DIETZ AND PAUL C. STERN 15 Kaufmann-Hayoz, R., C. Battig, S. Bruppacher, R. Difila, A. DiGiulio, U. Friederich, M. Garberly, H. Gutscher, C. Jaggi, M. Jegen, A. Muller, and N. North 2001 A typology of tools for building sustainable strategies. Pp. 33-107 in Changing Things— Moving People: Strategies for Promoting Sustainable Development at the Local Level, R. Kaufman-Hayoz and H. Gutscher, eds. Basel, Switz.: Birkhäuser. Kneese, A.V., and B.T. Bower 1968 Managing Water Quality: Economics, Technology and Institutions. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Krech, S., III 1999 The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York: W.W. Norton. Mol, A.P., and D.A. Sonnenfeld 2000 Ecological Modernisation Around the World. London: Frank Cass Publishers. National Academy of Public Administration 1995 Setting Priorities, Getting Results: A New Direction for EPA. Washington, DC: Na- tional Academy of Public Administration. National Research Council 1997 Environmentally Significant Consumption: Research Directions. Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change. P.C. Stern, T. Dietz, V.W. Ruttan, R. Socolow, and J. Sweeney, eds., Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. 2002 The Drama of the Commons. Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change. E. Ostrom, T. Dietz, N. Dol6ak, P.C. Stern, S. Stonich, and E.U. Weber, eds., Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council. Wash- ington, DC: National Academy Press. Ostrom, E. 1990 Governing The Commons. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. Rosa, E.A., R. York, and T. Dietz 2001 Modernization and the Environment: Modeling the Impacts of Economic Development. Pullman, WA: Department of Sociology, University of Washington. Rose, C. 2002 Common property, regulatory property and environmental protection: Comparing com- mon pool resources to tradable environmental allowances. Pp. 233-257 in National Research Council, The Drama of the Commons, Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, E. Ostrom, T. Dietz, N. Dol6ak, P.C. Stern, S. Stonich, and E.U. Weber, eds., Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Re- search Council. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Socolow, R., C. Andrews, F. Berkhout, and V. Thomas 1994 Industrial Ecology and Global Change. New York: Cambridge University Press. tenBrink, P. 2002 Voluntary Environmental Agreements: Process, Practice, and Future Use. Sheffield, Eng.: Greenleaf Publishing. Tietenberg, T. 1985 Emissions Trading: An Exercise in Reforming Pollution Policy. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. 2002 The tradable permits approach to protecting the commons: What have we learned? Pp. 197-232 in National Research Council, The Drama of the Commons, Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, E. Ostrom, T. Dietz, N. Dol6ak, P.C. Stern, S. Stonich, and E.U. Weber, eds., Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Educa- tion, National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

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Many people believe that environmental regulation has passed a point of diminishing returns: the quick fixes have been achieved and the main sources of pollution are shifting from large "point sources" to more diffuse sources that are more difficult and expensive to regulate. The political climate has also changed in the United States since the 1970s in ways that provide impetus to seek alternatives to regulation.

This book examines the potential of some of these "new tools" that emphasize education, information, and voluntary measures. Contributors summarize what we know about the effectiveness of these tools, both individually and in combination with regulatory and economic policy instruments. They also extract practical lessons from this knowledge and consider what is needed to make these tools more effective.

The book will be of interest to environmental policy practitioners and to researchers and students concerned with applying social and behavioral sciences knowledge to improve environmental quality.

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