Open for business : conservatives' opposition to environmental regulation / Judith A. Layzer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Layzer, Judith A.

Series:

American and comparative environmental policy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental policy--United States.

Environmental policy.

Conservatism--United States.

Conservatism.

Environmental law--United States.

Environmental law.

United States--Environmental conditions.

United States.

United States--Politics and government.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (521 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A detailed analysis of the policy effects of conservatives' decades-long effort to dismantle the federal regulatory framework for environmental protection.Since the 1970s, conservative activists have invoked free markets and distrust of the federal government as part of a concerted effort to roll back environmental regulations. They have promoted a powerful antiregulatory storyline to counter environmentalists' scenario of a fragile earth in need of protection, mobilized grassroots opposition, and mounted creative legal challenges to environmental laws. But what has been the impact of all this activity on policy? In this book, Judith Layzer offers a detailed and systematic analysis of conservatives' prolonged campaign to dismantle the federal regulatory framework for environmental protection.Examining conservatives' influence from the Nixon era to the Obama administration, Layzer describes a set of increasingly sophisticated tactics--including the depiction of environmentalists as extremist elitists, a growing reliance on right-wing think tanks and media outlets, the cultivation of sympathetic litigators and judges, and the use of environmentally friendly language to describe potentially harmful activities. She argues that although conservatives have failed to repeal or revamp any of the nation's environmental statutes, they have influenced the implementation of those laws in ways that increase the risks we face, prevented or delayed action on newly recognized problems, and altered the way Americans think about environmental problems and their solutions. Layzer's analysis sheds light not only on the politics of environmental protection but also, more generally, on the interaction between ideas and institutions in the development of policy.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Series Foreword: Conservative Ideas and Their Consequences

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

Roadmap

Chapter 2: Discerning the Impact of Conservative Ideas

Ideas, Institutions, and Policy Change

Promoting Policy Change

Policy and Political Outcomes

Using the Framework to Make Sense of Politics

Chapter 3: The Environmental Decade and the Conservative Backlash, 1970 - 1980

Institutionalizing the Environmental Storyline

The Rise of Antiregulatory Conservatism

The Emergence of an Antiregulatory Storyline

The Carter Administration

Environmentalism and the Rise of Conservatism in the 1970s

Chapter 4: Ronald Reagan Brings Conservatism to the White House

The Antiregulatory Storyline Gains Traction

Ronald Reagan Articulates a Conservative Public Philosophy

Institutionalizing the Antiregulatory Storyline During President Reagan's First Term

Reagan's Second Term

Antiregulatory Ideas Gain a Foothold

Chapter 5: Conservative Ideas Gain Ground Under George H. W. Bush

Policy Learning about Pollution Control

Popularizing the Antiregulatory Storyline

Creating and Capitalizing on New Think Tanks

Environmental Governance under President George H. W. Bush

People First!

Antiregulatory Ideas Make Progress in the Courts

Environmental Protection Atrophies under George H. W. Bush

Chapter 6: Bill Clinton Confronts a Conservative Congress

Creating a Proenvironmental Context, with an Antiregulatory Twist

Conservatives Step Up the War of Ideas

A Conservative Congress Challenges Environmental Restrictions

Making Air-Pollution-Control Policy More Restrictive, While Adding Flexibility

Saving the Endangered Species Act by Making It More Permissive

Preventing Action to Address Climate Change

Conservative Ideas Advance in the Courts.

Clinton's Compromises Fail to Quell Dissent

Chapter 7: George W. Bush Advances Conservatives' Antiregulatory Agenda

George W. Bush's Rhetoric on the Environment

Creating an Antiregulatory Context through Appointments, Budgets, and Regulatory Centralization

Conservatives Gain Clout in Congress

Drifting on Air Pollution Control

Making the Endangered Species Act More Permissive

Preventing Action on Climate Change

Bush Takes an Antiregulatory Position on Climate Change

Quietly Undermining Environmental Protection

Chapter 8: The Consequences of a Conservative Era

Conservatives' Impact on Environmental Policy, 1970-2008

Conservatives' Political Impacts

Environmental Politics and Policy under Obama

Engineering a Progressive Transformation

Notes

Selected References

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-74158-X

0-262-30529-1

OCLC:

818734333