Environmental Federalism at Decade's End: New Approaches and Strategies

Abstract

This article examines several recent trends in environmental policy that may have important effects over the next decade on federal-state relations and on the nation's environmental quality. It focuses on the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to “reinvent” environmental regulation and to encourage community-based environmental protection as a more effective and acceptable approach to environmental policy. We consider the extent to which these new directions are likely to improve relations between the federal government and states, localities, and the private sector, and to achieve desired levels of environmental protection in the United States. The new approaches are highly promising; yet they also face significant barriers to implementation. Congressional reform of the key statutes could lend much-needed support to such efforts.