Best Practice Environmental Impact Assessment: A Model Framework for Australia

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a process that involves the identification, prediction, evaluation and mitigation of the environmental and other impacts associated with development proposals and policies, plans and programs. Australian governments were amongst the first in the world to introduce EIA in the 1970s. Since then, the federal, state and territory EIA regimes have undergone multiple changes. In recent times, the push for EIA reform has intensified as governments have sought ways to improve the cost‐effectiveness of regulatory processes. In light of the impetus for change, this article outlines principles and a framework for best practice EIA in Australia. The intention is to inform the policy development processes at the federal, state and local levels.     

The regulatory style of environmental governance in China: the case of EIA regulation in Shanghai*

The body of literature that examines how institutional contexts affect environmental governance in advanced industrial countries finds that style of environmental regulation is country‐specific. In the pluralist form of democracy like the United States, environmental policy formulation involves bargaining and compromises among interest groups and regulation enforcement through relatively formal and legalistic means. In the corporatist form of democracy like Sweden and Great Britain, in contrast, environmental policies are more accommodating to divergent societal interests and tend to be less formal in their enforcement. These variations in regulatory style have been attributed to differences in basic constitutional structures, regime types and cultures. How do institutional contexts affect the style of environmental regulation in China, which is both a non‐democratic and developing country? This article examines China's regulatory style by focusing on environmental impact assessment (EIA) regulation in Shanghai. The Shanghai EIA system is analyzed in terms of policy ideology, policy content, regulatory process, public participation and policy consequences. It is shown that China's being a single‐party regime with a ‘rule of persons’ tradition has heavily shaped its environmental governance. Based on Shanghai experience, China's style can be characterized as formal in requirement, agency‐dominated in the regulatory process, legalistic in enforcement, and informal politics as the substance of regulation. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CONTAINING REFORM: THE UK STANCE ON THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY ElA DIRECTIVE

After a decade's deliberation, the European Community EIA Directive bccomes operative on July 3, 1988. Member states spent 7 years refining the proposals and were given 3 years to devise implementation procedures. In this paper the attempt by the UK government to contain the impact of the Directive on domestic policy is reviewed. While the UK government was successful in eroding many provisions during formulation, it has been prevented from exempting many projects from mandatory EIA in its im- plementation procedures. The most significant reform is that many projects are subject to formal EIA for the first time.     

Explaining national environmental performance: approaches,evidence, and implications

Since environmental problems rose to prominence in the last third of the twentieth century, they have been a major area of policy for national governments. A large body of research has explored the explanations for different levels of environmental policy performance among countries. This article begins with a discussion of approaches to measuring national performance before reviewing and assessing four categories of explanations in the literature, which may be summarized in four questions: (1) What are the relationships between economic growth and environmental protection? (2) Do democratic regimes have advantages over more authoritarian ones in adopting effective policies and reducing harm? (3) Do such institutional characteristics as pluralism or neo-corporatism and federalism affect a nation’s ability to deal with environmental problems? (4) Are there institutional or societal capacities or relationships within or among nations that may explain policy success? By adopting a broad perspective on the literature on national environmental performance, the article is able to explore and compare the principal findings of these categories of research and assess the relationships among them.     

Partisan politics,welfare states,and environmental policy outputs in the OECD countries, 1975–2005

Building on the burgeoning literature on the association between the welfare state and the environmental state, this study empirically examines how the politics of the former has affected the development of the latter. We suggest that the size of the welfare state shapes the calculus of environmental policy costs by partisan governments. A generous welfare state lowers the costs perceived by the left‐wing government, as large redistributive spending allows the government to mitigate the adverse impact of the new environmental policy on its core supporters, industrial workers. A generous welfare state also implies diminished marginal political returns from additional welfare commitment by the left‐wing government, which lowers the opportunity costs of environmental policy expansion. To the contrary, because of lower overall regulatory and taxation pressure, a small welfare state reduces the costs of environmental policy expansion as perceived by a right‐wing government. Our theoretical narrative is supported in a dynamic panel data analysis of environmental policy outputs in 25 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development member states during the period 1975–2005.     

Vote Blue,Go Green? Cameron's Conservatives and the Environment

How genuine is the Conservative party's rediscovery of the environment? Would a Conservative government led by David Cameron implement a wide‐ranging and progressive environmental policy? This article explores why Cameron has embraced the environment so enthusiastically when Conservative governments have had a poor record of environmental protection and the Conservative party has traditionally shown little interest in the issue. It assesses the impact of Cameron's strategy both on his own party and on the wider world of environmental politics and it evaluates the continuing commitment of the Conservatives to the issue by assessing what kind of policies a future Conservative government might implement. Although Cameron remains committed to the issue and he has already had a positive impact on Labour government policy, he has not yet convinced his party or its supporters, so a future Conservative government would probably represent continuity rather than significant change in environmental policy.     

Valence,Policy Ideas,and the Rise of Sustainability

This article introduces to policy studies the concept of valence, which we define as the emotional quality of an idea that makes it more or less attractive. We argue that valence explains why some ideas are more successful than others, sometimes gaining paradigmatic status. A policy idea is attractive when its valence matches the mood of a target population. Skilled policy entrepreneurs use ideas with high valence to frame policy issues and generate support for their policy proposals. The usefulness of the concept of valence is illustrated with the case of sustainability, an idea that has expanded from the realm of environmental policy to dominate discussions in such diverse policy areas as pension reform, public finance, labor markets, and energy security. As the valence of sustainability has increased, policy entrepreneurs have used the idea to reframe problems in these various policy areas and promote reforms.     

Opposition Policy Influence through Agenda‐setting: The Environment in Denmark, 1993–2009

This article addresses the opportunities that the opposition has to influence policy – a topic that has been neglected in existing party policy research. The idea that is developed is applied to a remarkable environmental policy development during the Danish right‐wing government in the 2000s. Contrary to its position when it took office in 2001, the right‐wing government turned green and adopted a series of green policy initiatives. It is argued in this article that vehement and persistent criticism from the left‐wing opposition provides an explanation for this turn. Taking media coverage, public opinion, carbon dioxide emissions and the government's approval ratings into account, the empirical estimation based on unique quarterly data shows that opposition criticism had a systematic impact on the government's pro‐environmental policy development. The implications for party policy research are important. If the aim is to understand how parties matter to policy, the opposition should be taken more seriously.     

'Problems in International Environmental Governance' or 'A Policy Analyst Looks at the World…. this Being a Tale of How the Hopes of Mice and Men in Geneva Are Dashed in Canberra'

Concern about international environmental governance has shifted from the problems in having multilateral environmental agreements adopted to trying to ensure that the agreements which are negotiated are implemented, and that they produce positive environmental outcomes. This article argues that features of the international policy process which assist domestic policy adoption, especially scientific reductionism and moral suasion, can undermine the chances of policy implementation. This is often because business interests which are marginalised during policy adoption are more influential at the domestic level at which policy must be implemented. This asymmmetry is explained by suggesting that — rather than their being 'two-level games' (as Putnam suggested) — there are (in Lowi's terms) distinctive arenas of power at the the international and national levels. Improving policy effectiveness requires the distribution of power in each arena to be made more symmetrical.     

Understanding State Rulemaking Processes: Developing Fracking Rules in Colorado,New York,and Ohio

Rulemaking is an integral component of environmental policy at both the federal and state level; however, rulemaking at the state level is understudied. With this research, we begin to fill that gap by focusing on rulemaking regarding the issue of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in three states: Colorado, New York, and Ohio. This policy issue is well suited to begin exploring state‐level rulemaking processes because the federal government has left fracking regulation to the states. Through semistructured interviews with a range of actors in the rulemaking process across these states, we establish a foundation from which future research in this area may build. This exploratory research yields some valuable insights into the roles different stakeholders are playing in regulating fracking in these three states, and our findings may be useful for explaining state‐level rulemaking more generally.     

States of Environmental Justice: Redistributive Politics across the United States, 1993–2004

In the 20 years since a president committed federal government agencies to achieving environmental justice (EJ), states have been at the forefront of policy development. But states have varied in the nature and extent of their EJ efforts. We use Guttman Scaling to measure state EJ effort and test hypotheses regarding the relative importance of problem severity, politics, and administrative variables to variation in state policy development. Our analysis offers a novel characterization of state policy intensity and demonstrates its scalability. Income‐based problem severity, environmental group membership, and nonwhite populations were important predictors of state EJ policy intensity during our study period. The political geography of EJ policy also displayed a distinctive southern pattern and the EJ policy intensity model contrasted significantly with a model of environmental policy innovation. The findings suggest that state EJ politics are more indicative of redistributive policy than regulatory.     

欧盟环境政策实施初探

经过30多年的努力,欧盟环境政策从产生到发展,不断拓展了环境保护的领域和视野。其广泛细致的环境立法、持续有效的环境行动计划和多元灵活的政策实施手段,是政策体系完善和政策实施效果的有力保证。本文简要介绍了欧盟环境政策的概念和发展历程,并试图从多方面分析欧盟环境政策得以成功实施的原因,着重介绍和分析了欧盟环境政策的多元化实施机制,以期为我国环境法的实施提供借鉴经验。     

Globalisation, Ecological Modernisation and New Labour

Ecological modernisation (EM) provides the principal framework within which environmental policy reform projects are understood. However, writers using the approach, neglect to explain the political contexts within which it is possible to pursue such projects. Specifically, they ignore how discourses of globalisation structure the attempts of states to introduce environmental policy measures consistent with EM agendas. Through an analysis of the UK government's attempts to introduce policies consistent with an EM approach, we show that New Labour's discourse of globalisation acts to create opportunities for EM in some policy arenas and hinder them in others. We examine the development of a renewable energy strategy, the case of genetically modified foods, and transport policy. By specifying conditions under which EM may be pursued, the analysis reveals the potential, but also the limits, of this approach, which attempts to ignore the deep political questions raised by environmental degradation.     

Can private governance boost public policy? Insights from public–private governance interactions in the fisheries and electricity sectors

Based on the inductive analysis of two parallel cases of private environmental governance – private, market-driven fisheries governance and private, market-driven governance for electricity decarbonization – this paper uncovers a trigger for positive public policy spillovers from private environmental governance. It identifies circumstances that prompt groups of business actors working as private regulators to also take on a role as public policy advocates and supporters, revealing a potential for private governance initiatives that are targeted at a particular environmental problem to serve as a bolster for the public regulatory governance of that problem as well. Both private governance cases at the basis of this analysis feature groups of business actors seeking to meet voluntary sustainability goals through the tools of private governance (specifically, through flexing buyer power and private authority in an effort to reform environmentally problematic practices among particular groups of suppliers). In both cases, the business's inability to attain private sustainability goals though private governance means alone has given rise to business demand for facilitative public environmental policy and regulation. The analysis presented in this paper thus points to the occurrence of a particular and intriguing pattern of complementarity between private authority and public policy – one where public policy is called on to fill gaps left by private environmental governance and authority. And it identifies key conditions for such private-governance-driven recentering of public policy to occur, namely the presence of private supply chain greening goals and commitments that are economically, reputationally, and/or competitively critical for businesses to attain, combined with shortfalls in the capacity of businesses' private authority to bring about such attainment. The two case analysis further suggests the importance of ENGOs in identifying and activating some of the opportunities for leveraging shortfalls in private environmental governance to the advantage of public environmental policy and regulation.     

POLICY-MAKING IN THE AMERICAN STATES: TYPOLOGY, PROCESS, AND INSTITUTIONS

The three levels of government in the U.S. federal system maintain a different set of policy priorities because they operate under varying environmental constraints and resources. Efforts to categorize and specify the politics in terms of policy types have been particularly fruitful at both the federal (e.g., Lowi) and the local (e.g., Peterson) levels. At the state level, however, the typology perspective has yet to be more fully developed. This paper makes a preliminary effort to construct a typology framework in understanding state politics and policy. First, politics can be differentiated between growth and redistribution in the structural economic context. While redistributive politics are largely structured by class-oriented issues, growth politics are predominantly shaped by territorial concerns that temper class and ideological differences. Equally important, the growth-redistribution distinction can be supplemented by the politics of routine services, such as public education. The latter remains dominated by service-provider groups. Moreover, based on an empirical analysis of hundreds of bills in one state legislature, these political differences are found to have contributed to variations in policy consensus among lawmakers as well as interest group representation in agenda setting and legitimation across policy arenas. Our findings also suggest limitations to the typology framework.     

Environmental Tax,Polluting Plants’ Strategies and Effectiveness: Evidence from China

Although environmental taxes have become a popular policy tool, their effectiveness for pollution control and impact on the compliance strategies of agents remains questionable. This research uses a quasi‐experimental design to examine the effectiveness of the Pay for Permit policy, an environmental tax that has been imposed on water pollution emissions in Lake Tai Basin, Jiangsu, China, since 2009. A plant‐level panel dataset from 2007 to 2010 is used for both difference‐in‐differences and difference‐in‐difference‐in‐differences analyses to compare the pollution discharge, pollution abatement, and pollution generation of policy participants and control groups. The results indicate that treated plants reduce their emissions by about 40 percent after two years of the policy implementation. Thus, the policy generated approximately a 7 percent decrease in the industrial chemical oxygen demand emission in the entire Lake Tai Basin based on the emission level of 2007. Pollution is primarily reduced via end‐of‐pipe abatement instead of cleaner production. Our results show the effectiveness of environmental taxes in controlling industrial pollution, and indicate that the tax may not motivate the adoption of innovative techniques in the short term.     

Heat Waves,Droughts, and Preferences for Environmental Policy

Using data from a new household survey on environmental attitudes, behaviors, and policy preferences, we find that current weather conditions affect preferences for environmental regulation. Individuals who have recently experienced extreme weather (heat waves or droughts) are more likely to support laws to protect the environment. We find evidence that the channel through which weather conditions affect policy preference is via perceptions of the importance of the issue of global warming. Furthermore, environmentalists and individuals who consult more sources of news are less likely to have their attitudes toward global warming changed by current weather conditions. These findings suggest that communication and education emphasizing consequences of climate change salient to the individual's circumstances may be the most effective in changing attitudes of those least likely to support proenvironment policy. In addition, the timing of policy introduction could influence its success.     

Administration, Governance, and Policy Tools in Welfare Policy Implementation

Landmark welfare reform legislation passed in 1996 has been operating by legislative extensions since its expiration in September 2002. At this writing, reauthorization has been derailed by controversy over various legislative proposals. In this article, we contribute to the welfare policy debate by studying the importance of specific policy tools and the role of public administration in the dramatic fall in welfare caseloads from 1996 to 2000. Using administrative and survey data on welfare programs in 44 states, we test our theory that caseload reduction is a function of administrative commitments, policy design, and administrative actions linked to five sets of governance variables: environmental factors, client characteristics, treatments, administrative structures, and managerial roles and actions. We find strong evidence that administrative action to move clients into work, coupled with administrative commitments, can provide important links between policy goals and policy outcomes.     

Environmental Policy, New Federalism and New Privatism: Policy Conflicts in the Coastal Zone

Public policies developed under the New Federalism of the 1970s and the new privatism of the 1980s have produced a variety of policy problems for states. This is particularly true in the area of environmental policy. This paper looks at environmental policymaking in the coastal zone giving particular attention to the conflicts between the desire to protect renewable resources and the need for economic growth in the coastal zone. These conflicts are illustrated by an examination of comprehensive land use planning in Oregon and the federal government's proposal to develop seabed mining on the Gorda Ridge.     

Policy Networks, Federal Arrangements, and the Development of Environmental Regulations: A Comparison of the Canadian and American Agricultural Sectors

Both studies of federations and studies of policy networks have sought to produce explanations for observed patterns of policy divergence and designs. However, both have evolved in parallel, insights rarely transferring from one to the other. This article reconciles the two types of studies. More specifically, it provides an understanding of the divergent efforts of the United States and Canada with regard to the adoption of environmental regulations for the agricultural sector, which emphasizes the establishment of policy networks through interactions between past policy decisions and federal arrangements. The American federal structure, when combined with unrelated agricultural policy decisions, shaped policy networks in such a way as to enable the adoption of stringent environmental regulations for agriculture. In contrast, the Canadian federal structure, also in conjunction with past policy decisions, prevented the creation of policy networks capable enough to design similarly stringent agro-environmental regulations.