IMPLEMENTING A PROGRAM OF COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM IN SURFACE MINING POLICY

This article outlines the legislative history of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 and describes the forces that promoted a federalist arrangement of shared powers and responsibility for implementing the environmental reclamation provisions of the Act. The major components of the Act are reviewed and the Act is examined in terms of its general effectiveness in promoting reclamation as well as its contribution to the practice of American federalism and the capacity of state government to implement complex regulatory programs. The article concludes that SMCRA has had a positive impact in terms of improving state capabilities, expanding public involvement in decision making, and enhancing federal and state cooperation.     

STATE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SURFACE MINING CONTROL AND RECLAMATION ACT OF 1977

The implementation of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977 in coal producing states is guided by a partial preemption policy approach t h a t establishes a balance between federal and state decision-making authority. The usefulness of this approach is assessed by analyzing state enforcement actions in relation the institutional capacity of states to shoulder regulatory responsibilities and the propensity of the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) t o oversee state enforcement actions and, if necessary, to undertake corrective action. Our results indicated that state administration of SMCRA was canstrained by the lack of effective federal oversight but was largely unaffected by interstate differences in political, economic, or administrative characteristics.     

THE STATES' ROLE IN POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: TRANSPORTATION POLICY

Over the past 25 years, the federal government has exerted a profound impact over transportation policy, with over one thousand policies and programs administered in 1979. States have been heavily involved in administering most of these programs. In the past, state and local governments have responded by raising the revenues necessary to match federal grants. Despite budget problems, the states' role is expected to continue.     

FEDERAL COURT INVOLVEMENT IN THE APPLICATION OF SURFACE MINING LAW

This article surveys 122 federal cases reported in the Surface Mining Law Summary from the earliest legislation under SMCRA to the end of 1987. The analysis distinguished between cases in which all OSMRE regulations or applications of SMCRA were upheld by the federal courts, and those in which one or more regulations/applications were overturned. The analysis further classifies the cases according to whether the decisions were favorable to industry (or, conversely, to environmental/citizen groups), according to whether the issues involved were primarily of narrow private right (or, conversely, of broad public policy), and according to state-of-origin. Finally, separate examination of those cases in which OSMRE's discretion in the enforcement of SMCRA was restricted is provided. The author concludes t h a t both the federal courts and OSMRE have been reasonably even-handed in their application of SMCRA, contrary to the earlier expectations of some proponents and opponents of surface coal mining regulation in the United States.     

THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF ACADEMIC SCIENCE: UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY RELATIONS IN BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The issue of university-industry relations in the field of biotechnology illustrates the changing context of academic science. Research has become an organizational enterprise and no longer can be seen as simply the accumulation of individual efforts. This development complicates the normative context of academic science and in so doing introduces important policy questions, especially regarding interaction between industry and universities. Funding, faculty conflict of Interest, and the ownership of intellectual property resulting from research are policy issues which are analyzed in the context of some of the recent organizational changes in the performance of academic research.     

LOCAL IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL POLICY

This article is an examination of failures in implementing intergovernmental programs. The programs were failures in the sense that actions to implement programs were delayed far beyond the expected dates of completion. Two such failures in cities implementing two different programs (wastewater management and Section 8 housing programs) are contrasted with one instance of success (in Section 8 housing). If a Sharkansky's discussion of political and policy routines is found to be a useful explanation of the different results. When local government routines must be broken to comply with the goals and objectives of federal programs, local actors will do all they can to resist the federal program. This finding demonstrates the importance of varying local political environments in explaining varying patterns of implementation of federal programs.     

THE STATES AND DEREGULATION: THE CASE OF SURFACE MINING

The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA), passed to correct the abuses of surface mining, assigned key implementation roles to the states. While the federal government originally enforced SMCRA, states could operate the program themselves. Once states decided to run their own program the federal government would oversee them to insure they properly enforce the Act. This research examines the enforcement behavior of states in the 1980s. The results indicate that early in the Reagan administration eastern states enforced the SMCRA less stringently than other states. Eastern states increased their level of enforcement later in the 1980s in response to pressures for increased federal oversight from Congress, interest groups and others.     

ASSESSING THE IMPACTS OF THE SURFACE MINING CONTROL AND RECLAMATION ACT

Even a dozen years since the passage of the Surface Mining. Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) there is little agreement on how well i t has worked. The paper attempts to assess the impacts of SMCRA in six major surface coal producing states. Although i t is not possible to make an unqualified overall national assessment, the evidence presented in the paper indicates that in many (but by no means all) cases, surface coal mining is now carried out in environmentally less destructive ways then before the Act. However, the accomplishments have fallen far short of expectations. The situation in some states has gotten worse than before the Act. Overall, the impact of the Act on the ground has been mixed and has depended on the rigor with which the Act has been implemented in individual coal states.     

A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE ON POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE FALLACIES OF MISPLACED PRESCRIPTION

Implementation has been used to try to explain too much, particularly that policy formulation should be oriented around implementation. The concentration on implementation has added little to our theoretical understanding of policymaking. Implementation studies have taken either "The Horrors of War" or "The Search for Theory" views. The latter has four major views, none of which is adequate. The best approach is to treat implementation as only one of a number of conditions which must be fulfilled for successful policymaking. The design perspection, explained in the paper, is the best approach for this.     

THE SURFACE MINING CONTROL AND RECLAMATION ACT OF 1977 IN OKLAHOMA: STATE AND FEDERAL COHABITATION

The enforcement of the SMCRA in Oklahoma has led to improvements and transformations in the coal industry, state and federal regulatory agencies and the public. The catalyst for these changes was the federal takeover of inspection and enforcement of the SMCRA in Oklahoma with the state carrying on all other mining regulatory activities from 1984 through 1987. This pattern of cohabitation differed from that in Tennessee where OSM took over all enforcement of the SMCRA or that in states that enter into cooperative agreements to provide state regulation of coal mining on federal lands within the state. Cohabitation in Oklahoma produced a new, more positive attitude toward cooperative federalism by both federal and state regulatory bodies that might serve as a model for other states with OSM maintaining state agency support for policy objectives while allowing the state reasonable decisional discretion.     

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMPARABLE WORTH IN IOWA

This research describes and analyzes the implementation of comparable worth legislation in Iowa and focuses on two aspects of the issue: implementatlon of the job evaluation study mandated by the law, and implementation of the classification and compensation systems which resulted from the study. The paper argues that the General Assembly involved itself too directly and too long in the implementation process which led to confrontation with the executive branch and numerous problems in the implementation of comparable worth legislation.