Political Environments and Implementation Failures: The Case of Superfund Enforcement*

The Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund enforcement program is examined to test the hypothesis that change in the political environment contributes to implementation failure. Agency achievements are evaluated under two enforcement strategies: a Burford strategy dominated by the Reagan administration deregulatory agenda and a Ruckelshaus/Thomas strategy that is more in keeping with the Agency's initial pro-regulatory legislative mandate. The latter strategy is found to be more effective in terms of quantitative and qualitative enforcement outcome measures. This supports the conclusion that the systematic intrusion of deregulatory politics into enforcement strategy formulation contributed to Superfund failure.