IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND POLICY FAILURE: THE NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT OF 1982 |
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| Authors: | Bruce B. Clary Michael E. Kraft |
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| Affiliation: | Professor of Public Policy and Management at the University of Southern Maine. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Southern California, and taught previously at North Carolina State University, Portland State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He has published widely on environmental policy, citizen participation, state and local government, intergovernmental rela- tions, natural hazards policy, and technology assessment.;Professor of Political Science and Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Wiscon- sin-Green Bay. During the spring semester, 1988, when this article was prepared, he was a visiting distinguished professor at the La Follette Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-editor with Norman Vig of Environmental Policy in the 1980s: Reagan's NewAgenda (CQ Press, 1984) and Technology and Politics (Duke University Press, 1988). |
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| Abstract: | We examine the role of environmental assessments in the siting process mandated under the ambitious Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. We analyze the effect of these assessments in both the western and eastern United States using the original documents, critiques of the methodology of the assessments, and public comments on the siting process, including a content analysis of hearings in Wisconsin and Maine. We conclude that the major effect of the assessments on the policy process was to stimulate public and state opposition to the Department of Energy's efforts to implement NWPA, leading to what could be called policy failure and a significant redirection of the act by Congress in late 1987. The paper represents an early report of a more comprehensive and ongoing study of the politics of nuclear waste disposal. |
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