A reconsideration of environmental federalism Wallace

Environmental policymaking typically takes place in the context of a system with several levelsof government. And this raises the important issue of the appropriate role of the various governments in the setting of environmental standards, the design of regulatory measures to attain the standards, and the monitoring and enforcement of these measures. Actualpractice reveals a rather strange and inconsistent amalgam of decision-making structures. In the llnited States, for example, we find that the setting of environmental standards themselves manifests some striking anomalies. Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970,still the cornerstone of US policy for air-quality management, the US Environmental Protection Agency was directed to set standards for ambie'nt air quality in terms of maximum permissible concentrations of pollutants applicable to every place in the nation. But only two years later, under the 1972 Amendments to the Clean Water Act, the US Congress directed the states to set standards for water quality within their own boundaries. It is not at aUclear why standard's for air quality should be set at a national level,whilewater quality standards are a matter for the states. Likewise, in the European Union, there is a continuing tension between the EU commitment to the principle of subsidiarity that establishes a basic commitment to decentralized policymaking (where it is within the capacity of member states and their jurisdictional authorities) and the sense on the part of some that European-wide standards for environmental quality are needed. I In this chapter, I will review the issue of environmental federalism with a focus on the setting of standards for ambient environmental quality. It is commonplace for environmental measures. to take the form of centraUy determined standards with the responsibility for implementation lodged with state or provincial governments. Environmental policy is thus often a joint activity in this limited sense. But the fundam~ntal decision is one of just how stringent environmental measures are to be: meaningful decentralization thus entails 'local' determination over the stringency of the standards for ambient environmental quality.2