OBJECTIVE This article describes the personal experience and perspective of the authors, who had primary responsibility for drafting the initial health-based regulation limiting lead content of gasoline during the early 1970s while employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). DATA SOURCE Information used by the U.S. EPA in developing the initial health-based regulation limiting...

In this essay, we describe some important themes in energy and environmental policy. There are two main reasons for our interest in these policies. First, such policies will likely be important in the coming decades as issues related to climate change and energy security come to the fore. Second, there are important lessons to be learned from a careful review of the actual performance of energy...

INTRODUCTION Preemption is a legislative or judicial arrangement in which a higher level of government precludes lower levels of government from exercising authority over a topic. In the area of smoke-free policy, preemption typically takes the form of a state law that prevents communities from adopting local smoking restrictions. BACKGROUND A broad consensus exists among tobacco control prac...

This paper draws on a number of recent studies to shed light on several policy issues raised by the impact of environmental policies on technological innovation. First, to what extent does induced innovation raise the overall net benefits to society from environmental policies? Second, how does induced innovation affect the appropriate choice among alternative environmental policy instruments? ...

A standard result in the literature on environmental economics is that efficient environmental policies regulating transboundary pollution will be adopted only if there is interjurisdictional coordination. Efficient policies can be adopted as a result of interregional treaties or mandated by a central authority. The present paper demonstrates that if there is perfect population mobility between...

Agricultural systems continuously evolve and are forced to change as a result of a range of global and local driving forces. Agricultural and environmental policies are increasingly designed to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems and to enhance contributions of agricultural systems to sustainable development at large. The effectiveness and efficiency of such polices in real...

As a consequence of the flexibility mechanisms incorporated in the Kyoto Protocol, incentive-based policies such as emissions trading and the clean development mechanism are being widely discussed in the context of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement. This paper examines various issues related to incentive-based approaches for India. Some of the specific questions it addresses are: does India stand ...

In this paper it is argued that mischaracterization concerning the use of science in the U.S. policy process has lead to unreasonable expectations about the role that scientific information can play in the development of environmental and public health policies. This in turn has lead to implementation of misguided and self-defeating policy initiatives designed to ensure the objectivity or “soun...

Urban growth management in New South Wales (NSW) has had a patchy history. Deficiencies have existed at the State level for example, in the policies and mechanisms for the management of the impact of development on natural resource values and environmental quality. Included in this scenario are various market-based instruments, the utilisation of which have been part of the Australian policy an...

Emission trading policies are increasingly important in environmental protection, especially in controlling air pollution in the United States. Their popularity results in part from the limitations and frustrations of centralized command and control regulation. Well-designed emission trading programs can achieve the same or better environmental and health outcomes as command and control regulat...