Inevitably, the question of what constitutes unacceptable environmental conditions is a political one: Environmental policy cannot be an irresistible, simple, unchallenged response to empirical or scientific fact alone. No matter how weighty the evidence of degradation may be, the environmental impulse inevitably confronts competing, perhaps stronger, impulses. As a consequence, what constitutes unacceptable environmental conditions and what to do about them are political questions, for it is in the political process that disagreement over significant social values and conflicting interests finds expression and seeks some form of resolution. The objective is to explore the relationship between political institutions and institution building at Tahoe on the one hand, and the environmental impulse and its competitors on the other.