Contents Notes |
Despite numerous small success stories, the big picture of America's toxics programs is one of overall failure. Superfund has failed to clean up America's worst dump sites; policies to regulate generation of new hazardous waste have foundered; standards have been set for only eight of several hundred air toxics; transportation spills and industrial toxics accidents continue unabated. In part, this "superfailure" reflects problems of bureaucratic implementation, but more importantly, it points to a failing of democratic discourse, technical risk assessment, and ultimately the political process. Mazmanian and Morell address these issues and others in proposing a new approach to toxics policymaking for the 1990s and beyond. Skillfully employing case studies and examples from all over America and abroad, the authors chronicle the history of toxics disasters and success stories and then recommend basic changes in the way the United States should handle environmental problems of all types in the future. Chief among these prescriptions is a new emphasis on community-based discussion and decisionmaking, in combination with federal macrolevel policy guidelines and industry-initiated policy innovations. The authors set forth detailed suggestions for ways to replace today's policy inertia with initiatives they characterize as "positive action compliance, positive action permitting, and positive action cleanup." Engaging and thoroughly accessible, Beyond Superfailure will be of interest to students and practitioners of environmental policy as well as to activists and citizens who want to improve both the environment and the democratic process. Extensively illustrated with charts, checklists, and diagrams, the book should be useful and provocative in presenting a case for positive policy change. 1. Past Lessons and Future Promises. The Legacy of Love Canal. Responding to Love Canal. Lessons of America's First Toxics Decade. The Four Stages of the First Toxics Decade. The Transformation to the Second Toxics Decade. From Ideas to Action: The Second Toxics Decade. What Is to Follow -- 2. Cleanup: Superfund or Superfailure? The CERCLA Process. Identifying Effects on Human Health. Who Pays? Federalism in Action. Criteria For Cleanup. Victim Compensation. Toward Improved Implementation of Superfund -- 3. How Clean Is Clean? A Case Study of the Nation's No. 1 Superfund Toxic Dump. A Simple Beginning. Creating a Toxic Soup. Building a Bathtub. Draining the Toxic Bathtub. Dueling Definitions. The Conflict Expands. Biting the Bullet. Health Anxieties. The Cleanup Continues -- 4. An Ounce of Prevention: Managing Today's Wastes Successfully. Defining Hazardous Wastes. The Regulatory Design of RCRA. RCRA's Early Years: Superfailure in New Garb. A Federal-State Partnership. The Transition Away from Land Disposal: A Review of RCRA Progress. Policy Learning and the 1984 HSWA Revisions. Land Disposal or Treatment? The Conundrum of Capacity Availability. RCRA Implementation, Round Two -- 5. Engineering Economics and Politics: Technologies for Safe Hazardous Waste Management. Safe Hazardous Waste Management Alternatives. The Technological Options. Constraints on the Development of Needed Capacity. Lessons from Abroad -- 6. Beyond Hazardous Waste: Sale Management of Hazardous and Toxic Materials. State Initiatives: Stronger Enforcement and Regulation. Federal Reporting and Monitoring of Hazardous Materials. Controlling Leaks from Underground Storage Tanks. Regulating Transportation of Hazardous Materials. Regulating Hazardous Air Pollutants. Toxics Populism: California's Proposition 65. Toxics Policy: From Revolution to Evolution -- 7. Just Say "No" -- Facility Siting and the Failure of Democratic Discourse. Why New Facilities Are Not Being Sited. Responses to the Failure to Site. A Framework for Successful Siting -- 8. Looking Forward: Effective Toxics Policy Agenda for the 1990s. Broad Strategies to Direct Decisions of Individual Firms. Positive-Action Permitting, Compliance, and Cleanup. A Community Contract for Siting a Single Facility. A Public Utility Model for Siting, Permitting, and Management. Regional Compacts and Management Strategies. Comprehensive Waste Management Through Auctions. Democratic Discourse and Toxics Policy. |