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The Politics of Regulatory Change: A Tale of Two Agencies
The past two decades have seen remarkable change in American regulatory politics. The reemergence of public interest movements in the sixties and seventies served to expand dramatically the government's role in the protection of public health, the consumer, and the environment. The
far-reaching effects of this new regulatory regime in turn precipitated a countermovement--spearheaded by the Reagan Administration--to restrict social and economic regulation. Examining two of the most influential regulatory agencies--the Federal Trade Commission and the Environmental Protection
Agency--this study assesses the long-term consequences of the Reagan Administration's curtailment of social regulation. The F.T.C. and the E.P.A. together represent the spectrum of regulatory bodies--one an independent commission and product of the Progressive era and the other an executive agency
created in the last wave of public activism. Richard Harris and Stanley Milkis find that the Administration's program of regulatory relief faced a remarkably resilient policy process. Reform, the authors contend, is most effective when an agency head proposes an alternative philosophical framework
based on stricter research standards and policies incorporating economic considerations--as was the case at the F.T.C.--and least effective when a director strives to undermine agency functions for no purpose other than regulatory relief--as Ann Burford did at the E.P.A. They also show how Congress
has firmly resisted all efforts to enact the fundamental institutional reforms required for prolonged regulatory change. This important study will be of great interest to a broad range of scholars and professionals concerned with the political, economic, legal, or business aspects of regulatory
policy.
far-reaching effects of this new regulatory regime in turn precipitated a countermovement--spearheaded by the Reagan Administration--to restrict social and economic regulation. Examining two of the most influential regulatory agencies--the Federal Trade Commission and the Environmental Protection
Agency--this study assesses the long-term consequences of the Reagan Administration's curtailment of social regulation. The F.T.C. and the E.P.A. together represent the spectrum of regulatory bodies--one an independent commission and product of the Progressive era and the other an executive agency
created in the last wave of public activism. Richard Harris and Stanley Milkis find that the Administration's program of regulatory relief faced a remarkably resilient policy process. Reform, the authors contend, is most effective when an agency head proposes an alternative philosophical framework
based on stricter research standards and policies incorporating economic considerations--as was the case at the F.T.C.--and least effective when a director strives to undermine agency functions for no purpose other than regulatory relief--as Ann Burford did at the E.P.A. They also show how Congress
has firmly resisted all efforts to enact the fundamental institutional reforms required for prolonged regulatory change. This important study will be of great interest to a broad range of scholars and professionals concerned with the political, economic, legal, or business aspects of regulatory
policy.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published April 27, 1989
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September 10, 2010
A rare, inside look at two modern federal bureaucracies, the FTC and the EPA, from their heyday in the 1970s through the Reagan deregulation of the 1980s.
Perhaps the authors' most interesting argument is that modern "public interest" law firms, like Public Citizen, NRDC, and Common Cause, were a direct ideological outgrowth of the 1960s New Left, and that their radical roots seriously influenced the "public lobby regime" of regulatory law in the 1970s. The authors provide numerous arresting facts and quotes to prove their case. As late as 1980 a bare majority of surveyed public interest lawyers said the country should move towards socialism, and 34% gave a favorable rating of Fidel Castro. Numerous quotes from public interest presidents and officials trace their personal involvement to the civil rights and Vietnam struggles. Many of them echoed 1960s ideologists like Paul Goodman and Charles Reich, and this was reflected in the firms' calls for participatory democracy as an act of personal and spiritual transformation. The authors' show how in reality this only meant the participation of lawyers in agency rule-making, often paid for by the federal government through "intervenor funding" laws, like the 1975 FTC Magnusson-Moss act. One representative lawyer-activist pleaded with Congress "let the consumer do some suing for himself," and although most consumers' of course couldn't and didn't sue for themselves, Congress listened. The FTC and, especially, the EPA have been dominated by concerns over public interest lawsuits ever since.
The most in-depth research of the book, however, deals with the FTC and EPA during the Reagan era. The authors' show how James Miller, the conservative economist who later headed the OMB, transformed the FTC through rigorous cost-benefit analysis, the cultivation of key staff lawyers, good public relations (such as suing to break apart professional "guilds" like the ABA and AMA), and personal leadership. The authors contrast this with the purblind ideological approach to "regulatory relief" at the EPA by administrator Ann Burford, who didn't ask for scientific advice, indiscriminately alienated staff, and could not justify to Congress or the public the reasons for things like the suspension of rules eliminating lead in gasoline or the dumping of toxic wastes into sewage. It wasn't until William Ruckelhaus, the first EPA administrator under Nixon, was brought back in that the agency regained the credibility needed for modest regulatory relief. As the authors' point out, however, all of this took place in the federal branch, and Reagan perhaps sacrificed his political capital fighting bureaucratic turf wars instead of getting permanent legislative fixes that would have changed how these agencies operated.
This book often rambles and wanders, and it can be maddeningly repetitive, but its dozens of interviews and countless cited sources provide a real inside look at what modern government does.
Perhaps the authors' most interesting argument is that modern "public interest" law firms, like Public Citizen, NRDC, and Common Cause, were a direct ideological outgrowth of the 1960s New Left, and that their radical roots seriously influenced the "public lobby regime" of regulatory law in the 1970s. The authors provide numerous arresting facts and quotes to prove their case. As late as 1980 a bare majority of surveyed public interest lawyers said the country should move towards socialism, and 34% gave a favorable rating of Fidel Castro. Numerous quotes from public interest presidents and officials trace their personal involvement to the civil rights and Vietnam struggles. Many of them echoed 1960s ideologists like Paul Goodman and Charles Reich, and this was reflected in the firms' calls for participatory democracy as an act of personal and spiritual transformation. The authors' show how in reality this only meant the participation of lawyers in agency rule-making, often paid for by the federal government through "intervenor funding" laws, like the 1975 FTC Magnusson-Moss act. One representative lawyer-activist pleaded with Congress "let the consumer do some suing for himself," and although most consumers' of course couldn't and didn't sue for themselves, Congress listened. The FTC and, especially, the EPA have been dominated by concerns over public interest lawsuits ever since.
The most in-depth research of the book, however, deals with the FTC and EPA during the Reagan era. The authors' show how James Miller, the conservative economist who later headed the OMB, transformed the FTC through rigorous cost-benefit analysis, the cultivation of key staff lawyers, good public relations (such as suing to break apart professional "guilds" like the ABA and AMA), and personal leadership. The authors contrast this with the purblind ideological approach to "regulatory relief" at the EPA by administrator Ann Burford, who didn't ask for scientific advice, indiscriminately alienated staff, and could not justify to Congress or the public the reasons for things like the suspension of rules eliminating lead in gasoline or the dumping of toxic wastes into sewage. It wasn't until William Ruckelhaus, the first EPA administrator under Nixon, was brought back in that the agency regained the credibility needed for modest regulatory relief. As the authors' point out, however, all of this took place in the federal branch, and Reagan perhaps sacrificed his political capital fighting bureaucratic turf wars instead of getting permanent legislative fixes that would have changed how these agencies operated.
This book often rambles and wanders, and it can be maddeningly repetitive, but its dozens of interviews and countless cited sources provide a real inside look at what modern government does.
Displaying 1 of 1 review