Saving Our Environment from Washington
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Saving Our Environment from Washington by David Schoenbrod
A veteran environmentalist tells vivid tales of the environmental wars and arrives at a surprising conclusion. Congress empowered the Environmental Protection Agency on the theory that only a national agency that is insulated from accountability to voters could produce the scientifically grounded pollution rules needed to save a careless public from its own filth. In this provocative book, David Schoenbrod explains how his experience as an environmental advocate brought him to this startling realization: letting EPA dictate to the nation is a mistake. Through a series of gripping and illuminating anecdotes from his own career, the author reveals the EPA to be an agency that, under Democrats and Republicans alike, delays good rules, imposes bad ones, and is so big, muscle-bound, and remote that it does unnecessary damage to our society. EPA stays in power, he says, because it enables elected legislators to evade responsibility by hiding behind appointed bureaucrats. The best environmental rules—those that have done the most good—have come when Congress had to take responsibility or from states and localities rather than the EPA. With the passion of an authentic environmentalist, Schoenbrod makes a sensible plea for “bottom-up” environmental protection now. The responsibility for pollution control belongs not in agencies but in legislatures, and usually not at the federal level but rather closer to home.
"A terrific, albeit disturbing, readOnly someone with Schoenbrod's unique combination of legal, political and practical expertise could write so insightfully about environmental politics." Morris P. Fiorina, Stanford University "Schoenbrod makes a compelling case that, by delegating lawmaking responsibility to government agencies, Congress has imposed huge costs on the economy and bad choices on the environment." John Berlau, Wall Street Journal "An important and original contribution to the national debate on environmental policy. Schoenbrod's rich and varied personal experience in the field powerfully brings home the policy issues he addresses." Gary Marchant, Center for the Study of Law, Science, and Technology, Arizona State University"
During the 1970s, David Schoenbrod was a leader of the Natural Resources Defense Council, heading campaigns to get lead out of gasoline, protect the environment of Puerto Rico, and protect New Yorkers from automotive air pollution. Now he is Trustee Professor at New York Law School. Schoenbrod has frequently contributed to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and other newspapers and periodicals. His books include Power without Responsibility, Democracy by Decree, Saving Our Environment from Washington, and Breaking the Logjam. He has a graduate degree in economics from Oxford (which he attended as a Marshall Scholar) and a law degree from Yale.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780300119848 |
| ISBN 10 | 0300119844 |
| Title | Saving Our Environment from Washington |
| Author | David Schoenbrod |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Yale University Press |
| Year published | 2006-09-29 |
| Number of pages | 320 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |