1. INTRODUCTION 



Media commentators have long recognized that the United States moved into 

 the environmental decade of the 1970' s on a tide of optimism; there was a 

 general feeling that, once initiatives were begun and programs established, 

 over 100 years of pollution could be cleaned up quickly. Now, only 10 years 

 later, it is clear that such a monumental task will be neither "easy" nor 

 "cheap" (Rosenbaum 1985). 



A number of steps have been taken. The legacy of the seventies is a 

 variety of Federal and State environmental laws [e.g., the National Environ- 

 mental Policy Act (1959); the Surface Mining and Control Reclamation Act 

 (1977); the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1972, 1977); the Endangered 

 Species Act (1973); the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (1958); the Toxic 

 Substances Control Act (1976); the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 

 (1976); and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and 

 Liability Act (1980)]. These laws reflect a desire not only to clean up and 

 manage America's natural resources, but also to develop protective programs 

 that would ensure future maintenance of those resources and allow industry and 

 development to proceed at a pace and in a manner compatible with — or at least 

 not detrimental to — natural ecological systems. Implementation of these 

 programs, however, has been extremely difficult, with costs high and 

 frustration the inevitable result. Moreover, technological advances have not 

 been able to meet the challenges presented in the implementation process. 

 Jurisdictional confusion and litigation have frequently been the result. The 

 trend towards litigation has stemmed in large part from the need to interpret 

 the various laws; resolve agency, organizational, and individual disputes; and 

 clarify the roles of economics and science in such complex areas as cost- 

 benefit analysis and risk assessment (Anderson 1973; Brown 1980; Lester and 

 Bowman 1983). The conflicts which arise in the course of resolving these 

 disputes are part of an overtly political struggle. 



The struggle is over who gets what societal benefits and services 



(Lasswell 1936) as these "values" are distributed in projects, permits, 



licenses, and programs. Such policy determinations are made, implemented, 



assessed, and adjusted in a complicated environment of technical analysis and 



political trade-offs. Indeed: 



No domain of public authority ... has expanded more rapidly, 

 nor has any embraced more ambitious goals, than has environmental 

 regulation in the last decade .... This expansion ... while most 

 visible at the Federal level, has ... permeated lower levels of 

 government until ecological issues are [now] routine agenda items 

 for [all levels of] government. [In essence], we are depending 

 primarily upon the Nation's governments, and the political structures 



