Regulation & Public Interests

by Croley, Steven

• ISBN13: 9780691134642
• ISBN10: 0691134642
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-08
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Not since the 1960s have U.S. politicians, Republican or Democrat, campaigned on platforms defending big government, much less the use of regulation to help solve social ills. And since the late 1970s, "deregulation" has become perhaps the most ubiquitous political catchword of all. This book takes on the critics of government regulation. Providing the first major alternative to conventional arguments grounded in public choice theory, it demonstrates that regulatory government can, and on important occasions does, advance general interests. Unlike previous accounts,Regulation and Public Intereststakes agencies' decision-making rules rather than legislative incentives as a central determinant of regulatory outcomes. Drawing from both political science and law, Steven Croley argues that such rules, together with agencies' larger decision-making environments, enhance agency autonomy. Agency personnel inclined to undertake regulatory initiatives that generate large but diffuse benefits (while imposing smaller but more concentrated costs) can use decision-making rules to develop socially beneficial regulations even over the objections of Congress and influential interest groups. This book thus provides a qualified defense of regulatory government. Its illustrative case studies include the development of tobacco rulemaking by the Food and Drug Administration, ozone and particulate matter rules by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service's "roadless" policy for national forests, and regulatory initiatives by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Author Biography

Steven P. Croley is professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: An Uneasy Commitment to Regulatory Government	p. 1
The Cynical View of Regulatory Government, and Its Alternatives	p. 7
The Basic Project	p. 9
The Cynical View of Regulation	p. 14
Is Regulatory Capture Inevitable?	p. 26
Alternative Visions of Regulatory Government	p. 53
The Administrative Regulatory State	p. 77
Opening the Black Box: Regulatory Decisionmaking in Legal Context	p. 81
Regulatory Government as Administrative Government	p. 102
Participation in Administrative Decisionmaking	p. 118
The Administrative-Process Approach Expanded: A More Developed Picture	p. 134
Public Interested Regulation	p. 157
The Environmental Protection Agency's Ozone and Particulate Matter Rules	p. 163
The Food and Drug Administration's Tobacco Initiative	p. 180
The Forest Service's Roadless Policy for National Forests	p. 196
Socially Beneficial Administrative Decisionmaking: Additional Evidence	p. 213
Public Choice and Administrative Process	p. 237
The Public Choice Theory Revisited	p. 241
The Promise of an Administrative-Process Orientation	p. 258
Regulatory Rents, Regulatory Failures, and Other Objections	p. 284
Conclusion: The Regulatory State and Social Welfare	p. 304
Notes	p. 307
Index	p. 365
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