Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
Journal Title
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Public Affairs
DOI
10.58112/jlpa.8-1.3
Abstract
Over the 50 years since former EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus wrote The Citizen and the Environmental Regulatory Process, much has changed. On the one hand, participation in environmental regulatory decisionmaking has flourished, but on the other, Ruckelshaus's prediction of growing consensus around the environmental movement has proven illusory. In this short essay reflecting on participation in environmental regulatory decisionmaking, I highlight what Ruckelshaus was right about and, just as importantly, where his vision of environmental participatory governance might need some updating. Looking back at the dawn of environmental democracy in the regulatory process and comparing it to the present situation, we can learn both how the need for incorporating public preferences in regulatory decision-making endures and how delicate that task can be without public consensus over the best policy course. Fortifying environmental participation for the future may require a very different vision than the one Ruckelshaus relied on to establish the field.
First Page
25
Last Page
30
Num Pages
6
Volume Number
8
Issue Number
1
Publisher
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Recommended Citation
Daniel E. Walters,
The Environmental Democracy That Was, Then Wasn't, but Could Be Again,
8
U. Pa. J.L. & Pub. Aff.
25
(2023).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/2117