Theory Becomes Practice

Of all the proliferating ideas for reinventing environmental regulation, none are more portentous than those grouped loosely under the heading "civic environmentalism." In a nutshell, such proposa's urge the delegation of crucial decisions and their implementation to grassroots groups of interested parties who would collaborate in the development of creative solutions to the problems that have stymied traditional regulation.¹

From the perspective of their sponsors, nothing less than the reawakening of American democracy is at stake. Indeed, the most enthusiastic proponents believe that embrace of such approaches has the potential to render irrelevant the fundamental premises of the existing regulatory system, from the concept of a Tragedy of the Commons to the fear of a race-to-the-bottom if regulatory authority is devolved.²