[E]nforcement is the centerpiece of regulation, the visible hand of the state reaching into society to correct wrongs. . . . Both symbolically and practically, enforcement is a capstone, a final indicator of the state's seriousness of purpose and a key determinant of the barrier between compliance and lawlessness.
This Article is a preliminary attempt to examine the strengths and shortcomings of enforcement at EPA during the first term of the Administration of President George W. Bush (the Bush II Administration). In various respects--both substantive and methodological--the Article is a follow-up to my 1995 monograph, Enforcement at the EPA: High Stakes and Hard Choices, in which I surveyed the major trends, events, and developments in EPA enforcement from the Agency's beginnings through the Administration of President George H.W. Bush (the Bush I Administration). In that work I also focused on some larger questions of congressional oversight, partisan politics, and measurements of program success, questions that arose from and were closely related to EPA's enforcement efforts.
Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern University Law Center and Member Scholar, Center for Progressive Regulation; B.A., Columbia University; J.D., New York University School of Law; LL.M., Columbia Law School; J.S.D., Columbia Law School. The author gratefully acknowledges the Nova Southeastern University President's Faculty Scholarship Award that financed most of the costs of the research he did for this Article. He also wishes to thank his friends, Gail and Bob Ginsberg, Rana Segal, Mike Smith, and Noël and Roger Wise, for their gracious and kind hospitality in inviting him to stay in their homes as a guest during his research travels around the country.In the public mind, vigorous, effective enforcement of environmental laws has consistently been seen as a crucial prerequisite to the protection of environmental values and public health. Since the inception of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, the Agency has scored political points with the public when its enforcement efforts were viewed as robust, assertive, and evenhanded. Conversely, public perceptions that EPA enforcement was lackluster, inconsistent, or subject to unfair political manipulation or favoritism, have often resulted in public anger, dismay, and criticism. As Peter Yeager has observed:
