Valuing Clean Air

Charles Halvorson provides an in-depth account of the bureaucratic dynamics of the Environmental Protection Agency (Epa), focusing on the period between the agency's inception in 1970 and 1990. Based on extensive archival research from the papers of key policy makers, and two dozen interviews with former Epa officials and other administrators, he offers a detailed examination of the bureaucratic pressures the agency faced as it tried to regulate air pollution. He highlights four key themes that, he argues, animated environmental politics: the shift of Republican voters and officials from supporting to opposing environmental protection; the politization of science; a growing faith in market solutions to environmental problems; and, most important, the rise of monetary approaches to environmental value. These are important and essential insights to understanding why the Epa has been unable to protect the American public from pollution. Although hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved each year due to pollution regulations, the fact remains that, according to the American Lung Association, more than 135 million Americans live in areas with unhealthy air

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