HAZARDOUS-WASTE, REGULATORY REFORM, AND THE REAGAN REVOLUTION - THE IRONIES OF AN ACTIVIST APPROACH TO DEACTIVATING BUREAUCRACY

What were the consequences of Ronald Reagan's strategy to reorient environmental policy? In this article, Robert Durant chronicles bow the ''micromanaging'' reactions of the Congress to Reagan's relentless attempts at implementing this initiative interacted perversely with the administration's ''supply-side management'' goals to do three things in the hazardous waste policy arena. First, they foiled Reagan's goals of ''deregulation, defunding, and devolution'' of program responsibilities. Second, they undermined congressional goals of aggressive and effective implementation of hazardous waste statutes, and third, they diminished government's capacity to foster informed policy deliberation, civic education, accountability, and strategic goal setting. Durant concludes by assessing the case's implications for present debates over the political and managerial consequences of divided versus unified government in the United States.