In the popular politics of hazardous waste, Andrew Szasz finds an answer, a scenario for taking the most pressing environmental issues out of the academy and the boardroom and turning them into everyone's business. This work reconstructs the growth of a powerful movement around the question of toxic waste. Szasz follows the issue as it moves from the world of "official" policy-making, onto television and into popular consciousness, and then into neighbourhoods, spurring on the formation of thousands of local, community-based groups. He shows how, in less than a decade, a rich infrastructure of more permanent social organizations emerged from this movement, expanding its focus to include issues like municipal waste, military toxics, and pesticides. Szasz identifies the force that pushed environmental policy away from the traditional approach - pollution removal - toward the superior logic of pollution prevention. He discusses the conflicting official responses to the movement's evolution, revealing that, despite initial resistance, law-makers eventually sought to appease popular discontent by strengthening toxic waste laws. In its success, Szasz suggests, this movement may even prove to be the vehicle for reinvigorating progressive politics.

Public authorities are an increasingly important form of government in the United States. Every year, various public policies are entrusted to public authorities for implementation in the manner of a private firm but for the public interest. This edited collection presents an in-depth examination of the theory and practice of public authority administration and the current issues confronting public authorities in general. Cases are provided to invite discussion about the uses of authorities in different policy areas. The book begins with an introduction that reviews the premises that underlie the public authority concept and describes the policy activities and administrative organization of authorities. The first section of the book focuses on the external and internal techniques used to hold authorities accountable. The second section describes various financial issues relevant to authorities, highlighting ways to improve the security of bonds and providing cases showing how corporate subsidiaries are used to finance projects. The third section explores innovative uses of authorities in the areas of economic development, low-income housing creation, social problem-solving, and hazardous waste disposal. The final section considers the impact of public authorities, using economic impact analysis to measure quantitative benefits of one specific authority and probing the problems in evaluating performance in one state. The book concludes with a selected bibliography and a name and subject index. The book is a useful resource for courses in public administration, public policy, management, state and local government, urban planning, public finance, and political science.

Whether you work in the corporate world, a nonprofit organization, or the government sector, you likely face the need to work with others to solve problems and make decisions on a daily basis. And you've undoubtedly been frustrated by how laborious and conflict-ridden such group efforts can be. At all levels--from neighborhood block associations to boards of directors of multinational corporations--the consensus building process is highly effective in an increasingly fragmented, contentious society. In addition, the old top-down methods such as Robert's Rules of Orders often prompt more problems then they solve. Consensus helps you to implement better, more creative solutions. It provides a winning alternative to top-down decision making--and even parliamentary procedure. By learning to build consensus, stakeholders come to understand and respect one another's perspectives. The consensus building process allows participants to find solutions and forge agreements that meet everyone's needs--and provides a meaningful basis for effective, long-range implementation of decisions. The Consensus Building Handbook provides a blueprint to help make the process work in your organization, including a practical, quick-reference Short Guide. Plus, you'll find in-depth commentary and seventeen case studies with in-depth commentaries to provide the theoretical basis for this approach. --From publisher's description.

In Whose Backyard, Whose Risk, environmental lawyer, professor, and commentator Michael B. Gerrard tackles the thorny issue of how and where to dispose of hazardous and radioactive waste. In Whose Backyard, Whose Risk, environmental lawyer, professor, and commentator Michael B. Gerrard tackles the thorny issue of how and where to dispose of hazardous and radioactive waste. Gerrard, who has represented dozens of municipalities and community groups that have fought landfills and incinerators, as well as companies seeking permits, clearly and succinctly analyzes a problem that has generated a tremendous amount of political conflict, emotional anguish, and transaction costs. He proposes a new system of waste disposal that involves local control, state responsibility, and national allocation to deal comprehensively with multiple waste streams. Gerrard draws on the literature of law, economics, political science, and other disciplines to analyze the domestic and international origins of wastes and their disposal patterns. Based on a study of the many failures and few successes of past siting efforts, he identifies the mistaken assumptions and policy blunders that have helped doom siting efforts. Gerrard first describes the different kinds of nonradioactive and radioactive wastes and how each is generated and disposed of. He explains historical and current siting decisions and considers the effects of the current mechanisms for making those decisions (including the hidden economics and psychology of the siting process). A typology of permit rules reveals the divergence between what underlies most siting disputes and what environmental laws actually protect. Gerrard then looks at proposals for dealing with the siting dilemma and examines the successes and failures of each. He outlines a new alternative for facility siting that combines a political solution and a legal framework for implementation. A hypothetical example of how a siting decision might be made in a particular case is presented in an epilogue.