Kathryn Harrison

Is cooperation the answer? Canadian environmental enforcement in comparative context

In recent years, a number of authors have been critical of the adversarial U.S. “regulatory style,” and have expressed interest in more cooperative regulatory approaches common in Western Europe. They have argued that the inflexible, deterrence-based approach that has characterized enforcement of U.S. health, safety, and environmental laws is not only inefficient in treating minor and significant violations equally, but counterproductive in fostering antagonistic relationships between regulators and the regulated. This article examines the effectiveness of the cooperative Canadian approach to enforcement of environmental regulations, using the pulp and paper industry as a case study. The resulting levels of compliance are compared with rates of compliance in the United States for the same industry. Significantly lower rates of compliance in Canada cast doubt on the growing consensus in favor of cooperative regulatory approaches.

Ideas and Environmental Standard‐Setting: A Comparative Study of Regulation of the Pulp and Paper Industry

This article examines the policy responses of Canada, Sweden, and the United States to the discovery of dioxins in pulp mill effluents and paper products, with particular attention to the impact of science and the scientific community on national environmental standards. Important areas of policy divergence were found, despite considerable scientific consensus among environmental scientists in the three jurisdictions, as the potential force of shared causal knowledge was undermined by competing domestic interests and different institutional contexts for decision-making. This analysis challenges the emphasis of the epistemic community literature on the role of scientists in promoting policy convergence, underscoring the importance of the interaction of ideas, interest group politics, and institutions in public policy-making.

Risk, science, and politics : regulating toxic substances in Canada and the United States

Paying particular attention to how politicians and bureaucrats in the two countries deal with the scientific uncertainty that pervades environmental decision making, Harrison and Hoberg analyse case studies of seven controversial substances suspected of causing cancer in humans: the pesticides Alar and alachlor, urea-formaldehyde foam insulation, radon gas, dioxin, saccharin, and asbestos. They weigh the strengths and weaknesses of each countrys approach according to five criteria: stringency and timeliness of the regulatory decision, balancing of risks and benefits by decision makers, opportunities for public participation, and the interpretation of science in regulatory decision making. The Canadian approach is exemplified by closed decision making, case-by-case review that relies heavily on expert judgement, and limited public debate about the scientific basis of regulatory decisions. In contrast, regulatory science in the United States is characterized by publication of lengthy rationales for regulatory decisions, reliance on standardized procedures for risk assessment, and controversy surrounding the interpretation of scientific evidence.

The Regulator's Dilemma: Regulation of Pulp Mill Effluents in the Canadian Federal State

The disclosure in 1987 that dioxins were present in pulp mill effluents prompted governments throughout the world to revise their environmental standards for the pulp and paper industry. This article uses the pulp and paper case to examine the dynamics of environmental standard setting within the Canadian federal state. Provincial regulatory incentives are analyzed using two-player games as a heuristic. The article then considers the federal governments role in establishing national standards. Many authors have emphasized the importance of federal involvement to overcome provincial reluctance to regulate unilaterally, lest jobs be lost to jurisdictions with weaker environmental standards. However, few have considered whether the federal government has incentives to do just that. It is argued that those incentives are weak at best, in light of resistance from both the regulated industry and jurisdictionally defensive provinces. In environmental regulation of the Canadian pulp and paper industry, federal reluctance resulted in a two-tier system of environmental standards with strict standards for the largest provinces, and weaker ones for smaller provinces that rely more on the federal government.

Racing to the top or the bottom? Industry resistance to eco‐labelling of paper products in three jurisdictions

In recent years, governments of industrialised countries throughout the world have expressed growing interest in voluntary alternatives to environmental regulation. This article examines one such instrument, eco‐labelling, which attempts to harness market forces by helping environmentally motivated consumers identify products that are less harmful to the environment. The experience of three government‐sponsored programmes, in Canada, the European Union, and the Nordic countries, with eco‐labelling of sanitary paper products provides cause for scepticism concerning the efficacy of eco‐labelling. In particular, three fundamental assumptions underlying the eco‐labelling model are challenged by the case studies. First, the responsiveness of eco‐labelling agencies and their political sovereigns to pressures to relax certification criteria from firms threatened with a loss of market share can undermine the ability of eco‐labels to identify genuine industry leaders. Second, evidence of industry boycotts of eco‐l...

Too close to home: Dioxin contamination of breast milk and the political agenda

Both the Canadian and U.S. governments have determined that breast-fed infants are among the populations most exposed to dioxins, receiving levels of exposure orders of magnitude above those considered acceptable. In light of the political controversy associated with dioxins and the cultural significance of breast milk as a symbol of purity, one might have expected dioxin contamination of breast milk to achieve prominence on both the popular and governmental agendas. Yet as this article demonstrates, this issue has received less media and governmental attention than other environmental issues believed to present comparable or lower health risks. Consistent with recent literature on agenda denial strategies, there is some evidence that efforts by environmental groups to publicize levels of breast milk contamination have been rebuffed by government officials, physicians, and breastfeeding advocacy groups fearful that women will stop breastfeeding. However, what is more striking is just how seldom environmentalists have attempted to reframe this issue. The article argues that North American environmentalists have consciously chosen not to press the dramatic issue of breast milk contamination out of concern that mothers would discontinue breastfeeding, as well as personal anxiety about an issue that fundamentally challenges conceptions of our own bodies and our relationships with our children. Their self-restraint challenges the depiction by some authors of environmental groups as eager to capitalize on any opportunity to provoke public concern and outrage to advance their agenda. The case study also suggests that the literature on agenda setting must look beyond active strategies of agenda denial by economically and politically powerful interests, to the role of shared cultural values in shaping – and restricting – the political agenda.

The Influence of Institutions on Issue Definition: Children's Environmental Health Policy in the United States and Canada

Abstract This article seeks to explain why US environmental policy has increasingly focused on childrens environmental health while this frame has not had the same impact on either the political agenda or policy outputs in Canada. This contrast is striking since the literature on issue definition and agenda setting suggests that redefining environmental issues in terms of a valence issue like childrens health should be a promising strategy for politicians in both countries. We argue that Canadas less enthusiastic embrace of childrens environmental health is a function of the institutional context, in particular fewer opportunities for policy entrepreneurship in a parliamentary government than within the US separation of powers; distinctive policy legacies in the two countries that created an opportunity to advance childrens environmental health in the US but deterred it in Canada; and different opportunity structures for non-governmental actors, which prompted US environmentalists to frame their campaigns in terms of children sooner than did their Canadian counterparts. The study illustrates the value of cross-national studies of agenda setting in highlighting the influence of political institutions on issue definition.

Racing to the Middle: Minimum Wage Setting and Standards of Fairness

We examine the setting of minimum wages, arguing that they can best be understood as a reflection of voters’ notions of fairness. We pursue this idea by setting out a theoretical model of minimum wage setting in a federation. The key model implications are that minimum wages should track movements in the unskilled wage distribution and movements in minimum wages set in other provinces. The model also has the implication that governments will tend to “race to the middle” of the provincial minimum wage distribution in an attempt not to appear to be unfair. We examine these implications using two types of evidence: interviews with policy makers; and econometric evidence based on minimum wage data from the ten Canadian provinces from 1969 to 2005. Both forms of evidence are strongly supportive of the model. The estimation also indicates a lack of support for models based on the political power of competing, self-interested groups or on the idea that minimum wages are set to meet redistributional goals.

International Carbon Trade and Domestic Climate Politics

This article theorizes about the implications for domestic climate politics of three distinct roles countries play in the global carbon supply chain: fossil fuel producer, manufacturer of carbon-intensive goods, and final consumer. Because international responsibility is assigned to territorial emissions, countries at either end of the global supply chain effectively evade environmental responsibility by shifting fossil fuel combustion to manufacturing countries. In so doing, they lessen the political challenges of reducing domestic emissions. Although exporters of carbon-intensive goods are reluctant to disadvantage local producers, importers can craft policies that both reduce territorial emissions and create local jobs. Ironically, fossil fuel exporters can emerge as leaders in reducing their own territorial emissions, a finding illustrated by case studies of British Columbia and Norway. The conclusion argues that shifting responsibility for carbon emissions to the point of either final consumption or fossil fuel extraction could facilitate an international climate agreement.

The politics of carbon pricing

A decade ago it seemed that policymakers worldwide had finally taken advice from economists to heart and embraced carbon pricing as a central instrument in domestic climate policy. Following the example of the European Union’s emissions trading system (ETS), Australia, the United States and Canada committed to implementing national cap-and-trade programmes. France, Ireland and the Canadian province of British Columbia opted for carbon taxes. By 2010, however, many national and sub-national plans had been abandoned. Carbon pricing remains a tough political sell. Against this backdrop, political scientist Barry Rabe tackles a very real question: can we price carbon? A highly regarded scholar of North American climate policy, Rabe delivers an engaging and far-reaching analysis of the politics of carbon pricing that is admirably devoid of disciplinary jargon. He draws primarily on the cases of the British Columbia carbon tax, the US Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and California and the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), but with a breadth of ‘shadow cases’ including Ireland, Australia and the ETS. Reinforcing conventional wisdom and previous scholarship, Rabe finds that more visible costs render carbon taxes a greater political challenge than cap-and-trade schemes, although political opponents have also succeeded in reframing that instrument as ‘cap and tax’. More hopefully, though, Rabe points to the prevalence of US ‘severance taxes’ (that is, taxes applied at the point of fossil fuel production), particularly in states that export most of their production. The opportunity to shift the tax burden to consumers in other jurisdictions has given rise to this surprisingly widespread form of carbon pricing — even in fossil fuel-dependent states that oppose other forms of climate policy. Rabe notes that US state governments raise considerably more revenue from taxes at the point of extraction than from all other forms of carbon pricing, but does not report the equivalent statelevel carbon prices. A back-of-envelope calculation — dividing severance tax revenues by energy-related CO2 emissions from domestic sources — suggests a national average in the range of US