Michael E. Kraft

Public reactions to nuclear waste : citizens' views of repository siting

Nuclear waste is going nowhere, and neither is the debate over its disposal. The problem, growing every day, has proven intractable, with policymakers on one side, armed with daunting technical data, and the public on the other, declaring: not in my backyard. This timely volume offers a look past our present impasse into the nature and roots of public viewpoints on nuclear waste disposal. A much-needed supplement to the largely technical literature on this problem, the book provides extensive studies of the reaction of citizens--whether rural or urban, near-site residents or prospective visitors--to proposed nuclear waste sites around the nation, particularly Nevadas Yucca Mountain. Conducted by distinguished sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and economists, these studies constitute the most comprehensive account available of the impact of public perceptions and opinions on the nuclear waste policy process in the United States. As such, the collection will clarify the politics of nuclear waste siting and will give impetus to the stalled debate over the issue. Contributors . Rodney K. Baxter, Julia G. Brody, Bruce Clary, Lori Cramer, William H. Desvousges, Riley E. Dunlap, Douglas Easterling, Judy K. Fleishman, James Flynn, William R. Freudenburg, Michael E. Kraft, Richard S. Krannich, Howard Kunreuther, Mark Layman, Ronald L. Little, Robert Cameron Mitchell, Alvin H. Mushkatel, Joanne M. Nigg, K. David Pijawka, Eugene A. Rosa, Paul Slovic

Coming Clean: Information Disclosure and Environmental Performance

Coming Clean is the first book to investigate the process of information disclosure as a policy strategy for environmental protection. This process, which requires that firms disclose information about their environmental performance, is part of an approach to environmental protection that eschews the conventional command-and-control regulatory apparatus, which sometimes leads government and industry to focus on meeting only minimal standards. The authors of Coming Clean examine the effectiveness of information disclosure in achieving actual improvements in corporate environmental performance by analyzing data from the federal governments Toxics Release Inventory, or TRI, and drawing on an original set of survey data from corporations and federal, state, and local officials, among other sources. The authors find that TRI -- probably the best-known example of information disclosure--has had a substantial effect over time on the environmental performance of industry. But, drawing on case studies from across the nation, they show that the improvement is not uniform: some facilities have been leaders while others have been laggards. The authors argue that information disclosure has an important role to play in environmental policy -- but only as part of an integrated set of policy tools that includes conventional regulation.

Technology and politics

Inevitably, reading is one of the requirements to be undergone. To improve the performance and quality, someone needs to have something new every day. It will suggest you to have more inspirations, then. However, the needs of inspirations will make you searching for some sources. Even from the other people experience, internet, and many books. Books and internet are the recommended media to help you improving your quality and performance.

The Three Epochs of the Environmental Movement

As the basis for exploring the sustainability movement in a variety of environmental arenas and places across the United States, Mazmanian and Kraft develop in this opening chapter of their book a framework that locates sustainability - historically and conceptually - as the third epoch in the modern environmental movement. Following on the regulatory and market-based epochs, sustainability can best be understood as an effort to address in a more comprehensive manner the interdependence of natural and human systems, and address the threat to the former by the latter. The three epochs are compared along a series of dimensions for problem identification, implementation philosophy, policy tools, information and data management needs, and triggering events.

Environmental Information Disclosure and Risk Reduction among the States

In what has become a rite of spring, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agen cy (EPA) each year publishes a report of the latest data from the Toxics Release In ventory (TRI). This prominent information disclosure program is grounded in the as sumption that revealing manufacturing pol lution information will spur better industrial environmental performance (Graham and Miller 2001; Hamilton 2005).These data and the innovative program from which they are generated have received considerable scrutiny among researchers. Yet most of this research analyzes national or facility-level trends (Grant, Jones, and Bergesen 2002; Grant, Jones, and Trautner 2004) rather than variation among the states. Although researchers interested in state variations have studied other kinds of

Clean air and the Adirondacks: science, politics, and policy choice

Abstract Science is linked inextricably to environmental policy choices. That relationship is at least as important in clean air policy as it is in other areas of environmental protection and management of natural resources. Yet there is no guarantee that scientific knowledge will dominate the policymaking process, or even be given serious consideration by key policy actors. This is particularly so when health and ecological risks remain uncertain, short-term political and economic factors loom large, and the costs and benefits of dealing with environmental problems are inequitably distributed across geographic boundaries. A review of the history of clean air policy developments both nationally and within New York state and the Adirondack region illuminates these relationships. This paper examines policy activities related to major air quality issues that are pertinent to the Adirondacks, including acid rain and ozone levels. It focuses on the ways in which environmental science and other factors have affected perception of air quality problems and judgments about policy options. It also suggests what might be done to strengthen the relationship between science and policy in future decisions.

Sustainability and Water Quality Policy Evolution in Wisconsin’s Fox-Wolf River Basin

This article examines efforts to improve water quality in the Fox-Wolf River basin in northeastern Wisconsin. It places the history of these efforts within the context of sustainability-based environmental policy, including reliance on broadly inclusive stakeholder involvement and collaborative decision making. Water quality in the area has improved significantly over time, but further improvement will require intensive actions focused on nonpoint sources of pollution and remediation of contaminated sediments. The barriers to such actions require consideration of new policy approaches that can complement conventional regulation. A review of the promise and limitations of collaborative decision making indicates what can be done both in this case and in comparable locations around the nation.

Risk Perception and the Politics of Citizen Participation: The Case of Radioactive Waste Management

This paper uses the case of high-level radioactive waste management to examine the political implications of discrepancies between perceived and actual risk. A content analysis of public testimony at Department of Energy sponsored hearings provides several important findings. The public was relatively well informed about technical aspects of waste disposal; it had little confidence in the competence of the Department of Energy, and it exhibited a wide range of concerns for the impact of high-level waste disposal on environmental quality, the economy, public health, tourism, and the quality of life. Substantial percentages of those testifying commented on the involuntary nature of the risks posed, potentially catastrophic effects of waste disposal, and technical uncertainties associated with the site evaluation process. Taken together, these statements suggest that public perception of risk is not as unsophisticated as often assumed. The attentive public represented in these hearings demonstrates a considerable capacity for participation in risk policy making. Based on these findings, we need to think more creatively about mechanisms for citizen participation in risk policy decisions that contribute to policy legitimation as well as to enhancement of the quality of decision making.

Nuclear Power and the Challenge of High-Level Waste Disposal in the United States

Any consideration of the future of nuclear power must tackle the question of how to dispose of the highly radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors. This article reviews the decades-long debate in the United States over nuclear-waste policy, including the Obama administrations decision to cancel work on the planned waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and the 2012 report from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Americas Nuclear Future. The article, in addition to discussing some of the technical challenges of nuclear-waste disposal, looks at the political challenges of siting a high-level waste repository in the United States, and links those challenges to the continuing search for a national energy policy that reduces dependency on fossil fuels and its ramifications for climate change.

The Political and Institutional Setting for Risk Analysis

Public concern for a wide array of risks to health, safety, and environmental quality has increased significantly in the last 15 years as have governmental efforts to deal with those risks. More recently, scientific analysis of such technological risks, from nuclear power plant operation to toxic and hazardous materials in the environment, has become a growth industry, the result of which is a substantial literature on risk analysis. Most of this literature, however, focuses on technical and methodological issues of risk assessment; there has been a comparative neglect of processes of risk evaluation and more generally political variables affecting implementation of risk reduction policies. If methods of risk assessment are to be employed more effectively in governmental settings and if they are to help bring greater rationality to policy decisions, improved understanding of political as well as technical aspects of risk analysis is essential. In particular, greater knowledge of how political and institutional forces affect the conduct, use, and impact of risk analysis is necessary to speak confidently of effective strategies of change.