The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety, and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States - Rilegato

Vogel, David

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0691124167 ISBN 13: 9780691124162

Casa editrice: Princeton Univ Pr, 2012

Riassunto

The Politics of Precaution examines the politics of consumer and environmental risk regulation in the United States and Europe over the last five decades, explaining why America and Europe have often regulated a wide range of similar risks differently. It finds that between 1960 and 1990, American health, safety, and environmental regulations were more stringent, risk averse, comprehensive, and innovative than those adopted in Europe. But since around 1990, the book shows, global regulatory leadership has shifted to Europe. What explains this striking reversal?


David Vogel takes an in-depth, comparative look at European and American policies toward a range of consumer and environmental risks, including vehicle air pollution, ozone depletion, climate change, beef and milk hormones, genetically modified agriculture, antibiotics in animal feed, pesticides, cosmetic safety, and hazardous substances in electronic products. He traces how concerns over such risks--and pressure on political leaders to do something about them--have risen among the European public but declined among Americans. Vogel explores how policymakers in Europe have grown supportive of more stringent regulations while those in the United States have become sharply polarized along partisan lines. And as European policymakers have grown more willing to regulate risks on precautionary grounds, increasingly skeptical American policymakers have called for higher levels of scientific certainty before imposing additional regulatory controls on business.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

David Vogel is professor at the Haas School of Business and in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Dalla quarta di copertina

"This is comparative politics at its very best. Vogel takes the reader on a fascinating transatlantic journey to show how and why regulatory leadership shifts with political pressures, elite preferences, and new views on risk management. His book should be required reading for everyone concerned about the safety of man and environment."--Lennart J. Lundqvist, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

"Written by an eminent and eloquent scholar in the field, The Politics of Precaution addresses a major issue in risk regulation and transatlantic relations. The book's central claim is that there has been an overall shift from greater American to greater European relative precaution and stringency in risk regulation. Whether one agrees with that claim or not, one must contend with Vogel's argument."--Jonathan B. Wiener, Duke University and coeditor ofThe Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe

"The Politics of Precaution challenges some commonly held views about the political economy of regulation. The book will serve as a useful counter to those given to easy assumptions about the differences in how Europeans and Americans regulate similar consumer and environmental risks."--Keith Hawkins, professor emeritus of law and society, University of Oxford

"The Politics of Precaution addresses an intriguing transatlantic topic, contains a wealth of interesting case studies, and is written by a seasoned and perceptive scholar. It is a serious contribution to the literature."--John D. Graham, Indiana University

Dal risvolto di copertina interno

"This is comparative politics at its very best. Vogel takes the reader on a fascinating transatlantic journey to show how and why regulatory leadership shifts with political pressures, elite preferences, and new views on risk management. His book should be required reading for everyone concerned about the safety of man and environment."--Lennart J. Lundqvist, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

"Written by an eminent and eloquent scholar in the field, The Politics of Precaution addresses a major issue in risk regulation and transatlantic relations. The book's central claim is that there has been an overall shift from greater American to greater European relative precaution and stringency in risk regulation. Whether one agrees with that claim or not, one must contend with Vogel's argument."--Jonathan B. Wiener, Duke University and coeditor ofThe Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe

"The Politics of Precaution challenges some commonly held views about the political economy of regulation. The book will serve as a useful counter to those given to easy assumptions about the differences in how Europeans and Americans regulate similar consumer and environmental risks."--Keith Hawkins, professor emeritus of law and society, University of Oxford

"The Politics of Precaution addresses an intriguing transatlantic topic, contains a wealth of interesting case studies, and is written by a seasoned and perceptive scholar. It is a serious contribution to the literature."--John D. Graham, Indiana University

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The Politics of Precaution

REGULATING HEALTH, SAFETY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATESBy David Vogel

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-12416-2

Contents

Preface.........................................................................................ixChapter One The Transatlantic Shift in Regulatory Stringency...................................1Chapter Two Explaining Regulatory Policy Divergence............................................22Chapter Three Food Safety and Agriculture......................................................43Chapter Four Air Pollution.....................................................................103Chapter Five Chemicals and Hazardous Substances................................................153Chapter Six Consumer Safety....................................................................189Chapter Seven Public Risk Perceptions and the Preferences of Policy Makers.....................219Chapter Eight The Law and Politics of Risk Assessment..........................................252Chapter Nine Broader Implications..............................................................279Index...........................................................................................295

Chapter One

The Transatlantic Shift in Regulatory Stringency

In 1962, the united states enacted regulations for the approval of drugs that were more stringent than those of Great Britain and Germany.

In 1969, the United States banned the artificial sweetener cyclamate, which remains permitted in each member state of the European Union.

In 1975, catalytic converters were required for all new cars sold in the United States; they were required for all new cars sold in the EU beginning in 1992.

In 1979, the plant-growth regulator Alar was banned in the United States; all but one European country as well as the EU permits its use.

In 1985, the EU prohibited the administration of growth hormones to beef cattle; the United States allows them.

In 1989, the United States eliminated the use of lead in gasoline/petrol. The EU ended its use of this fuel additive in 2005.

Since 1992, the United States has approved more than one hundred genetically modified (GM) varieties for planting, feed, or food; the EU has approved twenty-eight, most of which are not in commercial use. Virtually all processed food in the United States contains GM ingredients, while virtually none sold in the EU does.

In 1997, the EU ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which committed its member states to reduce their emissions of six greenhouse gases (GHG); the United States has not done so.

In 1999, the EU banned the use of six phthalates in children's products; the United States adopted a similar restriction in 2008.

In 2003, the EU banned the use of six hazardous materials in electrical and electronic products beginning in 2006; the United States still permits their use.

In 2006, the EU significantly strengthened and broadened its health and environmental regulations for chemicals; the last comprehensive statutory reform of American chemical regulation took place in 1976.

These and other comparisons among health, safety, and environmental regulations in the United States and Europe are the subject of this book. It describes and explains why, during the last half century, citizens in Europe and the United States have frequently perceived, and policy makers have often responded differently to, many similar consumer and environmental risks—in some cases temporarily and in other cases over an extended period of time.

Within political systems, there are important linkages among many health, safety, and environmental risk regulations. Their public issue life cycles overlap and they often follow parallel or convergent political trajectories. This means that if a government is adopting more stringent regulations toward some consumer or environmental risks caused by business, then it is also more likely to address other risks with similarly strong measures. Alternatively, if it is not stringently regulating a specific health, safety, or environmental risk, then it is also less likely to adopt more risk-averse regulations for others. In short, risk regulations are both interdependent and shaped by similar political developments. These can be stable for long periods of time, but the policy equilibriums that underlie them can also change significantly.

A noteworthy discontinuity in the politics of regulatory stringency took place on both sides of the Atlantic in about 1990. If a new risk regulation was enacted on either side of the Atlantic during the three decades prior to 1990, then it is more likely that the American standard was initially, and in some cases has remained, more risk averse. However, if it was adopted on either side of the Atlantic after 1990, then it is more likely that the regulation adopted by the European Union was initially, and has often remained, more risk averse.

Why, then, since 1990, has the EU more stringently regulated a number of health, safety, and environmental risks caused by business than the United States, including in several areas that were previously regulated more stringently by the United States? What affects changes in the public's demand for protective regulations and the willingness of policy makers to respond to them? What happened to disrupt the previous pattern of policymaking on both sides of the Atlantic? These important shifts in the stringency of new risk regulations in both the United States and the EU raise a broader question: what explains significant shifts in policy-linked issue life cycles?

These are important and challenging questions. Each regulatory decision or non-decision has distinctive and multiple causes, and no parsimonious explanation or single theory can adequately account for all the policy outcomes that have taken place in both Europe and the United States since 1960. I have developed a "big picture" explanatory framework that focuses on the role and interaction of three factors: the extent and intensity of public pressures for more stringent or protective regulations, the policy preferences of influential government officials, and the criteria by which policy makers assess and manage risks. Since around 1990, each has changed significantly in both the United States and the EU.

Prolonged periods of relative regulatory stringency, such as that which occurred in the United States between roughly 1960 and 1990 and in Europe beginning around 1990, are typically characterized by strong public demands for more stringent regulations, by the influence of policy makers who are more supportive of stringent regulatory controls over business, and by decision-making criteria that promote or permit the adoption of highly risk-averse regulations. Alternatively, prolonged periods when relatively few stringent regulations are adopted, such as has occurred in the United States since around 1990, are typically characterized by weaker public demands for more stringent risk regulations, by the increased influence of policy makers opposed to expanding the scope or stringency of health, safety, and environmental risk regulation, and by decision-making criteria that make it more difficult for highly risk-averse regulations to be adopted.

The Transatlantic Shift in Regulatory Stringency

The Regulatory Leadership of the United States

For approximately three decades, the United States was typically one of the first countries to identify new health, safety, and environmental risks and to enact a wide range of stringent and often precautionary standards to prevent or ameliorate them. Several important American consumer safety and environmental regulations, including rules for the approval of new drugs; many pesticide, food safety, and chemical standards; controls on automobile emissions, including lead in gasoline/petrol; and restrictions on ozone-depleting chemicals, were among the most risk-averse in the world. "The United States was the clear global leader in environmental policy in this era, and many other countries copied its policy initiatives."

The Policy Shift

Around 1990, the locus of transatlantic regulatory policy innovation and global regulatory leadership began to shift. While American policy makers previously had been "quicker to respond to new risks, more aggressive in pursuing old ones," more recently it is European policy makers who have been more likely to identify new risks and been more active in attempting to ameliorate existing ones. Europe has not simply "caught up" to the United States; rather, many of the risk regulations adopted by the EU since 1990 are now more stringent and comprehensive than those of the American federal government. In "many policy areas [the EU] has taken over the role of world leader," a role formerly played by the United States.

The rate at which the federal government has adopted new stringent and comprehensive regulatory statutes and rules markedly declined after 1990. "Further building of the green state—at least at the national level—essentially stopped around 1990." By contrast, "[the] EU surged forward," issuing a steady stream of "higher and tougher standards." To borrow Lennart Lundqvist's influential formulation, which he used to contrast American and Swedish air pollution control standards during the 1970s, since around 1990 the American federal regulatory policy "hare" has been moving like a "tortoise," while the pace of the European "tortoise" resembles a "hare." "It has become almost a constant trend to see more and more legislation being planned or adopted in Europe that sets higher standards to protect health or the environment than in the United States."

Not all American risk regulations enacted between around 1960 and 1990 were more stringent than those adopted by any European country or the EU. For example, the EU's ban on beef hormones was adopted in 1985, while during the 1970s and 1980s some European countries adopted restrictions on chemicals that were either comparable to or more risk-averse than those of the United States. Nor has every consumer safety or environmental regulation enacted by the EU or any of its member states since 1990 been more stringent than those adopted by the United States during the last two decades. For example, American mobile source or vehicular emission standards for health-related (criteria) pollutants have been steadily strengthened and remain stricter than those of the EU.

There has also been increased transatlantic convergence in some policy fields. Following changes in the regulatory policies of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that began in the late 1980s, but accelerated during the early 1990s, and the centralization of drug approval policies by the EU during the first half of the 1990s, the "drug lag" has disappeared: a new drug is now as likely to be first approved for use in the United States as in the EU. Both the EU and the United States have now imposed similar bans on lead and phthalates in children's products, with the United States acting a few months earlier in the former case and the EU nine years earlier with respect to the latter.

Some differences in European and American risk perceptions and regulations are long-standing. For example, the health risks of traditional or natural food preparations have been accepted in Europe since medieval times. In 1949, the American FDA banned the sale of any milk product unless all of its dairy ingredients had been pasteurized, while the production and sale of cheeses made from unpasteurized milk is permitted in the European Union.

While not every European and American consumer or environmental risk regulation is consistent with a transatlantic shift in regulatory stringency since 1990, a disproportionate number of the consumer and environmental regulations adopted, or not adopted, on either side of the Atlantic during the last five decades do fit this pattern. For roughly three decades, relatively few important risk regulations adopted by either individual European countries or the EU were more stringent than those of the American federal government. But since 1990, a significant number of important risk regulations adopted by the EU fall into this category.

In some cases, such as chemical regulation and restrictions on ozone-depleting substances, there has been a literal "flip flop," with the United States and the EU switching places with respect to the adoption of more stringent and comprehensive regulations. But more commonly, the more stringent regulations adopted by the EU since around 1990 address risks that were not previously regulated on either side of the Atlantic. Recent European regulations are likely to be more stringent and often more precautionary than those of the United States for those health, safety, and environmental risks that have emerged or become more salient since around 1990, such as global climate change, genetically modified food and agriculture, antibiotics in animal feed, hazardous materials in e-waste, and chemicals in cosmetics.

International Environmental Agreements

The transatlantic shift in regulatory stringency and global leadership is reflected in changes in the pattern of support for international environmental treaties. Beginning in the 1970s, the United States and the member states of the EU closely cooperated in the establishment of numerous environmental agreements, with the United States often playing a leadership role. At the 1972 Stockholm United Nations international conference on the environment, the United States was "a strong proponent of international action to protect the environment." The United States played a critical role in the negotiations that led to the adoption of the London Convention on Dumping at Sea (1972), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Fauna (1973), the decision of the International Whaling Commission to ban commercial whaling (1984), and the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Chemicals (1987).

The 1992 Rio "Earth Summit" marks a shift in global regulatory leadership from the United States to the EU. While every major environmental agreement supported by the United States has been ratified by the member states of the EU and/or the EU itself, since the early 1990s the United States has not ratified twelve important international environmental agreements ratified by the EU and/or its member states. These include the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

The Shifting Pattern of Transatlantic Trade Disputes

The shift in transatlantic regulatory stringency is also evident in the changing pattern of European-American trade disputes. The earlier wave of disputes over the use of protective regulations as non-tariff trade barriers (NTBs) between Europe and the United States primarily involved European challenges to, or complaints about, the barriers to transatlantic commerce created by more stringent American regulatory standards. The EU and/or various European governments filed formal complaints with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) over the excise tax provisions of the 1986 Superfund reauthorization, the American secondary boycott of tuna imports from Spain and Italy (which was based on the Marine Mammal Protection Amendments of 1984 and 1988), and American corporate fuel economy standards (CAFE), which were adopted in 1975 and amended in 1980. European officials were also highly critical of the testing requirements for new chemicals adopted by the United States in 1976.

However, more recent transatlantic regulatory-related trade disputes have revolved primarily around American complaints about the trade barriers posed by more stringent European regulations. In 1996, the United States filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) that challenged the legality of the EU's ban on the sale of beef from cattle to whom growth hormones had been administered, which was applied to American beef imports in 1989. In 2003, the United States filed a complaint with the WTO challenging the EU's procedures for the approval of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as the unwillingness of some member states to permit GMO varieties approved by the European Commission. In 2009, the American government filed a complaint with the WTO over the EU's refusal to permit imports of processed poultry treated with anti-bacterial chemicals such as chlorine dioxide, a processing method that differed from the method required by the EU in 1997.

American officials and firms have also complained to the EU about the obstacles to transatlantic commerce posed by a wide range of other European consumer and environmental regulations, including its ban on the milk hormone rBST, its ban on human-use antibiotics as growth promoters in livestock feed, its electronic recycling requirements and bans on hazardous toxic substances in electronics, and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), the EU's stricter and more comprehensive chemical approval and testing regulation adopted in 2006. The latter statute was strongly opposed by American government officials and American-based chemical firms. American-based airlines have also objected to the 2008 decision of the EU to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of foreign airlines that take off and land in Europe.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Politics of Precautionby David Vogel Copyright © 2012 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Princeton Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0691124167
• ISBN 13: 9780691124162
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero di pagine: 317
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile