Open for Business ─ Conservatives' Opposition to Environmental Regulation

Since the 1970s, conservative activists have invoked free markets and distrust of thefederal government as part of a concerted effort to roll back environmental regulations. They havepromoted a powerful antiregulatory storyline to counter environmentalists' scenario of a fragileearth in need of protection, mobilized grassroots opposition, and mounted creative legal challengesto environmental laws. But what has been the impact of all this activity on policy? In this book,Judith Layzer offers a detailed and systematic analysis of conservatives' prolonged campaign todismantle the federal regulatory framework for environmental protection.

Examiningconservatives' influence from the Nixon era to the Obama administration, Layzer describes a set ofincreasingly sophisticated tactics--including the depiction of environmentalists as extremistelitists, a growing reliance on right-wing think tanks and media outlets, the cultivation ofsympathetic litigators and judges, and the use of environmentally friendly language to describepotentially harmful activities. She argues that although conservatives have failed to repeal orrevamp any of the nation's environmental statutes, they have influenced the implementation of thoselaws in ways that increase the risks we face, prevented or delayed action on newly recognizedproblems, and altered the way Americans think about environmental problems and their solutions.Layzer's analysis sheds light not only on the politics of environmental protection but also, moregenerally, on the interaction between ideas and institutions in the development of policy.