Over the last quarter century, much of the focus of federal regulatory policy in the areas of health, safety, and the environment has been gradually redirected away from protecting Americans against various harms and toward protecting corporate interests from the plain meaning of protective statutes. This book, edited by Christopher Schroeder and Rena Steinzor, delivers precisely what its title promises, a re-imagining of federal policy in these areas, with particular focus on the regulatory process. It identifies the failings of the current approach to regulation and proposes innovative, straightforward, and practical solutions for the 21st Century. The 2004 book was a seminal collaboration among the Member Scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform (then called the Center for Progressive Regulation).
The authors embrace an agenda built on three principles:
First, activities that harm people and the environment – even those routine to our way of life and economy – should be made as safe and clean as possible, certainly to the extent that they do not cause illness or death.
Second, optimism and confidence are necessary with respect to the technology and human ingenuity required to reduce risks to satisfactory levels, up to and including the belief that entirely new technologies can be developed to accomplish old functions at an affordable price.
Third, government at the national, state, and local levels has a crucial role to play in preserving collective values and protecting the public interest via lawmaking and enforcement.
The book is available on Amazon.
