Essays on state -of -the -art environmental policy tools

Alternative approaches to traditional environmental regulation are the focus of this dissertation. The past decades have seen substantial effort to evaluate alternative policy tools to supplement, or where appropriate, replace traditional environmental regulatory approaches. The goal is more flexible and effective methods to obtain greater environmental protection at lower cost to both government and the regulated community.;This dissertation includes three primary chapters. Chapter II is titled "EPA's Environmental Stewardship Initiative: Attempting to Revitalize a Floundering Regulatory Reform Agenda." This chapter examines several quasi-regulatory policy tools in the guise of environmental regulatory "reinvention" initiatives begun by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clinton administration. This chapter updates the literature regarding EPA's efforts to "reinvent" environmental regulatory policy through the end of the Clinton administration's final term. The chapter further undertakes the first major analysis of EPA's "environmental stewardship initiative"---a collection of policy instruments intended to revitalize the Clinton administration's environmental regulatory reform agenda.;Chapter III is titled "Corporate Environmental Reporting as Informational Regulation: A Law and Economics Perspective." This chapter focuses on a specific alternative policy instrument---information disclosure---and examines utilizing the growing industry trend of formal corporate environmental reporting as a means to potentially expand the use and effectiveness of information disclosure as an environmental protection policy tool. This chapter undertakes the first major analysis of whether the industry trend of voluntary formal corporate environmental reporting---especially the leading model of the Global Reporting Initiative---is appropriate for use in building mandatory informational regulatory policy tools.;Chapter IV is titled "EPA's HPV Challenge Program: A Tort Liability Trap?" This chapter focuses on a specific example of an alternative policy tool utilized by EPA---a voluntary challenge program known as the HPV Challenge Program---and examines potential legal and policy consequences of voluntary industry participation in this program. This chapter identifies an important unintended consequence of voluntary participation in the HPV Challenge Program likely to have negative repercussions on both program volunteers and EPA's future use of collaborative policy tools in formulating and implementing environmental protection policy.