Key Considerations for the Future of American Environmental Policy

• Author: Michelle C. Pautz
• Date: 01 September 2009
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02050.x
• Published date: 01 September 2009

Book Reviews 985

Key Considerations for the Future of American

Environmental Policy

Michelle C. Pautz

University of Dayton

Michelle C. Pautz is an assistant

professor of political science at the Uni-

versity of Dayton. In addition to teaching

undergraduates, she teaches students in

the MPA program. Her research focuses

on domestic environmental policy, with

a particular emphasis on the interactions

between regulators and the regulated.

Other areas of study include government

reform and accountability.

E-mail: michelle.pautz@notes.udayton.edu

Christopher McGrory Klyza and David Sousa, Ameri-

can Environmental Policy, 1990–2006: Beyond

Gridlock (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008). 385

pp. $28.00 (paper), ISBN: 9780262612203.

Casual observation of Congress in recent years

might lead one to conclude that little is being

accomplished in the realm of environmental

policy. In American Environmental Policy, 1990–2006:

Beyond Gridlock, Christopher McGrory Klyza and

David Sousa explore U.S. environmental policy since

1990 and discover that while there has been legisla-

tive gridlock, there has not been policy gridlock

because environmental policy has been made through

alternative pathways. In their ef‌f orts to investigate

contemporary environmental policy, a secondary goal

for Klyza and Sousa is to determine whether current

policy making ref‌l ects the discussion of “next-genera-

tion” environmental policies—policies that are coop-

erative rather than confrontational, comprehensive

rather than fragmented, and f‌l exible rather than rigid

(Chertow and Esty 1997). Klyza and Sousa succinctly

describe alternative policy pathways and assess them

in light of the emphasis on next-generation policies;