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Article ID: CBB066968357

Deflated Dreams: The EPA's Bubble Policy and the Politics of Uncertainty in Regulatory Reform (Spring 2019)

Business History Review
Volume: 93
Issue: 1
Pages: 25-49
Publication date: Spring 2019
Language: English

URI: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-history-review/article/deflated-dreams-the-epas-bubble-policy-and-the-politics-of-uncertainty-in-regulatory-reform/CECD5CDF8E1D06170D21BDEBBC91E6B2

DOI: 10.1017/S0007680519000308

Publication Date: Spring 2019
Edition Details: Special Issue: Business and the Environment Revisited

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Environmental pollution Regulation Public policy Environmental policy 20th century United States Reagan, Ronald Carter, Jimmy United States. Environmental Protection Agency

In the late 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the bubble policy as a central part of Jimmy Carter's plan to reform environmental regulations that many believed had grown too proscriptive and too costly for American industry. Since the EPA's formation, regulators had dictated method and means for reducing air pollution. The bubble returned the prerogative to business. But despite bipartisan support, the bubble never took off. Drawing on EPA records and interviews, this article shows how skeptical regulators intentionally made the bubble unwieldy, driving away businesses wary of uncertainty. Though Ronald Reagan's election seemed to lift the bubble's fortunes, his undiscerning assault on the administrative state ironically deflated the EPA's development of a viable alternative to the proscriptive model.

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Article Ann-Kristin Bergquist (Spring 2019) Renewing Business History in the Era of the Anthropocene. Business History Review (pp. 3-24). unapi

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