Water Pollution Policies and the American States: Runaway Bureaucracies or Congressional Control?

A fresh perspective on American water pollution policy. In this incisive volume, John A. Hoornbeek provides a comprehensive treatment of American water pollution policy, including its history and implementation, as well as ideas for policy reform. Focusing on Congress’s statutory directions in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act since 1948 and state compliance, he throws into relief the complex and often troubled relationship between the laws enacted by Congress and the public policies produced by state governments that implement them. Compliance at the state level can be affected and sometimes disturbed by national policymaking processes, state politics, and the effects of federal oversight practices. As convincingly demonstrated in these pages, American water pollution policy reflects neither runaway bureaucracies nor congressional control, but rather a complex intergovernmental process that is structured around Congress’s statutory directions.