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Series Foreword The numerous illegal activities by leaders of some of America’s largest corporations at the turn of the century undermined the trust and confidence the public had in private firms and the ability of corporations to promote social responsibility was understandably questioned. More recently, the failure of large banks and investment firms, the enormous bonuses their top executives continue to receive, and the Bernard Madoff scandal have also led to increased cynicism concerning the true willingness of companies to promote the public good. Clearly, public trust in American business has significantly eroded over the past decade as a result of the unparalleled charges leveled against once highly respected companies and their executives and the flood of media coverage that has accompanied government action. The decline in public confidence in corporate America has the potential to spill over into important policy areas, such as environmental policy, and to color government actions in those issue areas. Despite these incidents, firms continue to ask the government to end direct command-and-control regulation and trust them to select the most costeffective methods and equipment to abate pollution and manage natural resources. Business leaders believe this can be accomplished by instituting market-based mechanisms and voluntary action programs. Many large firms now support efforts to improve environmental quality and are willing to change certain practices in order to achieve that end. Environmentalists , however, continue to complain that corporations are not sincere, only care about profits, and will not cease polluting or wasting natural resources unless forced to do so by government. This outstanding book written by Michael Kraft, Mark Stephan, and Troy Abel investigates how the process of information disclosure, an approach that requires minimal direct government intervention, works and the effects it has on environmental performance within companies viii Series Foreword and on the localities within which their facilities are located. The theory behind this strategy is that firms will consciously make an effort to reduce pollution if they know ahead of time that they will have to disclose publicly the amount of pollution they generate. Firms will do everything they can to avoid this kind of negative attention and publicity. Specifically, this book analyzes the federal Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program to explore how industrial facilities throughout the country have tried “to come clean” in two interrelated ways: to disclose key information to the public about the management and release of toxic chemicals and the health and environmental risks they pose to surrounding communities, and to use that information to reduce the amount of pollution being generated. The investigation seeks to find out how much success the TRI program has achieved in both respects. Among the major research questions the book addresses are: How has the disclosure of such information made a difference within the community and state, and how has compliance with the TRI program affected company management of toxic chemicals? The book also seeks to uncover how changes in the control of toxic chemicals have come about, that is, the mechanisms by which the collection and disclosure of information affects community and corporate decision making. Finally, the authors examine what the program’s accomplishments suggest about the potential for information disclosure as an environmental policy strategy. Kraft et al. focus on the TRI program because it is an excellent example of what most observers refer to as a federal, non-regulatory environmental policy. The TRI imposes mandatory reporting requirements on affected facilities and, in that respect, it shares at least one characteristic of other environmental policies that are considered to be regulatory. Yet the program does not include the regulatory apparatus of command and control that accompanies conventional environmental policies such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Because it is so different from traditional environmental regulatory approaches, the effects it has had since its adoption in 1986 speak to the broader question of how information disclosure might be used to achieve environmental objectives at a time when confidence in industry, in general, and in conventional command-and-control regulation, in particular, has weakened. Policy analysts across the political spectrum have called for consideration of a range of new approaches to environmental policy, from market incentives to flexible regulation. This ongoing debate highlights the need to learn more about how well present policies are working and what might be expected of new strategies that are widely supported today. [18.119.107.161] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 18:05 GMT...

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