Enforcing the environment: regulatory realities
通过访谈环保官员，揭示他们在模糊法律框架下如何运用自由裁量权、与工业界谈判，以及面临可持续性目标难以落实的困境，对理解强制性环境监管的实际运作有参考价值。
This paper explores mandatory environmental regulation of industry through the eyes of the regulator. While there is much written about the salutary effects of environmental law on industry, we are only just beginning to appreciate how, in practice, this operates and the extent to which the regulatory official is a key actor in the process. The paper reports on a qualitative study of environmental agency officials – their values, their attitudes toward industrial operators, pressures from environmental groups and the manner in which they interpret and apply axioms of environmental law. Their technicist, ‘shallow green’ perspective is revealed as they attempt to make regulatory deals. Their interpretative discretion is considerable in the face of a highly ambiguous legal framework, and much uncertainty about the limits of their power. Major features of legislative control, such as towards sustainability, are regarded as unworkable, and prosecution is experienced as a blunt weapon. The implications of the findings for the regulatory official and for the wider role of mandatory regulation are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment