Environmental Policy and Politics

Product Description
For more than twenty years, Environmental Policy and Politics has kept instructors and students abreast of the challenges presented by contemporary environmental, energy, and natural resource problems in the United States. Now in its eighth edition, Michael E. Kraft has updated his definitive text to capture the changing nature of environmental problems as well as policy proposals made through 2020. Drawing from work within environmental science, policy analysis, and political science, this text continues to help readers think critically about how best to address problems through a variety of public policy tools and strategies at all levels of government.
Important updates to this new edition include:
• The latest information about environmental challenges and governmental responses to them, with extensive citation of key sources and websites.
• Key political and policy decisions through late 2020, including presidential appointments, budgetary decisions, major legislative initiatives, and congressional actions.
• New learning objectives to facilitate student understanding of key concepts and their applications, arguments advanced over environmental challenges and policies, and the goals and methods of environmental policy analysis.
• Coverage of new topics that have emerged during the Trump presidency, including the Clean Power Plan repeal and reduction of environmental regulation, climate change, land conservation, changes in natural resources policies, and a comparison of the Republican and Democratic positions on climate change in 2020.
• Updated summaries of scientific studies, government reports, and policy analyses.
• Revised discussion questions and new suggested readings.
Environmental Policy and Politics is an essential resource for upper level undergraduate and graduate students in political science and environmental studies looking for an accessible, well-researched, and up-to-date text, written with style and flair.
Review
"A more profound changing of the guard in environmental protection has seldom been experience in the half century since the start of the modern environmental era. The election of Joe Biden as President of the United States has signalled a dramatic reversal in the four years of Trump administration gutting of US commitments to national and global climate change and the rolling back numerous federal pollution reducing requirements in water, land and for the air we breathe. The question remains, to what extent will the Biden presidency not only reverse but enhance US environmental policy? The answer will not come easily. A starting point is understanding the goals that have been established over many decades at the national, state, and local level and implementation processes for carrying them out, from the Office of the President to the myriad of state and local policy makers and officials. The new edition of Environmental Policy and Politics by the eminent scholar, Michael Kraft, conveys better than any other text the story of how environmental protection evolved through our democratic and representative processes and the framework for carrying them out at the federal, state, and local level across the nation. The story underscores the enumerable and competing interest engaged in the process, with both significant success and, as with the Trump experience, steps backward. Overall, the book provides the right balance between depth and clarity and is essential reading for students of how environmental policy is made and carried out."
Daniel A. Mazmanian, University of Southern California
"This illuminating book is a must-read for political science majors interested in environmental policy and politics in the United States. It is both highly readable and informative and gives the reader a well-rounded insight into the complex nature of modern environmentalism and the challenges that it faces today."
Rafal Soborski, The American International University in London