The trend toward civic environmentalism is unstoppable. Citizens do demand answers that fit local conditions. New monitoring technologies help supply the information needed to measure performance and ensure accountability. Congress may be ready to invest billions of federal budget surpluses in protecting lands and water. But there is a long way to go.
Statutes offer little encouragement to customized local problem-solving.
Engineers and lawyers skilled in drafting and defending detailed prescriptive regulations still dominate agencies. The challenge to environmental agencies and to advocates of second generation environmental governance is to explain how to fit the good cop and the bad cop into the same system. For example, flexibility includes devolution to states, but states collect most data and they need different kinds of data than federal regulators need to ensure states do not abuse flexibility. So EPA must simultaneously command and devolve. It is liberating to uncover a new way of addressing public concerns.