Environmental Markets and Beyond: Three Modest Proposals for the Future of Environmental Law

Abstract

I offer three modest proposals for what we might do to improve environmental law in the United States in the next generation. They are: (1) increased use of nvironmental markets ("cap and trade" or bubble programs) and other incentive-based regulatory instruments; (2) retroactive application of the Chevron decision, which would help to clear out some of the policy underbrush left by overly aggressive past court decisions; and (3) increased use of information production and dissemination as a strategy to stimulate so-called "voluntary" actions to protect the environment.