by Lynn Scarlett

About the author: Lynn Scarlett is the vice president for research at the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles public policy research organization that advocates free- market principles.

The 25th anniversary of Earth Day came and went in 1995, with little fanfare and no public demand for more environmental laws. The new Republican Congress tried, and mostly failed, to enact reforms designed to lessen the burden of environmental regulation. Behind the scenes and in public forums, various schools of environmental reform debated and discussed. They talked cost-benefit analysis and “takings” compensation, emissions trading and “winwin” environmentalism. They disagreed about many things, including basic principles. But there was general consensus about two ideas: that environmental goals are important, and that the current structure of regulation isn’t that great.

Setting Environmental Policy Right