Beyond Environmental Regulatory Fragmentation: Signs of Integration in the Case of the Great Lakes Basin

Abstract

Environmental regulatory fragmentation along the medium boundaries of air, land, and water in Canada and the United States serves to skiff pollutants from medium to medium rather than contain or eliminate them. This pattern is particularly evident in the Great Lakes Basin where many of the most pressing environmental problems stem from pollutant transfer across medium or jurisdictional lines. The impediments to more integrated environmental regulation remain considerable in the Basin, and include the enduring single‐medium orientation of federal programs and limitations of state, provincial, or regional innovation. Nonetheless, there is growing indication that regulatory integration need not be dismissed as a theoretical nicety but political impossibility. A series of recent developments indicate a shift toward greater integration in the Basin, prompted in large part by environmental policy professionals who increasingly recognize the limitations of current approaches and are willing to devise alternatives. These developments are occurring at the regional as well as state and provincial levels, and they give far greater definition than ever before to the idea of integrated environmental regulation.