Does Consensus Make Common Sense? An Analysis of EPA's Common Sense Initiative

Abstract

Promising to cut through regulatory red tape, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1994 launched a four-year initiative that brought together representatives from industrial sectors to develop and institute “cleaner, cheaper, and smarter” approaches to environmental pollution control. But the Common Sense Initiative failed because of one key factor: EPA's reliance on consensus as a decision rule. Ten years later, as the Wall Street Journal welcomes new EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt as someone who will build a “new, common-sense environmental consensus,” this review of EPA's Common Sense Initiative questions whether consensus really does make sense.