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Papers by Kathryn Harrison

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Technology in Society, 1986

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 1995

In recent years, a number of authors have been critical of the adversarial U.S. "regulatory style... more In recent years, a number of authors have been critical of the adversarial U.S. "regulatory style," and have expressed interest in more cooperative regulatory approaches common in Western Europe. They have argued that the inflexible, deterrence-based approach that has characterized enforcement of U.S. health, safety, and environmental laws is not only inefficient in treating minor and significant violations equally, but counterproductive in fostering antagonistic relationships between regulators and the regulated. This article examines the effectiveness of the cooperative Canadian approach to enforcement of environmental regulations, using the pulp and paper industry as a case study. The resulting levels of compliance are compared with rates of compliance in the United States for the same industry. Significantly lower rates of compliance in Canada cast doubt on the growing consensus in favor of cooperative regulatory approaches. 222 / Canadian Environmental Enforcement charge standards, with responsibility for enforcement falling primarily on subnational governments. However, Canadian federal and provincial governments' approach to enforcement is closer to the cooperative European model . Examination of the Canadian experience with enforcement of environmental regulations thus provides an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the cooperative approach to regulatory enforcement.

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2003

In the last decade, voluntary efforts by firms to reduce their environmental impacts have receive... more In the last decade, voluntary efforts by firms to reduce their environmental impacts have received increasing attention from both policymakers and scholars. This article discusses polluters' incentives to reduce their releases. In particular, using data from Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory, it examines the impacts of conventional regulation, threats of regulation, and non-governmental pressures facilitated by public dissemination of information about pollutant releases. The vast majority of reductions reported to the inventory to date were found not to be voluntary, as has often been assumed, but are, rather, the result of direct regulation of a relatively small number of polluters. Strong effects of federal regulation were found among other sources, as well, with much weaker responses to the mere threat of regulation. However, of concern are the growth of less visible waste streams-such as land disposal and underground injection-as well as transfers of wastes to other communities. Finally, evidence is reported that some waste streams are increasing in toxicity, an effect that may outweigh the benefits of reductions in releases.

Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 2009

This article seeks to explain why US environmental policy has increasingly focused on children&#x... more This article seeks to explain why US environmental policy has increasingly focused on children's environmental health while this frame has not had the same impact on either the political agenda or policy outputs in Canada. This contrast is striking since the literature on issue definition and agenda setting suggests that redefining environmental issues in terms of a valence issue like children's health should be a promising strategy for politicians in both countries. We argue that Canada's less enthusiastic embrace of children's environmental health is a function of the institutional context, in particular fewer opportunities for policy entrepreneurship in a parliamentary government than within the US separation of powers; distinctive policy legacies in the two countries that created an opportunity to advance children's environmental health in the US but deterred it in Canada; and different opportunity structures for non-governmental actors, which prompted US environmentalists to frame their campaigns in terms of children sooner than did their Canadian counterparts. The study illustrates the value of cross-national studies of agenda setting in highlighting the influence of political institutions on issue definition.

Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue Canadienne d`Economique, 2003

We investigate the empirical evidence that firms abate their pollution in response to green consu... more We investigate the empirical evidence that firms abate their pollution in response to green consumerism facilitated by dissemination of information through toxic release inventories. Lacking direct observational data on the extent of green consumerism, we construct an indirect method to elicit its effect on pollution abatement. Assuming that environmentally-motivated consumers cannot attribute pollution to individual goods produced by a multi-product firm, but rather reduce their demand across all product lines of the firm, we identify green consumerism through intra-firm inter-plant spillover effects in pollution abatement. We anticipate that such "environmentally-leveraged" companies will reduce emissions by more than non-leveraged companies when they are exposed to consumer markets. We test predictions from a simple partial-equilibrium model with 1993-99 panel data from Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) in conjunction with related census data. We adjust our analysis for the toxicity of pollutants. Our empirical results find indirect evidence of green consumerism. However, we cannot distinguish between the extent to which measured effects can be attributed to actual green purchasing behaviour of consumers or mere anticipation of such behaviour by companies.

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 1999

A ®eld release of a genetically engineered microorganism was performed at the Field Lysimeter Sit... more A ®eld release of a genetically engineered microorganism was performed at the Field Lysimeter Site on the Oak Ridge Reservation. Six large lysimeters were ®lled with soil that had been contaminated with a mixture of naphthalene, phenanthrene, and anthracene. A genetically engineered bacterial strain, Pseudomonas uorescens HK44, was sprayed onto the surface of the soil during soil loading. This strain contains a fusion between the lux genes of Vibrio ®scheri and the promoter for the lower pathway of naphthalene degradation, enabling the strain to become bioluminescent when it is degrading naphthalene. Release of the bacteria outside the lysimeters was monitored, using selective agar plates and one-stage Anderson air samplers. Although approximately 10 14 bacteria were sprayed during the loading process, escape was only detected sporadically; the highest incidence of bacterial escape was found when the relative humidity and wind speed were low.

In recent years, governments throughout the world have expressed growing interest in cooperative ... more In recent years, governments throughout the world have expressed growing interest in cooperative approaches to environmental protection, including negotiated rulemaking, flexible approaches to enforcement, and voluntary codes and agreements. It is often argued that cooperative approaches are more cost effective, more conducive to innovation, and better able to promote fundamental attitudinal change than traditional "command and control" regulation. However, the overly broad term "cooperative approaches" fails to acknowledge fundamental differences among these novel policies, including distinctions between mandatory and voluntary programs and between those that involve bipartite negotiations between government and business and those that invite participation by a broader range of interests. This ar ticle analyzes these cooperative approaches first by offering a framework to distinguish among various cooperative policy instruments. Second, the article critically examines theoretical arguments and empirical evidence concerning one class of cooperative approaches, voluntary challenges and agreements. The most striking finding is how little we know about the effectiveness of voluntary approaches. This is a function not only of the quite recent experience with these approaches, but also of more fundamental inattention to program evaluation and obstacles to evaluation inherent in voluntary programs. The article concludes with a call for a more rigorous program of research to examine the effectiveness of the new policy instruments and to compare them with traditional regulation and market-based incentives.

Canadian Public Policy, 1994

Pour des bâtiments durables. Guide et outils de programmation (Références CERTU N° 102, avec CD-R... more Pour des bâtiments durables. Guide et outils de programmation (Références CERTU N° 102, avec CD-ROM) La méthode et les moyens qu'un maître d'ouvrage se donne pour réussir la programmation d'un projet de construction est la condition indispensable pour réussir ...

In 2001, President George W. Bush confirmed that the US would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Desp... more In 2001, President George W. Bush confirmed that the US would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Despite the US&amp;#39; withdrawal, its neighbor Canada chose to ratify the Kyoto Protocol the following year. The divergence of these two highly integrated countries is surprising, since Canada and the US accepted comparable commitments in the 1997 Kyoto negotiations, and both could expect the

Global Environmental Politics, 2015