Participation in US Regulatory Process: A Comparative Perspective

Professor Wagner is a leading authority on the use of science by environmental policy-makers. Her research focuses on the intersection of law and science, with particular attention to environmental policy. She has served on two National Academies of Science committees, the Bipartisan Policy Center Committee on Regulatory Science and currently serves as consultant to the Administrative Conference of the US on a project on the agencies' use of science. She is also a Member Scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform. See below for a short abstract of the paper that she will be presenting. 

The administrative processes of the U.S. and E.U. are generally considered quite different from one another, due in large part to the legal formalism of U.S. participatory requirements. A close examination of the practical operation of administrative law in the U.S., however, reveals ways in which the two systems may not be quite so different after all. This chapter argues that the cumulative work-arounds and structural limitations in U.S. administrative law produce a substantial gap between the written rules of the game, which endeavor to enhance agency accountability, and the unwritten incentives that can lead to skewed participation and influence by limited sets of privileged interests. While the U.S. system does provide important rights and guarantees to regulatory participants, these guarantees can be overshadowed by political pressures and important structural gaps that lead to inadequate inclusion of the concerns of affected interests. The chapter concludes by suggesting that rather than export U.S. administrative processes to the E.U., as is sometimes suggested, the U.S. might benefit from the infusion of E.U. administrative innovations into its own system.