Analyzing policy change: the greening of the Department of Energy

Abstract

Policy change has become an increasingly important topic in political science. Analyzing policy change is important not only for illustrating the evolution of a particular policy issue, but also for explaining larger changes in the American political process. Recent work by a variety of scholars has focused on the issue of policy change, and particularly, changes in previously stable policy monopolies (Baumgartner and Jones 1991, 1993, Bosso 1987, Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993, Thurber 1991). This paper applies a model of policy change to examine how the Department of Energy (DOE), a key element of the U.S. defense establishment, came to comply with environmental protection policies after decades of neglect. During the Cold War (1946-1991), the primary mission of the DOE and its predecessor agencies (in particular the Atomic Energy Commission) was the production and testing of nuclear weapons. These activities occurred at a number of sites and facilities scattered across the country and were conducted with little regard to environmental, safety, or health concerns. Despite the emergence of a number of environmental statutes that contained explicit provisions covering federal facilities, the AEC and DOE maintained a policy of self-regulation. These policies resulted in widespread environmental contamination at dozens of facilities across the country. Environmental protection at nuclear weapons production sites was practically nonexistent from the 1940s until the 1980s. Within a short period of time, the federal government was compelled to adopt environmental protection policies and embark on environmental restoration and site cleanup. The cleanup activities are characterized by openness with the public and outside regulators, and the inclusion of players previously excluded from the policymaking process. Explaining how this rapid turn of events came about is the subject of this paper. This paper will examine nuclear weapons production policy change using a model proposed by Baumgartner and Jones (1993). The authors argue that the interaction of policy images (the ideas and values concerning a policy) and the venues of policy action (institutions which have policy making authority) can lead to rapid policy change even after years of stability. This study will employ a variety of data to examine the interaction of image and venue, along with the events and processes that created, maintained, and ultimately led to the collapse of the nuclear weapons production policy monopoly.