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ENVIRONMENTAL ABC’S—ACTING ON BEHALF OF CHILDREN:
RETHINKING REPRESENTATION, RISK, AND RESPONSIBILITY
IN U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
by
Denise McCain-Tharnstrom
__________________________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICAL SCIENCE)
December 2008
Copyright 2008 Denise McCain-Tharnstrom
Object Description
| Title | Environmental ABC's -- acting on behalf of children: rethinking representation, risk and responsibility in US environmental policy implementation |
| Author | McCain-Tharnstrom, Denise |
| Author email | denmct@aol.com; denmct@aol.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Political Science |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-10-16 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-12-09 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Renteln, Alison Dundes |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Crigler, Ann N. Kaufman, Fran |
| Abstract | Children are uniquely vulnerable to environmental pollutants due to their small size, developing bodies, and immature metabolism. In 1996, in recognition of the need for government to provide strong safeguards to protect children's health, the Clinton Administration took the unprecedented step of requiring federal agencies to consider children's health within the environmental policy processes. Locating responsibility for the implementation of Executive Order 13045 (EO), the National Children's Agenda, and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Children's Health Protection within the executive branch, the White House assumed a unique responsibility to represent children's environmental health interests.; Using a child-centered frame of analysis, this dissertation seeks to understand what happens when important representation questions are left to agency discretion. EPA records, reports, testimony and personal interviews form the basis for this study, along with media accounts, interest group records, and interviews. Using implementation analysis, the political processes and policy outcomes were studied between 1997 and 2007. The findings respond to the following questions: (a) How successful were the EO, the National Agenda, and the OCHP in achieving their stated goals? (b) How successful were the three initiatives in representing children's health interests in the environmental policy process? and (c) Where the 1996 and 1997 policies were unable to meet their goals and/or provide a high level of representation of children's health interest, what accounts for the failure?; The three policies demonstrated mild to moderate success at achieving their stated goals under the Clinton Administration. However, a vastly different picture emerges under the Bush Administration. Institutional design flaws, agency cultural resistance, and overt lack of White House support constrained the ability of each policy to provide adequate protection of children's interest within the EPA policymaking process. The data demonstrate the chilling effect of a White House that affirmatively acts to control agency or office outputs. Equally troubling are the indicators that science has been radically politicized. These findings suggest that, in the absence of strong procedural safeguards, interest representation is too easily compromised where left to agency discretion. |
| Keyword | environmental policy; environmental risks to children; children's health; representation; Executive Order 13045; EPA; Office of Children's Health Protection; policy implementation; National Children's Agenda; FQPA; bureacracy; child-centered policy analysis; lead; Children's Health Advisory Committee |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA |
| Coverage date | 1996/2007 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1893 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | McCain-Tharnstrom, Denise |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-McCainTharnstrom-2489 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume48/etd-McCainTharnstrom-2489.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | ENVIRONMENTAL ABC’S—ACTING ON BEHALF OF CHILDREN: RETHINKING REPRESENTATION, RISK, AND RESPONSIBILITY IN U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IMPLEMENTATION by Denise McCain-Tharnstrom __________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (POLITICAL SCIENCE) December 2008 Copyright 2008 Denise McCain-Tharnstrom |
