Environmental disasters as risk regulation catalysts? The role of Bhopal, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, Love Canal, and Three Mile Island in shaping U.S. environmental law

Abstract

Unexpected events such as environmental catastrophes capture wide public attention. Soon after five major shocks—Three Mile Island, Love Canal, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill—Congress voted on new risk regulation. This paper conducts an event study to test whether individual congressional representatives were “shocked” by these environmental disasters into increasing their probability of voting in favor of risk legislation. On average, representatives were less likely to vote in favor of bills tied to these five events. Significant heterogeneity in representatives’ responses to these shocks is documented. Liberal Northeast representatives were most likely to increase their pro-environment voting in the aftermath of these shocks. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Risk, Regulation, Disasters, Voting, D62, I18, L51,

Of Dreamliners and Drinking Water: Developing Risk Regulation and a Safety Culture for Direct Potable Reuse

“…In many cases of catastrophic technology failures, the technology and its inherent safety systems functioned without issue, while the interfaces with human actors failed in unpredictable ways (Leveson 2004). Emblematic examples include accidents at Bhopal or Three Mile Island (Kahn 2007) or the crash of Air France flight 447 (BEA 2012).…”

Long run trends in energy-related external costs

“…It also suggests that often environmental legislation does require extreme situations to intensify the pressure on government to introduce bills associated with the environment -and, therefore, act as a conduit between the demand and supply. However, government may not necessarily address the main causes, receive the support needed in parliament or enforce legislation once introduced (Kahn 2007). Consequently, the market and government often leaves the outcome of environmental problems to a mix of poorly understood partially exogenous and partially endogenous forces.…”

Does Media Coverage Affect Governments’ Preparation for Natural Disasters?

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