2017 · 24 citations · 0 references
Open access
Recent frustration with the scope and pace of environmental legislative reform in the United States has prompted suggestions that the federal government incorporate parliamentary methods, like those used in Canada, to decrease the number and scale of veto points and more readily pass environmental protections.This Article argues that the United States should be extremely cautious about adopting such reforms.While the Canadian approach to legislating in this field may be more certain and efficient than that of the United States, that approach can just as easily be used to diminish environmental protections as to enhance them.Advocacy for such reforms assumes that the central characteristics of environmental legislation in the United States-specific legislative commands, limits on executive power, and agency accountability-are a product of cultural norms resulting from political distrust and will therefore remain stable influences in legislative drafting.The authors argue that it would be more accurate to attribute these central characteristics to endogenous factors related to the U.S. presidential system, rather than political culture.Using both a quantitative and qualitative comparative assessment of Canadian and U.S. legislation, the authors conclude that while both countries use similar types of statutes to ensure environmental protections, their unique political systems structure their content and use differently.