Developing a Regulatory Bureaucracy - The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement

• NCJ Number: 87585
• Author(s): N Shover; D A Clelland; J Lynxwiler
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 124 pages
• Grant Number(s): 80-IJ-CX-0017
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Corporate Author: University of Tennessee
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This document reports the results of research on the development and impact of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) during its first 5 years of operation. The research focused on the entire regulatory process.

Abstract

The text discusses two ideal-typical polar types of regulatory styles: enforced compliance and negotiated compliance. The regulatory program developed by OSM during its first 2 years approximated the former type. The agency's development of the enforced compliance style was a response to four sets of constraints: the nature of the agency's enabling statute, political forces, ideological premises held by influential members of the agency's initial leadership corps, and shortage of resources, especially time, during the agency's formative months. The report analyzes the agency's promulgated regulations and notes that an enforcement style more like negotiated compliance was developed in one of the agency's five regional offices. This region is compared with another in order to develop an explanation of how local conditions shape a national regulatory program. The report also examines the operation of the OSM's inspection and enforcement program. It discusses the agency's gradual softening of its regulatory stance after the first 2 years, and changes that occurred after President Reagan's appointees took office. About 170 references are provided. (Author abstract modified)