Broadly defined, voluntary environmental programs grew out of this view that
environmental laws, however effective at reducing industrial emissions, were not designed
with the best interests of businesses in mind. Many believed that pejoratively named
“command and control” regulations, where specific environmental performance outcomes or
particular pollution control technologies are prescribed, did not take into consideration the
needs and capabilities of individual businesses and therefore imposed unnecessary costs and
burdensome reporting requirements. After efforts by the Reagan administration to
systematically dismantle environmental regulations failed in the 1980s, industry officials and
thinkers from the new right began to devise and propose new “market-based” methods for
controlling pollution that used different sets of incentives to provide greater flexibility to
firms attempting to meet targets and achieve environmental improvements (Andrews 1998).
One strain of this thinking evolved into the innovative “cap and trade” programs, such as the
1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the other evolved into the voluntary self-regulatory
programs with a management-based approach. So-called management-based approaches
represent a new generation of policy tools that provide a more flexible and less costly way to
achieve environmental protection that is more palatable to industry (Coglianese and Nash