Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs

Michael E. Kraft

Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs

Department of Public and Environmental Affairs

Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Environmental Studies

University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

”Information Disclosure and Environmental Decision Making:Explaining State Variation in Control of Toxic Chemical Releases”

October 4th, 2 pm, Room U-115 (Mineral & Materials Bldg)
Information disclosure programs, such as the federal Toxics Release Inventory, are widely considered to be valuable supplements to conventional environmental regulation. Yet little is known about how such programs work and their long-term success in achieving environmental quality objectives. This presentation reports on initial findings of an NSF-funded research project that examines the effects of the TRI on corporate and community decision making. Specifically, the project seeks to determine why some companies do more to reduce toxic chemical pollution than others and why some communities encourage such pollution reduction more than others.
Data on toxic air releases from nearly 9,000 facilities reporting in both 1991 and 2000 are examined, with special attention on variation in releases and risk reduction across the fifty states. The initial results indicate that most facilities (47 percent) did improve their environmental performance by decreasing both pollution releases and risk levels. However, 30 percent reported declines in environmental performance because of increases in pollution and risk levels. Ultimately, the goal of this research is to identity the variables that most directly affect pollution and risk reduction and by implication improvements in public health. There are implications for a new generation of non-regulatory environmental policies that are often considered to offer a less intrusive, more efficient, and possibly more effective route to environmental quality goals.

Dr. Kraft completed his undergraduate work at the University of California, Riverside, and he received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science from YaleUniversity. He has taught at UW-GreenBay since 1977 and has held visiting faculty appointments at OberlinCollege and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Among other works, he is author of Environmental Policy and Politics (3rd ed., Pearson Longman 2004 ); co-author of Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives (CQ Press 2004); and co-editor and contributing author of Environmental Policy (CQ Press, 5th ed., 2003); Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy (MIT Press, 1999); and Public Reactions to Nuclear Waste: Citizens' Views of Repository Siting (Duke University Press, 1993), among other works. He also serves as co-editor of a book series, American and Comparative Environmental Policy, at MIT Press.
Dr. Kraft is currently at work on a 6th edition of Environmental Policy for CQ Press and an edited collection for MIT Press entitled Business and Environmental Policy. His current research focuses on the effect of the federal Toxics Release Inventory program on corporate and community decision making, which involves an examination of trends in toxic releases and risk reduction at some 10,000 facilities nationwide. This research is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Kraft’s visit is supported by Michigan Tech’s Department of Social Sciences and coordinated by both Social Sciences and the Sustainable Futures Institute. Anyone wishing to meet with Dr. Kraft should contact Dr. Barry Solomon in the Social Sciences Department.