Overcoming bureaucratic silos? Environmental policy integration in the Obama administration

ABSTRACT

Environmental policy in the United States (US) is known for its media-specific approach to problems, and scholars have argued that this is ineffective. To combat these problems, some have argued for a more coordinated, integrated approach to policymaking. With Congressional gridlock prohibiting legislative solutions, the Obama administration offers some examples of a regulatory path to policy integration. Importantly, these efforts do not entail significant organizational remodels, which can be difficult to adopt. Three different ‘types’ of policy integration from the US Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management are described. These cases serve as a potential roadmap for broader implementation of policy integration within the fragmented US bureaucracy.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• environmental policy
• integration
• United States
• bureaucracy
• regulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Policy integration entails potential tradeoffs stemming from the need to negotiate among multiple actors, goal displacement, and delay in making decisions among others (Wilson 1989, Shalala 1998, Gilad 2015).

2. One reason why the Obama administration pursued this regulatory approach was the failure of comprehensive climate change legislation in Congress (Klyza and Sousa 2013).