Baptists and Bootleggers Paper PDF

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Baptists and Bootleggers Paper...

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Summary of Bootleggers and Baptists in Retrospect by Bruce Yandle In his paper, Bruce Yandle introduces the economic concept of Bootleggers and Baptists, which is developed from the observation that regulations are advocated for by people that want the perceived purpose of the regulation and by people that benefit from undermining that purpose. Yandle explains why industries support the government’s decision to pass commandand-control regulations instead of their decision to utilize incentive based regulations or allow common law settle issues. As mentioned in the article, since specification standards typically set stricter boundaries for new and developing plants in comparison to existing ones, a cartel-like advantage occurs for the producers currently in the market. The individuals in the market who already utilize a particular technology and may even hold a patent for it, called “bootleggers”, are not likely to support performance standards because they are beneficial for competitive and innovating firms that are looking for the most inexpensive route towards environmental control. Also, common law is not favored because judges can be very unpredictable and they could make decisions that shut down polluters. As the author said in the article, “industries with national markets cannot create cartels around common law.” Yandle is essentially saying that federal command-and-control regulation leads to “uniform, entry-inhibiting standards” that are beneficial to older sources. The backing behind this idea are grandfather clauses, methods for new source performance evaluation and distinct conditions for new and old sources. These differential requirements for all sources, grandfather clauses, procedures for review, and technology standards are signs that bootleggers and Baptists are at work. The story of bootleggers and Baptists applies to environmental regulation in many different ways. Politicians need to appeal to popular icons because political action is always intended to serve particular interest groups. The “Baptist” appeal allows politicians to make

voters feel better by advocating for socially accepted values in the voting booth. These politicians are also able to gain the backing of the “bootleggers” during their costly struggle to maintain their position in office. Both Baptists and bootleggers are complements of each other. There have been many examples of environmental regulation in the past where we have witnessed Baptists and bootleggers. Some examples given by the article include the infamous scrubber regulations of 1977 Clean Air Act, the effort to protect the northern spotted owl in the early 1990s, the Kyoto protocol in 1997 and even the consumer groups that are helping major pharmaceutical corporations by courageously supporting a watchful FDA approval process. The majority of environmental regulations consist of some type of Baptists and bootleggers. In an environmental context, there will be a politician who will speak about regulations that enhance the environment, but will be compensated by individuals that look to profit from the new laws. Negative environmental policies are able to still be around because people tend to vote for policies that sound good over policies may truly make a difference. Environmental policy is aimed at creating regulations that help the environment, but ends up being a ploy for policies that shield certain industries....