Making clean air markets work: Lessons from the regulation of acid rain in the United States and the European Union

This dissertation explores the following key research question: Is a national market-based emission trading program an effective means of alleviating the ecosystem damage of acid rain? Ongoing scientific assessment continues to provide knowledge of acid deposition and its effects on sensitive ecosystems such as the New York's Adirondacks. What is now needed is research that connects these scientific assessments with the current regulatory regime of emission trading. This dissertation examines the unique set of challenges necessary to protect ecologically sensitive areas within a national market-based regulatory regime.; In recognition of the difficulty of applying quantitative measures alone to assess the effectiveness of an environmental regulatory regime, a two-phase research design is used. The first phase involves a review of the literature on the development of market-based means for regulating air pollution in the United States. The second and more rigorous phase of this dissertation research involves a multiple case study of the current acid rain regulatory regimes in place in the U.S. and in Europe. The U.S. and Europe have implemented contrasting policies to control the impacts of acidification. In the U.S. the current policy is a market-based national cap and trade approach and in Europe a deposition standard based command and control approach is the accepted regulatory regime.; This research has shown that Title IV's cap and trade approach has met the legal and economic criterion of effectiveness. When considering more normative concerns such as ecosystem recovery and sustainability it is not possible to conclude that Title IV has achieved this criterion. Ecosystem recovery has begun to occur throughout the EU but at this time there is no clear sign of recovery in the US, especially in sensitive ecosystems such as the Adirondacks. Worse yet, EPA and other estimates have concluded that the limits set by Title IV are not likely to allow sufficient recovery in sensitive ecosystems and large future reductions beyond those of full implementation may be required. It appears that Title IV as implemented is not well suited to meet an ecosystem improvement or sustainability effectiveness criterion.