Environmental Policy and Politics

The definitive guide to U.S. environmental, energy, and natural resource politics. Fully updated for its ninth edition, this comprehensive text bridges science and policy through real-world case studies, equipping readers to tackle the most urgent challenges of our time.

Important updates include:

• Comprehensive coverage of key political and policy decisions through late 2026, including presidential appointments, legislative initiatives, budgetary decisions, and congressional actions across multiple administrations.
• Expanded comparisons of environmental, energy, and natural resource policies under the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, with insights into ongoing and emerging policy debates.
• Updated case studies that reflect recent controversies and developments, such as regulatory changes, public land use conflicts, climate policy shifts, and international environmental agreements.
• Revised and enhanced learning objectives at the start of each chapter to guide student understanding of core concepts, policy challenges, and analytical frameworks.
• New abstracts, discussion questions, and suggested readings to deepen engagement and facilitate classroom interaction.
• Improved clarity and flow throughout the text to make complex policy topics accessible to a wide range of students.
• Extensive citation of current scientific studies, government reports, and policy analyses, with resources to support further research.
• A balanced exploration of the partisan divide shaping U.S. environmental policy, illustrating how political dynamics influence policy outcomes.
• Continued integration of environmental science with political and policy analysis to assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches and explore potential future directions.
• Focus on sustainability and global challenges, emphasizing the critical role of state, local, and business initiatives alongside federal policy in shaping the twenty-first-century environmental agenda.