Summary
Contents
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Energy and Environment
Energy and Environment
Introduction
The 99th and 100th Congresses faced an enormous amount of work in the areas of energy and environment. Simply reauthorizing the elaborate structure of laws erected during the “environmental decade” and “energy crisis” of the 1970s had become nearly a full-time job. Most of the laws came due for renewal, and inevitably for amendment, every three to five years. Much of that work had stopped as Congress grappled during Reagan's first term with agency heads who felt their mission was to dismantle the structure itself.
Because President Reagan largely abandoned during his second term the confrontational energy and environmental policies of his first term, Congress was able to get on with the business of legislating.
The resignations of Interior Secretary James G. Watt ...
