What's smart about ignoring cumulative environmental effects?

• Author: Wenig, Michael M.
• Position: Environmental law - Smart Regulation - A Regulatory Strategy for Canada tries to redesign Canada's regulatory approach

Smart regulation is one of the hot buzzwords these days in the Canadian public policy arena. Unless you're an anarchist or libertarian who thinks smart regulation is a contradiction in terms, the term is unassailable in the basic sense that no one wants government to adopt dumb regulation. But, beyond this superficial logic, the term has little inherent meaning. Even the common environmental buzzwords--like sustainable development, ecosystem management," precautionary principle, and polluter pays--have more inherent meaning than smart regulation despite their own considerable inherent ambiguities.

Since I first heard the term "smart regulation" in passing several years ago, I've been suspicious that it was invented as a clever, seemingly neutral cover for a political agenda to get government off the back of industry and other commercial enterprises. From this standpoint, I've wondered whether smart regulation was really a code word for less regulation or, more generally, less government. I have mixed feelings about those objectives--for example, it's depressing to think about the portion of our taxes needed to pay interest on government debt; on the other hand, I have no illusions that the kinds of voluntary initiatives frequently touted in Canada (and especially in Alberta) for protecting the environment will be sufficient, at least, without significant government inducements and other, complementary programs. Putting these opposing concerns aside, however, at the very least the debate about minimizing regulation should be in the open rather than under the guise of the un-debatable truism that regulation should be smart. And the debate should occur, not as a stand-alone issue, but as part of a broader, transparent effort to define and prioritize social goals, to identify and articulate clear policies for achieving the goals, and then to consider the most effective mix of regulations and other government programs for carrying out those policies.

Although I've been hearing the term smart regulation more and more frequently in recent years and in an increasing variety of environment-related and natural resource-related contexts, I had frankly never researched and found any written explanation of its meaning and origin. So I've tried to keep my suspicions in check until I learned more about this movement to make regulation smart. Thus, it was with great interest a few days ago that I came across a report, published last September, entitled...