Environmental Review as Battleground

Abstract

Environmental reviews are required in the United States to determine in what ways and to what extent a proposed industrial development will affect the natural environment and human health. In this study, the author considers environmental reviews within the context of the treadmill of production and contributes to the empirical literature on the Treadmill of Production Model. The author does so by closely examining how power was exercised within one particular environmental review regarding a proposed tire-burning power plant in rural Minnesota. After documenting the ways power was exercised by the corporate developers of the plant, by state agency officials, and by citizen opponents, the author proposes that environmental reviews are best conceptualized as battlegrounds where contradictions of the treadmill can be fought out in protracted struggles. As such, environmental reviews provide citizens with tools to leverage power against owners and managers of capital that would not otherwise be available. However, achieving such leverage requires an inordinate expenditure of citizen resources, which means that environmental reviews tend overall to favor corporate interests and facilitate the expansion of production. The author ends by proposing changes to environmental review processes to create more favorable conditions for environmental protection.