Fortuitous Consequence: The Domestic Politics of the 1991 Canada-United States Agreement on Air Quality

• Published in: Policy studies journal 1999-01, Vol.27 (2), p.347-359
• Main Author: Allison, Juliann Emmons
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acid rain; Agreement; Agreements; Air Pollution; AIR QUALITY; ATTITUDES; Canada; Coal-fired power plants; Comparative studies; Conflicts of interest; Emissions; ENERGY PLANNING AND POLICY; Environmental impact; ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY; Industrial plant emissions; INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS; Metallurgy; Negotiations; Outdoor air quality; POLITICAL ASPECTS; Politics; Pollutants; Presidents; Prime ministers; PUBLIC OPINION; Regulation; Sulfur; United States
• ISSN: 0190-292X; 1541-0072
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1541-0072.1999.tb01972.x

Following more than a decade of negotiations, the Canada‐United States Agreement on Air Quality entered into force on March 13, 1991, with the signatures of then‐Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and US. President George Bush. Why was it so difficult for Canadian and US. negotiators to reach agreement? I argue that Canadian and U.S. domestic politics were the primary impediments to resolving the U.S.‐Canada acid rain dispute. This article thus casts the dispute in terms of a pair of domestic environmental policy problems, whose timely and complementary solution, furthermore, required executive initiative as the handmaiden of ecological crisis. Heightened public concern about the threat of acidic air pollution in Canada prompted Mulroney's efforts to reduce acid rain. In the United States, a likewise critical change in the public's perception of air quality as a national emergency created the mass support necessary for Bush's federal acid rain control initiative