Booknotes

Washington At Work: Back Rooms and Clean Air. By Richard E. Cohen. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992. ?p. $?.

Cohen, a reporter for the National Journal, presents a case study of the 1990 Clean Air Act in which he assesses the impact of various actors on the formation and passage of the legislation. He provides analysis of the roles played by key congressional leaders, congressional committess, congressional staffers, the president, and interest groups. He argues that the key policy decisions and agreements in the process were made behind close doors between legislators and their staffs, out of the view of the public and outside the congressional committees and beyond direct influence of organized interests.

Improving Government Performance: An Owner's Manual. By John J. DiIulio, Jr., Gerald Garvey, and Donald F. Kettl. Washington: Brookings Institution, 1993. 90 p. $9.95.

Within the context of recent debates on reforming the federal governemnt, the authors of this study provide an overview of past efforts to reform the national government, identify a few causes of the problems, and offer suggestions for improving national governance. They argue that selective and experimental evolutionary change is a more appropriate course for reform of the federal governemnt than reinvention. They identify a few causes of the problems with the federal government, for instance, the pervasiveness of OMB control, divided government, and the tendency of Congress to micromanage. Also, they offer specific suggestions for improving personnel systems, budgetary systems, procurement systems, intergovernmental relations, the responsive of government and political leadership.

Keeping Pace With Science and Engineering: Case Studies in Environmental Regulation. Edited by Myron F. Uman. Washington: National Academy Press, 1993. 269 p. $39.95.

The question of how environmental regulatory process handles improvements in scientific and technical understanding of environmental problems and the assoiciated risks, costs, and benefits is address by the contributors in this volume. The book is a result of a 1993 symposium sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering. The case studies and essays examine how the process responds to such changes in scientific information and technical application, and to the balance between making the system repsonsive to such innovations and keeping a degree of stability and consistency in the regulations.