"Read this book and learn the diverse ways in which organized interest groups, and prominent individuals, have sought to impose their idealizations of nature as ecological equilibrium on the rest of us. There is no such thing as nature undisturbed, and bureaucratic bad management is often the unintended consequence of our limited knowledge of ecosystem complexity. Improvement, if attainable, must be more marginal, more decentralized, and focused on learning because no one can know final right answers.” —Vernon L. Smith, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences; George L. Argyros Endowed Chair in Finance and Economics and Professor of Economics and Law, Chapman University “In the well written and highly informative book, Nature Unbound, Simmons, Yonk, and Sim develop the twin concepts of political ecology—the idea that in Washington science is politics—and political entrepreneurship—the notion that every significant political action provides an opportunity for special interest groups to steer the action in their direction. They apply the concepts as they scan the last 40 years of the U.S. environmental saga, stopping occasionally to do in-depth analyses of intentions and outcomes. Theirs is not a normative anti-environment cry for deregulation, but rather a carefully reasoned and documented effort to explain how environmental actions based on faulty but popularized notions of science lead inevitably to botched outcomes that fail to redress true environmental concerns. Nature Unbound should be read, studied and debated by all who take the environment seriously.” —Bruce Yandle, Dean Emeritus, College of Business and Behavioral Science, Clemson University; Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics, Mercatus Center, George Mason University “Nature Unbound provides a fascinating look at bureaucracy and environment in the context of a new view of ecology. The new ecology rejects the ideologically based concept of a ‘balance of nature’ and recognizes variability is fundamental in ecological systems whether or not humans are involved. The book examines the role of politics and entrepreneurship in environmental policy, in the context of the new ecology, and provides an absorbing narration of natural resource legislation, legal activities and court decisions as well as management policies. The book concludes with five principles for redesigning and incentivizing institutions to be applied to specific individual resource and environmental programs.” —Roger A. Sedjo, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future “In striving to improve our environmental stewardship, it is important to take off our rose-colored glasses and contemplate the imperfections in our system. In Nature Unbound, Simmons, Yonk, and Sim focus on identifying and explaining deficiencies in long-standing environmental laws. Some readers may find the analysis uncomfortable because it challenges so many deeply ingrained perspectives. Whatever one’s view of the authors’ criticisms, this book is thought-provoking; it forces us to re-examine the basic incentives and motivations underlying our environmental policies.” —Gale A. Norton, former Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior “Nature Unbound is a most timely and important book. We are currently in the grip of a revived regulatory utopianism whereby various ‘market failures’ will be eliminated by diligent, well-informed regulators who have only our best interests at heart. This belief system has recently transformed government policy toward financial services, healthcare—and the environment, which is the subject of this book. In a lively tour through the history of environmental regulation, the authors show how all the elements of the reigning belief are wrong. They tell us how the regulators face information distorted by the interests of the adversaries before them, then how they use the information to pursue personal and bureaucratic interests that ultimately have little to do with improving the environment. I would recommend Nature Unbound to anyone interested in the environment and especially to those inclined to support further expansion of environmental regulation.” —Sam Peltzman, Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago; Editor, Journal of Law and Economics “Nature Unbound is a comprehensive discussion of our environmental laws and policies that are conflicted with fallacies and contradictions that cause a reduction in economic output and a damaged natural environment as well. The authors utilize many conceptual tools, but two do much of the intellectual heavy-lifting that drives their analyses and conclusions: ‘equilibrium ecology’ and ‘political entrepreneurship.’ This is an important book that hopefully will become influential in producing the legal and legislative improvements needed to increase the environmental quality that will benefit us all.” —B. Delworth Gardner, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Brigham Young University “Environmental policies are ultimately about the human relationship with nature. American environmental thinking about this matter has been characterized by wide intellectual misunderstanding and confusion. Combined with the normal dysfunctions of the American political system, the result has been broad environmental policy failure in the United States. Read the outstanding book Nature Unbound to get the details.” —Robert H. Nelson, Professor of Public Policy, University of Maryland “In Nature Unbound, Yonk and his co-authors offer a devastating critique of federal environmental policy by scrutinizing it through the lenses of biological ecology and political ecology. The book makes us rethink environmental objectives. It aligns incentives with goals and affirms the notion that human beings are an integral part of the natural order and merit no less consideration than Earth’s other treasures. . . . Nature Unbound likewise makes a good case for abandoning the balance of nature myth and rethinking the environmental laws aimed at maintaining the mythical balance. This thinking was present in passing the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act, and, more recently, a slew of renewable energy legislation – even though laws often fail to meet their stated environmental goals and may lead instead to worse environmental and economic outcomes.” —Illinois Review “Nature Unbound warns that the frequent use of fear-based, emotional science can have the same effect on humans as a deer caught in the headlights. Simmons, Yonk, and Sim offer an escape from this trap and a step forward for Mother Nature. This book is a must read for those seeking an honest and pragmatic path toward improved environmental quality.” —Laura E. Huggins, Chief Executive Officer, Montana Prairie Holdings LLC “Nature Unbound will provide the critical, innovative, and careful evaluation so needed to raise issues and encourage debate over environmental issues, which hopefully will lead to more reasoned addressing of environmental concerns.” —Gary D. Libecap, Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Corporate Environmental Management, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara “Nature Unbound is a revealing and disturbing book. The authors examine the unintended consequences of five major environmental statutes passed by Congress since the 1960s. They outline the ways in which ‘political ecology’ and ‘political entrepreneurship’ have channeled the behavior of actors both in and out of government in directions that are opportunistic, costly, and disconnected from legitimate environmental concerns. Simmons, Yonk, and Sims offer principles by which each statute can be amended to more efficiently and effectively address the concerns prompting the initial passage of these laws.” —John C. Brätland, Senior Economist, U.S. Department of the Interior “The U.S. Postal Service is scorned for its inefficiency. Other agencies, such as the EPA, are similarly inept, but it is harder for citizens to observe their poor performance. As the authors explain, we have a ‘political ecology.’ Politics, not pure environmental science, determines environmental policy. In all areas of the environment—air, water, and land—politicians and bureaucrats play on misguided sympathies to generate support for more of the same. The environment, like society, is dynamic, but government policy is rooted in a mythical environmental notion of static purity. Whether your concern is environmental or economic, Nature Unbound is indispensable for anyone to understand the destructive impact of environmental politics.” —Roger E. Meiners, Goolsby Distinguished Professor of Economics and Law, University of Texas, Arlington “Why is it that one of America’s most iconic places is now more wilderness-like than it was before our great westward migration and the beginning of the industrial era? You will find the answer to that question within the pages of Nature Unbound. Authors Randy Simmons, Ryan Yonk, and Kenneth Sim give readers a synoptic view of America’s sprawling environmental protection bureaucracy: its assumptions, its numerous players, its frequently perverse incentives and often bizarre results. The book, in short, is a valuable corrective to the notion that the federal government has done a splendid job of protecting us from environmental disaster. . . . [T]he authors suggest that we might be better off today if we had not veered away from common law and instead started placing our trust in federal statutes and bureaucrats. The great bulk of the book is about those statutes and the officials who enforce them: the Clean Art Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Wilderness Act. The authors also devote a chapter to the closely related subject of ‘renewable energy’ laws, which gave us Solyndra and other boondoggles. . . . Students of regulation and public choice will find this book to be a feast. More encouragingly, environmentalists may find themselves rethinking their views on environmental policy after reading Nature Unbound.” —Regulation “Nature has often been described as complex and delicate but left to its own devices it will maintain itself in ‘balance.’ And, when irresponsible people design complex technologies, unexpectedly bad impacts on nature all too often whirl out of control. To address such problems, the responsible people employed by governments have been charged to take care of nature and restore the balances that have been disrupted by the irresponsible rest. Some technologies are banned or strictly regulated, while others are promoted to give ‘unbalanced’ nature a necessary shove back toward its natural state of ‘balance.’ Or so much of the green community would have us believe. In Nature Unbound, Simmons, Yonk, and Sim challenge this narrative head on and convincingly dismantle it. Time and again, well-intentioned schemes to restore nature to the condition that people come to believe is natural and pre-ordained by some higher authority just make things worse. Their book should be mandatory reading for policymakers, who should have the courage to scrutinize how the environmental laws they promulgate and enforce have worked out and study in depth the many ways in which they have backfired. The rest of us who value the environment as much as they do and marvel at the complex beauty and remarkable resilience of nature should read it too. As Nature Unbound convincingly establishes, good intentions do not suffice—to the contrary, in this context all too often they backfire. We should be backing policymakers who see that their policies are securely anchored in what experience with bad policies has taught, and shunning those for whom environmental protection is a sort of pagan religion and who set out to save the environment with hastily conceived ad-hoc interventions based on superficial impressions of how things once were, vague notions about how they ought to be once again, and a baseless excess of confidence in their own ability to set things right.” —Peter W. Huber, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute; author, The Bottomless Well, Hard Green, and Liability “Laws, by definition, tend to lead to litigation. The vaguer the environmental law, the more the various stakeholders are provided with incentives to litigate or procrastinate, rather than even attempt to try to meet the environmental intent of the law. Nature Unbound exposes these incentives.” —Donald H. Stedman, John Evans Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Denver “In Nature Unbound, Simmons, Yonk, and Sim may have put the final nail in the coffin of the naïve yet abiding notion of the ‘balance of nature’—the idea that a place has some unique, ideal natural ecosystem, defined ‘out there,’ distinct from humans. Commentators since Aldo Leopold have fought this notion, yet it has become more and more entrenched in environmental policy, to the detriment of creation as well as man. So why does a false idea, inevitably leading to bad policy, endure? Using their academic and real-world expertise in politics, Simmons et al. show how groups have perpetuated this notion as a way to promote their own special interests. The book persuasively argues that the ‘balance of nature’ idea must be replaced by a frank acceptance of the management of nature by humans and—moreover—that it be managed in ways that are robust to special-interest politics. Nature Unbound is essential reading in opening our eyes to the reality of present-day environmental failures—and the alternatives.” —H. Spencer Banzhaf, Professor of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University “Nature Unbound makes a compelling case for abandoning the ‘balance of nature’ myth and rethinking the environmental laws aimed at maintaining that mythical balance. Simmons, Yonk, and Sim explain why the highly centralized, one-size-fits-all approach to environmental conservation is doomed to failure, and they identify several opportunities for political entrepreneurship that all serious conservationists should consider.” —Reed Watson, Executive Director, Property and Environment Research Center “Environmental policy in the U.S. is based on an incorrect scientific understanding of the ‘balance of nature’ and the characteristics of a natural equilibrium. Even well-intentioned decision-makers will make incorrect decisions if they start with incorrect premises. Actual decision-makers may be somewhat well-intentioned, but they are also political agents subject to political pressures and special-interest lobbying. In Nature Unbound, Simmons, Yonk, and Sim do a very good job of showing how this combination of an incorrect understanding of the world with self-interested decision-makers leads to bad policy, and they have some useful suggestions for improvement. Citizens interested in environmental issues should read this book before advocating further counterproductive policies.” —Paul H. Rubin, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics, Emory University “Nature Unbound should be required reading for anyone truly interested in policies that will improve environmental quality. It is an insightful and very readable story of why mostly well-intentioned environmental policies have often led to bad outcomes. After carefully documenting the underlying reasons for the lack of environmental success, it offers a set of guiding principles along with constructive and pragmatic suggestions for getting more from key environmental statutes.” —Susan E. Dudley, Director, Regulatory Studies Center, and Distinguished Professor of Practice, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration, George Washington University; former Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, U.S. Office of Management and Budget “Nature Unbound is the best treatment I know of economics and ecology. The application of Austrian and Public Choice insights to environmental policy explains many complex and emotional policies. Environmental sensitivity increases when people become prosperous and well educated. However, environmental issues are scientifically complex and carry heavy emotional baggage. These are ingredients for error and acrimony. Better than anywhere I know, Nature Unbound explains the associated rent-seeking, with its lost productive opportunities and environmental damage, and the much needed reforms.” —John A. Baden, Chairman, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment “Nature Unbound is a smart, serious book offering crisp thinking about environmental issues that seldom get the critical examination they deserve.” —Jerry Taylor, President, Niskanen Center “Nature Unbound is not only an excellent introduction to the perverse incentives created by the Endangered Species Act and other environmental regulatory schemes, it is a brilliant introduction to the public choice theory of why government so often fails to do what we hope and expect. The book’s meticulous scientific evidence, along with its thorough analysis of political failure, make it must-reading for everyone who is concerned about environmental quality as well as for those who want to improve our political system.” —Randal O’Toole, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute “Nature Unbound will be required reading for individuals interested in the protection of endangered species as well as environmental policy more generally. The book is a top priority for scholars, policy-makers, and the general reading public interested in the economic, legal, and political dimensions of environmental policy, drawing from a variety of real world examples to buttress and illustrate the principles of property rights and public choice.” —Rodney T. Smith, Ph.D., President, Stratecon Inc. “Nature Unbound investigates the concepts of political ecology and political entrepreneurship in environmental policy and presents the case that major U.S. environmental laws are more about opportunism and ideology than good management and environmental improvement. The book discusses politics, ecology, and entrepreneurship; political ecology; environmental political entrepreneurship; the politics of nature; the Clean Air Act; the National Environmental Policy Act; the Clean Water Act; the Endangered Species Act; the Wilderness Act; and renewable energy legislation.” —Journal of Economic Literature
