ABSTRACT
H. L. Mencken once wrote, “There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong” (1949, 443). But whether a solution is judged to be neat, plausible, or wrong depends on how the problem is defined. Academic accounts of the LLRW issue in the 1990s universally regarded the LLRWPA “solution” as a failure. Michael B. Gerrard, an environmental lawyer, wrote that “few laws have failed so completely” (1994, 3). Political scientists Kearney and Smith subtitled their analysis of the LLRWPA in Connecticut “Anatomy of a Failure” (1994). Economic analysts such as Coates et al. argued that the state-based system in the LLRWPA “failed to provide safe, accountable, and timely disposal of radioactive waste” (1994, 537).
