ABSTRACT
Economists have patiently and repeatedly been advocating such an "economic incentives" approach to environmental policy rather than a standards-based approach. Economists who discuss objections to charges have trouble suppressing contempt for the "license to pollute" contention, which they interpret as an argument that, polluters simply will pay the charge and continue to pollute as much as before. The pattern of responses—with the exception perhaps of the industry hostility—suggests a liberal-conservative ideological division in the reactions of respondents. Instead of technical arguments about efficiency, Congressional and environmentalist respondents gave arguments best described as ideological. If Congressional staff and environmentalists saw issues of broad social significance in the economists' proposals, industry representatives saw issues of narrow significance, relating primarily to the fate of their particular industries. The Democratic staff and many of the environmentalists, in their opposition to economic incentive approaches, displayed a way of looking at the world that was very different from the way economists look at it.
