ABSTRACT
THIS CHAPTER DISCUSSES and compares two different assessment processes concerned with regional, or subcontinental scale, flows of air pollutants: the Ozone Transport Assessment Group (OTAG) and the assessment process associated with the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). The OTAG process occurred in the mid-1990s, while the LRTAP convention assessments discussed here occurred in the 1980s and 1990s (although LRTAP continues to support assessments today, for convenience we will use the past tense to refer to both). Both of these assessments involved multiple independent political entities (OTAG centered around the U.S. states and federal agencies, while LRTAP focused on the European nations) and therefore can be called multilateral. Although there are major differences between the two cases, there are also significant similarities between them.
