ABSTRACT
Throughout the renewable resource sector the rational decision model has played an important role in government attempts to improve the quality of management systems. The implementation in the United Kingdom of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 (COPA) affords an excellent example of the way apparent legislative intentions can be significantly modified by implementation practice. To an extent the differences between agencies in the interpretation of their responsibilities may be explained by appealing to the dual state hypothesis and its theoretical antecedents. The distinction between the productive functions of the state and allocative functions is useful conceptually and aids the understanding of different decision-making modes. Discretionary powers achieve nothing if the agency chooses to ignore them or has neither the financial nor manpower resources to employ them. The media integration approach can be used to justify very different scales of pollution control agencies.
