ABSTRACT
Public policy is created throughout the government, that is, Congress legislates policies, the executive branch implements policies, and the courts decide policies. In fact, the purpose of public policy is to make "steering corrections for the ship of state" and to change them as the "weather" requires. A major portion of federal public policy is documented in the Code of Federal Regulations, the extremely detailed rules that are written by the executive branch to implement the more general statements of public policy expressed in federal statutes. There are obviously many topical areas that could be used to study the usefulness of sophisticated analytic techniques to the policy formulation process. The area chosen here is that of public health and safety. Public health professionals would like to see environmental controls at the level where there is no risk to the population. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
