The effects of regulatory constructs on the implementation of the Tennessee Coal Surface Mining Program

Regulatory agencies have a philosophy, or construct, that influences the way they carry out their missions and influences the way they implement programs. Constructs are how regulatory agencies accomplish their missions rather than what their missions are. Constructs are affected by a variety of factors: the personal ideology, motivations, and aspiration of individuals within the agency, especially its leaders; attitudes toward the regulated; and the degree of decision-making flexibility and discretion available to the agency. These factors, either individually or collectively, may affect agencies' regulatory constructs, and thus may affect not just the implementation process, but the success or failure of the regulatory program as well.

In 1982, the Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, granted to the Tennessee Division of Surface Mining the authority to be the permanent regulatory authority for the regulation of coal surface mining in the State of Tennessee. The granting of "Primacy" was based on the Secretary's decision that Tennessee's permanent regulatory program met all the requirements of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. In 1984, the U. S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement intervened in Tennessee's program because, in its judgment, Tennessee had failed to implement all of the provisions of its approved program. Subsequent to the federal government's intervention, the Tennessee Legislature abolished the program in its entirety.