Doctoral Dissertation Research: Regulatory Engineering in the EPA's Office of Research and Development

本论文研究了20世纪70年代环境保护局（EPA）监管工程的发展，成就和局限性。这是一个研究和发展（ORD），结合档案研究和口述历史访谈STS政策理论的EPA办公室的混合方法研究。共同主要研究者将访问马里兰州大学公园的国家档案馆;华盛顿的EPA总部图书馆;以及北卡罗来纳州研究三角公园的地区图书馆和实验室;辛辛那提，俄亥俄州;拉斯维加斯，内华达州;和科瓦利斯，OR，并将与前EPA工程师和其他专业人员进行口述历史采访。该项目调查了环境工程在美国作为一个领域的出现，作为政府，工业和学术界之间的政策和技术的共同产物。它将监管工程定义为社会技术问题的定义和解决方案，其中技术知识，产品和实践被纳入联邦监管，这反过来又影响工程知识和专业身份。通过跟踪在广泛的制度变革时期污染控制技术和化学监测的发展，该项目解决了：（1）工程师如何应用生态思想和开发新技术;（2）为什么工程成为牛津大学的一个支持性职能，而其管理理念在20世纪80年代蔓延到政府和工业界;以及（3）环境保护局的变化如何通过量化污染和将研究与监管分离来塑造未来的环境政策和排除替代方案。更广泛的影响通过产生关于环境政治，工程形成和技术发展之间关系的重要新知识，该项目对决策者、科学家和工程师、环境活动家和STS学者具有广泛的相关性。它解释了监管政策制定如何与专业研究和实践相互作用。它突出了工程师在环境管理中的作用，并与其他工程领域相比，解决了环境工程独特的政策导向特征。最后，它使用EPA的历史，为当前环境危机中有效的技术政策提供信息。

This dissertation project examines the development, accomplishments, and limitations of regulatory engineering at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the 1970s. It is a mixed-method study of EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) that combines archival research and oral history interviews with STS policy theory. The Co-PI will visit the National Archives at College Park, MD; EPA's headquarter libraries at Washington, DC; and regional libraries and laboratories at Research Triangle Park, NC; Cincinnati, OH; Las Vegas, NV; and Corvallis, OR and will conduct oral history interviews with former EPA engineers and other professionals. Intellectual meritThe project investigates the emergence of environmental engineering as a field in the United States as a co-production of policy and technology at the nexus of government, industry, and academia. It defines regulatory engineering as socio-technical problem definition and solution in which technical knowledge, products, and practices are incorporated into federal regulation, which in turn influences engineering knowledge and professional identity. By following the development of pollution control technologies and chemical monitoring during a period of extensive institutional change, the project addresses: (1) how engineers applied ecological ideas and developed new technologies; (2) why engineering became a supportive function at ORD, while its regulatory ideal spread into government and industry in the 1980s; and (3) how changes at EPA shaped future environmental policy and foreclosed alternatives by quantifying pollution and separating research from regulation.Broader impactBy generating significant new knowledge about the relationship between environmental politics, engineering formation, and technology development, the project has broad relevance for policymakers, scientists and engineers, environmental activists, and STS scholars. It explains how regulatory policy-making interacts with professional research and practice. It highlights the role of engineers in environmental management and addresses the unique policy-oriented character of environmental engineering compared to other fields of engineering. Finally, it uses the history of EPA to inform effective technology policy in the current environmental crisis.