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Author James V. DeLong, a lawyer by training, understands the primary importance to society of following the rule of law. In Out of Bounds, Out of Control, he describes the sources and the vast extent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) growing importance in the United States. He also highlights and details the EPA’s emphasis on enforcement. In this little book, he makes frighteningly clear the EPA’s power to create rules to serve the vague but ambitious goals written into environmental statutes, its focus on enforcement in preference to environmental results, and ultimately its success in defeating the rule of law. That message alone makes DeLong’s book important.

"In theory, enforcement occupies a specific pigeonhole in an rderly regulatory universe. Congress passes a law mandating that specified actions be carried out, or avoided, by organizations and individuals in the private sector. Substantial authority is delegated to an agency, which promulgates rules to elaborate on Congress's intent, resolve unsettled issues, and fill in legal gaps. The agency also esatblishes mechanisms to monitor and compel compliance - information collection systems, investigators, prosecutors, judges, rules of procedure, and penalty schedules."

James V. DeLong

JAMES V. DeLONG is a writer, lawyer, and consultant in Washington, D.C., concentrating on property rights and environmental issues. He is also active in the areas of regulatory reform, intellectual property, industrial and government management, and legal reform. He is an Adjunct Scholar of the Competitive Enterprise Institute of Washington, D.C., and writes for scholarly, professional, and popular publications.

He has appeared as a witness before Congress and state regulatory agencies, and he speaks frequently at professional and trade association meetings.

His prior professional positions include service as Research Director of the Administrative Conference of the United States; Assistant Director for Special Projects in the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission; Director of Programs for the Drug Abuse Council (a private foundation); Staff Analyst in the Office of Program Evaluation of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget; and Litigation Associate in a large law firm.

Mr. DeLong is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School in 1963, where he was Book Review Editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a cum laude graduate of Harvard College in 1960. He is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, the State of California, and the Supreme Court of the United States, and has served on the Committee on Scholarship of the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association. He received a Senior Executive Service (SES) Outstanding Award in 1981, while working for the Administrative Conference of the United States.