Coping with Mandates: What Are the Alternatives?

One of the achievements of this book is to place the mandating issue within three larger contexts: the policy goals that intergovernmental regulations are intended to achieve (e.g., a cleaner environment or safer communities), the inevitable tensions among the three planes of government in the American federal system, and the evolving assessment of regulations as a tool of government policy. Another achievement is to describe and assess the effectiveness of cost estimation and mandate reimbursement as a means to cope with mandates. Case studies from the state and federal levels provide valuable examples of mandates and the difficulties mandates present.