Creating Public Policy

An insider's account of how presidential commissions create public policy for privacy protection, energy accountability, and privatization. Linowes describes with candor the process designed by private citizens, which culminates in needed legislation. ^L ^L This story is rich in testimony from public and private collectors of personal data who were pressed, under oath, to reveal how they obtain, use, and abuse the information. Two energy commissions reveal their discovery of the theft of oil on federal and Indian lands by major oil companies. The second energy panel resolved a major political gridlock by disproving allegations of fraud and dishonesty. The privatization effort demonstrates the growing need to separate the functions of government and business. These insights into commission life will be of value to students and scholars of modern American government as well as the interested public.

An insider's account of how presidential commissions create public policy for privacy protection, energy accountability, and privatization. Linowes describes with candor the process designed by private citizens, which culminates in needed legislation. This story is rich in testimony from public and private collectors of personal data who were pressed, under oath, to reveal how they obtain, use, and abuse the information. Two energy commissions reveal their discovery of the theft of oil on federal and Indian lands by major oil companies. The second energy panel resolved a major political gridlock by disproving allegations of fraud and dishonesty. The privatization effort demonstrates the growing need to separate the functions of government and business. These insights into commission life will be of value to students and scholars of modern American government as well as the interested public.

Booknews

This memoir is divided into sections separately examining the political story of four presidential commissions that the author served on as chairman. The first commission discussed is the Privacy Protection Commission instigated by President Carter in the wake of revelations surrounding abuses of personal privacy by government and business. The succeeding three commissions were all during the Reagan Administration and include the Commission on Fiscal Accountability of the Nation's Energy Resources which dealt with the problem of improper oil theft, the Commission on the Fair Market Value Policy for Federal Coal Leasing examining accusations by Congress and environmental activists that the Interior Department under James Watt was allowing coal companies to bilk the government out of millions of dollars, and the President's Commission on Privatization which made recommendations regarding what federal assets to sell into private hands. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

DAVID F. LINOWES is Boeschenstein Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.