Mediating the Manual

Environmental dispute resolution holds great potential to help policymakers and the regulated community move toward consensus in current conflicts over wetlands regulation. In particular, environmental dispute resolution could play a role in resolving the impasse over revisions to the 1989 Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands. The following discussion describes the debate over the delineation manual revision effort and the role that dispute could play in creating a more stable and predictable wetlands regulatory system.