Mediation, facilitation, and other alternative dispute resolution (ADR) techniques are being used in federal agencies, state and local governments, private-sector organizations, and among privatie citizens in a effort to prevent and resolve disputes in a timely, cost-effective, and less adversarial manner. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), one of the pioneers in the aplication of ADR processes an techniques to public policy disputes, recently annouced that it plans to increase the use of ADR techniques and practices across all agency programs. This article reports the results of a four-part evaluation of the use of ADR in enforcement actions of the PEA during the last two decades. Funded by the Hewlett Foundation, this effort utilized indeph telephone interviews, government statistics, and archival records. The four groups interviewed were EPA`s alternative dispute resolution specialists, potentially responsible parties (defendants) to EPA enforcement lawsuits, mediators and facilitators to EPA cases, and agency enforcement attorneys who had particpated in agency enforcement ADR program, this article examines the sources of obstacles and assistance to ADR efforts at the EPA , suggests ways in which the EPA might improve its ADR programs, and draws lessons from the EPA`s experiences that may be helpfull to other publci programs or organizations

Public Administration Review PAR

November/December 2001 Volume 61 Number 6