This Article is concerned with two critical and interrelated questions in American public law. The first question is how the law should regulate politics. Specifically, how can legal doctrine be brought to bear on processes of politics and political decisionmaking in order to produce superior outcomes and to improve the operations of political process? The second question is how the law should deal with the modem regulatory process.

This Article focuses primarily on the liability of parent corporations under CERCLA, in part because the cases involving parent corporations raise typical types of issues in relatively uncomplicated factual circumstances. In addition, the cases involving parent corporations are plentiful enough to provide a good sample for evaluation, but limited enough to be manageable.