Policy-making and enforcement of vehicle emissions’ regulation. A comparison between the American and the European Systems in light of the Volkswagen case

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recently issued to Volkswagen a notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act. This administrative measure had extensive effects on the European economy and the legislation, whose enforcement systems were reformed in consequence of this action. The paper analyses said transnational regulatory dynamic, by comparing the American and the European normative on vehicle emissions, with the purpose of discovering best practices of environmental rule-making. It concludes by detecting specific flaws in the European decision-making and enforcement legislature that could be solved by a more extensive use of impact assessment and by a stricter control from the Commission on national type-approval authorities and on the Motor Vehicle Technical Committee