Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

CHAPTER 1

OVERVIEW OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AREA

Pollution in its various forms has been an environmental concern in the United States for many years. Federal policy has gradually evolved to deal with pollution on a national basis, culminating in comprehensive pieces of legislation enacted by the U.S. Congress during the 1970's. This legislation substantially enlarged and strengthened the regulatory and subsidy parts of Federal environmental policy and committed the Nation to ambitious goals for a clean environment. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) estimates that if carried out, current laws will require estimated expenditures of up to $645 billion over the next decade by taxpayers, consumers, industrial firms, and municipalities.

The Nation has embarked upon an ambitious program to clean up our environment. The success or failure of this effort will depend to a large extent on how well Federal, State, and local governments are implementing environmental protection programs. But decisionmakers seem to be unsure as to whether environmental goals are too costly to achieve and whether the right balance has been struck between environmental quality objectives and energy, economic and social goals. The energy crisis coupled with a period of inflation and unemployment has led to a general reexamination of our pollution control goals and strategies.

In fiscal year 1979, 19 Federal agencies and departments expect to have outlays of $12.3 billion for environmental programs. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accounts for about half of these outlays. Although covering a wide range of activities, Federal environmental programs are classified in three broad categories: pollution control and abatement; understanding, describing, and predicting the environment (research on the effects of pollutants on the environment); and environmental protection and enhancement activities.

PERSPECTIVE ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

If the environment's capacity to absorb or assimilate wastes were unlimited, there would be no pollution problem. However, the natural environment which acts as a "sink" for waste material, whether of natural or man-made origin, does have limited capacity for self-cleansing. Further, because the environment is not owned by anyone and is controlled by no one, it is overused and abused.

Actions, therefore, must be taken by Federal, State, and local governments to manage the environment by placing limits on the amount of pollution--air, water, land, and noise--that can be tolerated without endangering the health and welfare of human beings and the ecological systems in which we live.

The key to effectively managing the environment is to know how much pollution the environment can assimilate, what abatement or control actions need to be taken at minimum cost--both economically and socially--and how these actions will interact with developing the Nation's natural resources and continuing our general prosperity. Unfortunately, these things are generally not clearly known because the research, monitoring, and analytical efforts to provide precise information have been lacking.

Therefore, the strategy to control air, water, and noise pollution has centered on national uniform technology based standards. In other words, if pollution control equipment is available, then it will be used regardless of cost and regardless of whether it is needed to achieve environmental quality objectives. This strategy is not considered cost-effective, efficient, or equitable and is being resisted by industry, States, and municipalities on the basis that costs outweigh benefits. In the future, attention needs to be given to identifying alternative regulatory strategies and cost/benefit analyses.

The strategy developed to control chemicals that may be harmful to humans and the environment requires manufacturers to test chemicals for toxicity before manufacturing or using them. The problem with this strategy is that it takes years of health effects research to determine the toxicity of chemicals on laboratory animals. There is also the problem of proving that chemicals toxic to animals are also toxic to humans. But the cause-health effects relationship of certain chemicals have been generally agreed upon by scientists. In the future, a lot more attention needs to be given to controlling toxic chemicals.

The two dominant Federal agencies responsible for implementing environmental protection legislation and programs are the Council on Environmental Quality which has oversight responsibilities to provide policy guidance to Federal agencies in implementing the National Environmental Policy Act and EPA which is responsible for implementing environmental protection requlatory and financial assistance programs.

Other principal Federal agencies who have environmental responsibilities include:

--Department of Agriculture

--Department of Commerce (National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration)

--Department of Defense

--Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

--Department of Housing and Urban Development

--Department of the Interior

--Department of Justice

--Department of Labor : Occupational Safety and Health
Administration

--Department of State

--Department of Transportation

--Department of Energy

--Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Recent Trends and Outlook

The Congress, during the last several years, recognized the need to protect human health and the environment from pollution and enacted tough Federal laws--the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Noise Control Act, the Clean Water Act, the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act with far-reaching consequences that would be felt for years to come.

As a result of this legislation, considerable improvement in air and water quality has or will take place in the near future as Government and industry spend huge sums of money on pollution control equipment.

But now that our cleanup efforts have proceeded about as far as our present technology can justify in the light of escalating costs, the battles have begun with industry on one side, environmentalists on the other side, and Government somewhere in the middle. Much of EPA's staffing

« PreviousContinue »