Managing the Environmental Regulations and Safety
7
Environmental Protection Issues
In the 1970s, Congress passed several environmental protection statutes
beginning with the Clean Air Act and amendments to the Federal Water
Pollution Control Act (renamed the Clean Water Act). While most of
these initiatives were actually amendments to existing federal
environmental statutes dating back 70 years, the changes were so
extensive in both philosophy and scope that they are commonly thought of
as new laws. These laws focused primarily on cleaning up
"conventional" pollutants--smoke and sulfur oxides in the air,
oxygendepleting discharges into surface waters, and solid wastes into the
land. As the 1970s ended, these laws began to focus on toxic substances
that could threaten human health at even low concentrations. These
statutes were amended, or new regulations and policies to handle toxics
were adopted by the administering agency.
Unlike the Occupational Safety and Health Act, environmental laws
address by-product discharges of toxic and hazardous substances that are
released into the environment. Standards to reduce risks to public health
are established in a similar manner to the OSH Act. All of the
environmental laws are administered by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
The Clean Air Act originally addressed smoky, dirty air that plagued
many industrial cities. It was subsequently amended to add provisions
about the effects of sources of pollution.
The 1977 amendments (PL 95-217) focused the statute on toxic air
emissions. The Clean Air Act gives the EPA the responsibility to set
three different kinds of air standards:
1.
National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) defining the
maximum concentration of air pollutants allowable.
2.
New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) establishing the
allowable emission levels for different stationary sources.
3.
National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants
(NESHAPS) setting emission limitations for which no ambient
air quality standards exist.
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