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Environmental Law and Regulations: |
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by David R. Shonnard Chemical engineers practice a profession and must obey rules governing their professional conduct. One important set of rules that all chemical engineers should be aware of is environmental statutes, which are laws enacted by Congress. Regulations are promulgated by administrative agencies based on authority conferred by the statute. The Environmental statutes are designed to protect human health and the environment by placing limits on the quantity and chemical make-up of waste streams that are released from manufacturing processes. For example, one statute places restrictions on how hazardous waste from industry is stored, transported, and treated. Another statute places strict liability on the generators of hazardous waste, requiring responsible parties to clean up disposal sites that fail to protect the environment. For manufacturers of new chemicals, there are regulatory requirements that required filing of a premanufacture notice (PMN) before introducing a new chemical into the marketplace. While many companies have Health, Safety, and Environment (HS&E) staff that can help the engineer interpret and implement environmental requirements, it is nevertheless important that chemical engineers be aware of prominent federal environmental laws, and adhere to the requirements of these statutes. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of environmental regulation. Much of the material on regulations in this chapter has been adapted from an excellent review of environmental law by Lynch (1995). More comprehensive sources on this topic include the United States Code (U.S.C.), and the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.), which are sets of environmental statutes and regulations, respectively; they are available online at the sited maintained by the federal government printing office. The Environmental Law Handbook (Sullivan and Adams, 1997) and West's Environmental Law Statutes (West Publishing Co.) are compendia of existing statutes. Most of these sources can be found online. There are approximately 20 federal statutes, hundreds of state and local ordinances, thousands of federal and state regulations, and even more federal and state court cases and administrative adjudications, etc., that deal with environmental issues. Taken together, they make up the field of environmental law, which has seen explosive growth in the last 30 years, as shown in Figure 3.1-1. Chemical engineers should be familiar with environmental laws and regulations because they affect the operation of chemical processes and the professional responsibilities of chemical engineers. Environmental regulations and the common law system of environmental law require actions by affected entities. For example, the Clean Water Act (an environmental statute) requires facilities that discharge pollutants from a point source into navigable waters in the United States to apply for a national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit. In many firms, chemical engineers are responsible for applying for and obtaining these permits. The common law created by judicial decision also encourages chemical engineers to act responsibly when performing their professional duties because environmental laws and regulation do not cover every conceivable environmental wrong. Chemical engineers need to be aware of the potential legal liability resulting from violation of environmental laws and regulations to protect their company and themselves from legal and administrative actions. |
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| Figure 3.1-1 Cumulative growth in the federal environmental laws and amendments. | |
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The sources of environmental laws and regulations are legislatures, administrative agencies, and the courts. When drafting environmental laws, federal and state legislatures often use broad language to describe the objectives, regulatory programs, and enforcement provisions of the statute. Often, legislators do not have the time or resources to implement the statute and therefore leave the detailed development of regulations to administrative agencies. Administrative agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, give meaning to statutory provisions through a procedure know as rule making. Federal rule making consists of giving notice of proposed new regulations by publication in the Federal Register, providing an opportunity for public comment, altering the proposed rule, where appropriate, to incorporate the comments received, and publishing final regulations in the Federal Register. Final rules have the force of law. As such, administrative agencies fulfill a legislative function delegated to them by Congress. Administrative agencies can be created by the executive or legislative branches of government. In 1970, President Nixon established the United States Environmental Protection Agency by executive order to consolidate federal programs for regulating air and water pollution, radiation, pesticides, and solid waste disposal. However, administrative agencies are most often established by statue (for example, the Occupational Safety and Health Act established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), and in these cases, the agency powers are derived from their enabling legislation. Administrative agencies also have the authority to resolve disputes that arise from the exercise of their administrative powers. Regulated entities have the right to appeal decisions made by administrative agencies to an administrative law judge, who is appointed by the agency. Thus administrative agencies have a judicial function in addition to a legislative function. The courts are the third government actor that helps to define the field of environmental law. The role of the courts in environmental law is
Section 3.2 provides a brief description of the most important features of nine federal environmental statutes that most significantly affect chemical engineers and the chemical industry. This brief survey is meant to be representative, not comprehensive, and the focus will be on federal laws because they have national scope and often serve as models for state environmental statutes. We begin with three statutes that regulate the creation, use, and manufacture of chemical substances. Next, we cover the key provisions of three statutes that seek to control the discharge of pollutants to specific environmental media-air, water, and soil. Next, a statute that initiated a clean-up program for the many sites of soil and groundwater contamination is discussed. The final two statutes involve the reporting of toxic substance releases and a voluntary program for preventing pollution generation and release at industrial facilities. Section 3.3 describes the evolution in environmental regulation from end-of-pipe pollution control to more proactive pollution prevention approaches. Section 3.4 presents the key features of pollution prevention, including its position in the hierarchy of environmental management alternatives, a short review of terminology, and examples of pollution prevention strategies and applications. |
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