Environmental policy -- A leaking drum?
Twenty years ago, the US had virtually no overall environmental policy. Since then, one has evolved as a result of accumulated legislation, much of which was crafted in reaction to specific events, typically real or potential disasters. The familiar names of Love Canal, Times Beach, Bhopal and others are the symbolic anchor points of that evolution, which yielded Superfund, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act, and other environmental statutes. The laws in each case were developed in response to particular environmental and health issues--clean water for drinking and recreation, unpolluted air, safe production of chemicals and chemical-based products. The result was a growing body of environmental legislation that eventually became an accumulate of requirements lacking internal consistency or coherence. Because policymaking followed, rather than guided, legislative actions, the policy itself became inconsistent and sometimes illogical. Like a drum that gradually and indiscriminately is filled with a mixture of mutually reactive chemicals, environmental policy increasingly became a volatile source of concern for those industries in whose midst it had been placed. Lately, there is growing consensus that the drum not only has been overfilled, it also is leaking.
- OSTI ID:
- 78141
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Solutions, Vol. 8, Issue 7; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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