History of Environmental Regulations

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The United States has a history of implementing some environmental regulations throughout its history since the 19th century; however, none were as important and effective as The National Environmental Protection Act. This act led to the passing of many others that have shaped the environmental policy we have today.

Back in the 1800's when towns were popping up left and right, the majority of them were made possible because of their location on lakes, the ocean, or on a river. This led to the initial problems with pollution and the environment. Industries located next to these bodies of water would produce waste, and they would then dump the waste into the water to get rid of it. This led to a lot of pollution in the waterways, and thus the first environmental regulation was created. The “Rivers and Harbors Act” was implemented in 1899. Besides this, there really was no movement in terms of protecting the environment during the rest of the industrial revolution. Laws weren’t to be seen until about the 1950's.

 However, there was not much of a breakthrough in policy until The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) was first implemented in 1969, shortly after an oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. This also came the same year of the fire on the Cuyahoga river, where the river was so polluted that it actually caught on fire. According to environmentalleader.com , it has become “the basis for other U.S. environmental laws and is considered a major guiding tool for regulating federal actions that would have significant effects on environmental quality.” The thing that really drives NEPA is something called the Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. The EIS assures that anytime something may have a potential risk to the environment, the agency involved will “go through a process of identifying and assessing potential adverse effects, developing feasible alternatives, and providing proper notice to – and receiving comments from – both the public and federal agencies with jurisdiction or expertise over the planned action.” This paved the way for many other acts such as:

-the Clean Air Act

-the Clean Water Act

-the US Water and Wetlands Policy

-the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

-the Toxic Substance Control Act or TSCA

Future research question: How do environmental restrictions affect the economy of different countries?