environmental policy can be set at the federal level of government in the united states today.
at what level of government can environmental policy be set in the united states today?
federal
the environmental policy of the united states is a federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the united states. the goal of environmental policy is to protect the environment for future generations while interfering as little as possible with the efficiency of commerce or the liberty of the people and to limit inequity in who is burdened with environmental costs. as his first official act bringing in the 1970s, president richard nixon signed the u.s. national environmental policy act (nepa) into law on new years day, 1970. also in the same year, america starts to celebrate the first earth day, which is "the big bang of u.s. environmental politics, launching the country on a sweeping social learning curve about ecological management never before experienced or attempted in any other nation"(rosenbaum, 2016, p. 9). nepa established a comprehensive us national environmental policy and created the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement for “major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment.” eccleston has called nepa, the world's “environmental magna carta”.
environmental policy of the united states
the primary reason at that time for the introduction of a common environmental policy was the concern that diverse environmental standards could result in trade barriers and competitive distortions in the common market. different national standards for particular products, such as limitations on vehicle emissions for the lead content of petrol, posed significant barriers to the free trade of these products within the economic community (ec). an additional motivation driving the eu's emerging environmental policy was the increasing international politicisation of environmental problems and the growing realisation from the beginning of the 1970s that environmental pollution did not stop at national borders, but had to be addressed by cross-border measures. at that time there was no mention of environmental policy in the founding treaties of the eu and therefore no explicit treaty basis which underpinned eu environmental policy. however, the treaty text was interpreted dynamically, enabling environmental policy to be regarded as an essential goal of the community, even though it was not explicitly mentioned. it was not until the middle of the 1980s and the signing of the single european act in 1986 that economic and ecological objectives were put on a more equal footing within the community.
environmental policy of the european union