Environmental Policy Foundations
A formal set of plans and principles intended to solve problems and guide decision making.
What is policy?
Harmful impacts of pollution suffered by people not responsible for causing it.
What are external costs?
The branch of government that creates statutory law.
What is Congress?
The increasing interconnectedness of the world through trade and communication.
What is globalization?
Public policy that addresses how humans interact with the natural environment.
What is environmental policy?
The principle that requires polluters to pay for cleanup and damages.
What is the polluter-pays principle?
The agency that monitors environmental quality and enforces pollution standards.
What is the EPA?
The international treaty that successfully reduced ozone-depleting substances.
Montreal Protocol
The situation in which shared resources are overused when individuals act in self-interest.
What is the tragedy of the commons?
Previous court rulings that guide decisions in future legal cases.
What are precedents?
The law that regulates industrial discharges into rivers and streams.
What is the Clean Water Act?
The global agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Paris Agreement
People or companies that benefit from environmental protection without paying for it.
Who are free riders?
The law that gave settlers land and encouraged westward expansion and resource extraction.
What is the Homestead Act?
The law that tracks hazardous waste from generation to disposal.
What is RCRA?
The trade agreement that raised concerns about shifting pollution to weaker regulations.
What is NAFTA?
Laws, regulations, and incentives created by government to manage society.
What is public policy?
The Ohio river that caught fire multiple times due to industrial pollution.
What is the Cuyahoga River?
The program that cleans up the nation’s most polluted hazardous waste sites.
What is Superfund
The international organization that coordinates treaties and global environmental conferences.
What is the United Nations?