Case Assignment

This assignment will examine the role of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) in achieving environmental compliance in the United States and the way in which they regulate emissions.

Two case studies, one of airborne lead emissions exceeding EPA limits (Jed, 2014) and one of chemical spills in West Virginia (Cohen & Watkins, 2014) are examples of Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations in the United States.

Before starting this assignment please view the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the Clean Water Act (CWA) videos. In a 3- to 4-page paper answer the following questions. Justify your responses by presenting a rationale and illustrating it with examples and facts as needed. Support your writing with the literature.

1. Describe the type of pollutants covered by each of the two laws.
2. Compare and contrast the types of standards in the CWA and the CAA. Examples of different types are: best available technology standards, water quality standards, air emission standards, and hazardous air pollution source standards and air quality standards. Are they based on health risk or technological feasibility?
3. For each of the two case studies mentioned in the Case Assignment, explain what aspects of the CAA or CWA were not effective at controlling the pollutant releases into the environment (Cohen & Watkins, 2014; Jed, 2014).

Length: Submit a 3- to 4-page paper

Required Reading

Carruth, R. S., & Goldstein, B. D. (2013). Chapter 3: Clean Air Act. In Environmental health law: An introduction (pp. 41–76). Somerset, NJ, USA: Jossey-Bass, Wiley.

Carruth, R. S., & Goldstein, B. D. (2013). Chapter 4: Clean Water Act. In Environmental health law: An introduction (pp. 77–106). Somerset, NJ, USA: Jossey-Bass, Wiley.

Cohen, E., & Watkins, T. (2014, February 20). West Virginia asks feds to study possible health effects of chemical spill. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/19/health/west-virginia…

Glucker, A. N., Driessen, P. P. J., Kolhoff, A., & Runhaar, H. A. C. (2013). Public participation in environmental impact assessment: why, who and how? Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 43, 104–111.

Helbert, S. (2014, January 29). How industrial chemical regulation failed West Virginia. NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2014/01/29/268201454/how-indust…

Information collection request submitted to OMB for review and approval; comment request; distribution of offsite consequence analysis information under section 112(r)(7)(H) of the clean air act (CAA), as amended (renewal). (2016). Lanham: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc.

Jed, K. (2014, May 22). EPA tells Exide its lead emissions violated federal law. KPCC. Retrieved from http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/05/22/44330/epa-tell…

Jaramillo, P. and Muller, N. Z. (2016). Air pollution emissions and damages from energy production in the U.S.: 2002–2011. Energy Policy. Volume 90, pp. 202 – 21. Available in the Trident Online Library.

National emission standards for hazardous air pollutants: Site remediation. (2016). Lanham: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc.

Proposed information collection request; comment request; distribution of offsite consequence analysis information under section 112(r)(7)(H) of the clean air act (CAA). (2015). (). Lanham: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc.

Savoia, E., Stoto, M. A., Gupta, R., Wright, N., & Viswanath, K. (2015). Public response to the 2014 chemical spill in West Virginia: Knowledge, opinions and behaviours. BMC Public Health, 15.

Water quality standards regulatory revisions. (2015). Lanham: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc.

Optional Reading

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2016). The Clean Air Act (CAA). Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2016). Clean Air Act requirements and history. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/requirements.html

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2016). Clean Water Act. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/lcwa.html#Summary

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2015). The Clean Water Act (CWA). Retrieved from http://www2.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act