Background
The Act implements the European Union Waste Framework Directive in England and Wales and Scotland. The Act was intended to strengthen pollution controls and support enforcement with heavier penalties. Before the Act there had been separate environmental regulation of air, water and land pollution and the Act brought in an integrated scheme that would seek the "best practicable environmental option". There was previously no uniform system of licensing or public right of access to information. The split of the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) into English, Welsh and Scottish bodies was controversial. Purportedly forced on Secretary of State Chris Patten by Secretary of State for Scotland Malcolm Rifkind and forestry minister Lord Sanderson, some saw it as "punishment" for the vigorous opposition the NCC had mounted to afforestation in the Flow Country.
Read more about this topic: Environmental Protection Act 1990
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
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—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)