Permits and Enforcement
Congress added an operating permit program to the 1990 Clean Air Act for larger industries and commercial sources that release toxins into the air. These permits have information about which pollutants are emitted, how much may be emitted, and what actions the person in charge is taking to minimize the pollution. Permits must also state plans to measure and report the air pollution produced. The EPA is also responsible for making sure each state and tribe abides by the permits. For businesses that qualify for more than one thing under the Clean Air Act, operating permits are helpful because the information is all there. These permits tell them exactly what they need to do to prevent pollution. Now the EPA is more powerful in being able to enforce the rules instead of having to handle everything in court. The EPA can either "issue an order requiring the violator to comply, issue and administrative penalty order, or bring a civil judicial action".
Read more about this topic: National Emissions Standards Act
Famous quotes containing the word permits:
“Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)