Environmental law is significant in terms of how it influences business productivity, and the structure of a company may be affected by how to implement rules. I focused on the clean water act under section 402, which states that if a business venture discharges wastewater to surface water or civic sewer or you have storm-water overflow in your facility during rain events, you are required to apply for an NPDES license.
This law, under the national environmental policy act, has influenced many companies since they require federal licenses and have to follow strict rules to help minimize pollution, which is quite expensive and impacts companies' profit and productivity.
The environmental guidelines raise production costs in regulated firms, and most businesses tend to venture into other investments or move to a different location with fewer regulations. The upside of this act is very definite, helping save lives through averting illness, but still, there have been cases in the supreme court that have been due to breaking of the regulations as per the Clean Water Act.
There have been a few cases under the Clean Water Act where companies have infringed regulations put in place as they do not meet the Environmental Policy Act standards and they include
· DuPont vs. the U.S environmental protection agency
· Dyno Nobel Inc settlement
· Saratoga springs owner's association Inc settlement.
· Evangeline enterprises LLC settlement
The E.I DuPont de Nemours and company allegedly had hazardous waste, air and water violations at its chemical manufacturing facility.
Yohannan (2020) notes that the company had a chemical accident site in 2014, where nearly 24000 pounds of methyl mercaptan was found, which led to the death of four workers. The company failed to implement the facility spill prevention control and countermeasures, which were in plain violation of the Clean Water Act and dispose of hazardous waste without a permit. As a result of these violations, the company will pay $3.195million (Yohannan 2020). The infringement of the regulations has cost the company a chemical manufacturing plant and a lot of money, influencing its productions due to working without permits and violating the statute. I believe if they followed the regulation as per Environment policy act, the case would help me show how that licenses and law can cause a business to be closed down as a result of an infringement.
The Dyno Nobel Inc also allegedly violated the CWA and the resource recovery act in a facility in Carthage and Louisiana where the CWA is the Clean Water Act. According to Archuleta (2020), the court decreed that they will improve their facilities and pay a civil penalty of $2.9 million. The company discharged ammonia, nitrate, and total suspended solids in the Mississippi river in amounts that were over the permitted limits, which is against the Clean Water Act (Archuleta 2020). These have resulted in Dyno Nobel, increasing its production cost by developing and revising pollution controls in their facilities. If they had gone on to regulate their waste according to the policy, they would not have incurred the penalties.
According to Becciu (2020) evangeline enterprises LLC settled to re-compence a $300000 municipal penalty due to them breaking the law by an unpermitted discharge of waste in the USA's waters, which is under violation of the Environment policy act. The business was given a decree to take measures and comply per the Water Act like installing the roof of buildings and rain gutters, which will increase the cost of production in their business (Becciu 2020). Following the regulations put in place might be hard however, the cost of not following them is worse, and as a result, regulating and adhering to permits will reduce the costs and benefit the human health and environment.
to conclude from this case, we can see the effects the Clean water act has had on different companies and its influence on businesses. The increase in production cost to business due to the regulations and penalties has been due to the strict permits put in place, and it's clear that the regulatory benefits outweigh the costs in some cases. Some other regulations may have expenses that exceed the benefits, but gains to the environment are the ultimate goals.
sources
Becciu, G., & Mambretti, S. (2020). Water and Wastewater Management in Informal Settlements: A Case Study. In Environmental Performance and Social Inclusion in Informal Settlements (pp. 155-175). Springer, Cham.
Archuleta, A. P., Berman, D. S., Brint, J., Bruni, K., Fleishman, R. S., Kooistra, R. E., & Mills, C. R. (2020). Report of the Compliance and Enforcement Committee. Energy Law Journal, 41(1), 1-32.
Yohannan, S. (2013). EPA Urged To Require Additional PFOA Data From DuPont To Aid Rules. Inside EPA's Risk Policy Report, 20(16), 1-15.
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