Congressional Research Service Reports - 951 Matching Results

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Clean Water Act and TMDLs: Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act requires states to identify waters that are impaired by pollution, even after application of pollution controls. For those waters, states must establish a total maximum daily load (TMDL) of pollutants to ensure that water quality standards can be attained. Implementation of this provision has been dormant until recently, when states and EPA were prodded by numerous lawsuits. The TMDL issue has become controversial, in part because of requirements and costs now facing states to implement a 25-year-old provision of the law. Congressional activity to reauthorize the Act, a possibility in the 2nd Session of the 105th Congress, could include TMDL issues, but the direction for any such action is unclear at this time.
Clean Water Issues in the 105th Congress: For the 105th Congress, reauthorization of the Clean Water Act may be a priority in the second session. The Act was last amended in 1987 and authorizations expired on Sept. 30, 1990. Clean water was a priority for the last two Congresses, but no legislation was enacted. In the 104th Congress, the House passed a comprehensive reauthorization bill, but during House debate and subsequently, controversies arose over whether and how the Act should be made more flexible and less burdensome on regulated entities. Issues likely to be of interest again in the 105th Congress include funding, overall flexibility and regulatory reform of water quality programs, and measures to address polluted runoff from farms and city streets.
Safe Drinking Water Act: State Revolving Fund Program: No Description Available.
Environmental Protection: How Much it Costs and Who Pays: This report discusses a recurring issue in environmental policy: the cost of pollution control imposed on individuals, businesses, and governments.
Environmental Protection: How Much it Costs and Who Pays: A recurring issue in environmental policy is the cost of pollution control imposed on individuals, businesses, and government. To inform policymakers about these costs, a number of surveys and analyses have been conducted over the years. consistent, basic sources have been an annual survey of costs to manufacturers, conducted by the Bureau of Census(BOC), and an annual analysis of total costs, prepared by the Bureau of Economic Analysis(BEA). Overall, the BEA analysis showed the nation spent $122 billion for pollution abatement and control in 1994, or about 1.76% of Gross Domestic Product. Personal consumption expenditures for pollution control were $22 billion, government 435 billion, and business $65 billion. These 1994 data represent the end of the annual series; the BOC survey and BEA analysis have been discontinued
Environmental Protection Issues: From the 104th to the 105th Congress: The continued interest in regulatory reform measures in the final moments of the 104th Congress suggests that the 105th Congress will consider them again. At the same time the fact that the 104th Congress enacted flexibility provisions in drinking water and food safety/pesticides legislation could be an indicator that the 105th Congress may pursue reforms in individual reauthorization legislation rather than in broad regulatory reform bills.
The Role of Risk Analysis and Risk Management in Environmental Protection: No Description Available.
Global Climate Change: This report discusses the effect of human activities on global climate change. Human activities, particularly burning of fossil fuels, have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), methane, and nitrous oxide.
Safe Drinking Water Act: Implementation and Reauthorization: No Description Available.
Clean Air Act Issues: The 104th Congress enacted four bills modifying provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and held numerous oversight hearings, as EPA and the states continued to implement requirements of the Act's 1990 Amendments. The Amendments set deadlines for issuance of new regulations and attainment of air quality standards.
International Environment: Current Major Global Treaties: Over the past decade, numerous major treaties have been concluded to deal with global environmental concerns. This report very briefly summarizes major global environmental treaties currently in effect, selected to include those that are subjects of frequent interest by Members of Congress.
Global Climate Change: Adequacy of Commitments Under the U.N. Framework Convention and the Berlin Mandate: This report discusses the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) convened July 8-19, 1996, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Polar Research: U.S. Policy and Interests: No Description Available.
Safe Drinking Water Act Reauthorization Issues: No Description Available.
Environmental Protection Agency FY1996 Appropriations: Analyses of House-Passed Riders: On July 31, 1995, in passing H.R.2099, the VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriation Bill for FY1996, the House approved numerous legislative riders, or provisions in bill language, which would prohibit EPA from spending FY1996 funds on a number of regulatory and enforcement activities. In passing H.R. 2099 on September 27, 1995, the Senate did not accept the House-passed riders but did include several other riders. On November 2, 1995, the House approved a motion to instruct the House conferees to strike the 17 major House-passed riders.
International Forest Agreements: Current Status: Over the past decade, there has been extensive public concern about loss of forests around the world. Attention to the rapid rate of tropical deforestation accelerated during the late 1980's as concern about global climate change emerged; at the time, the extensive burning of forests in Brazil (and the consequent release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) was a major concern.
Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate: Marine Mammal Issues: After global warming became a concern in the mid-1950s, researchers proposed measuring deep ocean temperatures to reveal any significant trends in core ocean warming. Acoustic thermometry can detect changes in ocean temperature by receiving low-frequency sounds transmitted across an ocean basin because the speed of sound is proportional to water temperature. Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate, or ATOC, is an international program involving 11 institutions in seven nations. It is designed as a 30-month "proof-of-concept" project to provide data on possible global climate change, with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Defense. A debate has arisen over ATOC's impact on marine mammals versus the benefits of better global warming information derived from ATOC. This report dicusses the ATOC program and related concerns.
California Air Quality FIP - A Fact Sheet: On April 10, 1995, President Clinton signed P.L. 104-6, which contained a provision that rescinds the Federal air quality implementation plan (FIP) for the South Coast, Ventura, and Sacramento areas of California.(1) As a result, the FIP issued by EPA has no further force and effect, and California will continue pursuing approval of its own State implementation plan (SIP) in lieu of the FIP. Promulgation of the FIP was perceived by some within the State as having a detrimental effect on California's industries and economy resulting from costly and burdensome air pollution control measures contained in the plan.
Antarctica: Environmental Protection, Research, and Conservation of Resources: This report discusses protocols and treaties designed and implemented to protect Antarctica as a haven for environmental research, preservation, and conservation, as well as related legislation and Congressional efforts.
Implementing Acid Rain Legislation: This report discusses the broad-ranging provisions in Title IV of The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (P.L. 101-549), which raise myriad implementation issues, particularly with respect to the system of tradable "allowances."
Brownfields Program: Cleaning Up Urban Industrial Sites: The Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is a pilot project to return idle or underused industrial and commercial facilities back to productive use, in situations where redevelopment is complicated by potential environmental contamination. The program is flexible, allowing cities to use a variety of approaches in utilizing grants of up to $200,000 to develop abandoned and underused sites, neighborhoods, and small regional areas. States and Indian tribes are eligible as well as local governments.
Environmental Protection: From the 103rd to the 104th Congress: This report analyzes environmental issues at a pivotal period, between the Democratic-controlled 103rd Congress and the Republican-led 104th Congresses.
Environmental Reauthorizations and Regulatory Reform: Recent Developments: If general regulatory reform bills were enacted, debates on statute-specific reauthorizations could shift from regulatory reforms to the substantive regulatory requirements of each Act. In this case, regulatory reform could consist of proposals to modify statutory requirements to reduce costs to the private sector and State and local governments, to increase flexibility, and to reduce or compensate regulatory impacts on the value of private property. At issue would be a series of potential tradeoffs, for example among efficiency of environmental regulations, national consistency versus local flexibility, protection of private property rights, and degrees of health and environmental protection.
Risk Analysis and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Environmental Regulations: Concerns about the national economy, environment, public health, and the quality of EPA's regulatory process have led Congress to consider proposals to require EPA analyses of risks, costs, and benefits of proposed regulations. Proponents of analysis want the results used to design more efficient regulations and to prioritize environmental problems for Federal attention. Risk analysis summarizes available scientific information about hazardous activities, chemicals, or technologies and the effects they may have on exposed animals or people under various conditions, for example, with or without regulation. Risk and economic analyses can be qualitative or, if information is sufficient, quantitative, but economists can only quantify economic benefits of enviromental regulations if scientists can quantitatively estimate risks to health and the environment.
Clean Water Issues in the 104th Congress: For the 104th Congress, reauthorization of the Clean Water Act would seem likely to be a priority, since the Act was last amended in 1987 and authorizations expired on September 30, 1990. But legislative prospects in the 104th Congress are uncertain. Clean water also was a priority for the 103rd Congress, but, in 1994, Congress ran out of time and did not act on comprehensive amendments. Many of the issues proved to be too complex and controversial to be resolved easily, while Congress also was considering a large agenda of environmental and other bills. Controversies arose in connection with issues specific to the Clean Water Act and a trio of regulatory relief issues that became barriers to a number of bills in the 103rd Congress.
Implementing Acid Rain Legislation: This report discusses the broad-ranging provisions in Title IV of The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (P.L. 101-549), which raise myriad implementation issues, particularly with respect to the system of tradable "allowances."
Trade and Environment: GATT and NAFTA: Environmental concerns in trade negotiations have received extensive attention by policymakers both with regard to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
DOE Environmental Technology Department - A Fact Sheet: The Department of Energy (DOE) established the Office of Technology Development in 1989 to develop faster and less expensive technical solutions to the Department's widespread environmental problems, primarily the legacy of decades of nuclear weapons production. Without new environmental technologies, DOE contends, some types of contamination may prove impossible to clean up. The Office of Technology Development, which is part of DOE's Environmental Management Program (EM), manages all stages of the development of new environmental restoration and waste management technologies, from basic research and development through final testing, demonstration and evaluation.
Market-Based Environmental Management: Issues in Implementation: Increasingly, efforts to protect integral features of the natural environment that are essential to human well being face a double challenge. First, the magnitude of some conventional and emerging threats to environmental quality is growing, despite solid progress in controlling some causes. This is particularly the concern on a global scale in terms of atmospheric changes and loss of biological diversity. Second, easily-implemented uniform control methods using feasible technologies or other direct regulatory approaches are already in place for many pollution and resource management problems in the United States. Additional progress with so-called command and control policies can be expensive and disruptive, and thus counter productive to overall economic well being. This type of dilemma is common where environmental deterioration results from diffuse and complex causes inherent in technically-advanced high-consumption industrial societies such as the U.S. Solutions to these types of environmental problems are complicated by the diffuse benefits which obscures the net gains of additional controls that have concentrated and highly visible costs. Given this double bind, many policy analysts and academics have for years advocated more cost-effective and flexible approaches relying on market forces to further some environmental management objectives. Although market-based theory and practical environmental policy are still far apart, the incremental approach to environmental policymaking since the late seventies has resulted in some market-type innovations within traditional regulatory frameworks at all levels of government. The most prominent examples are the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) air emissions trading program and the recently enacted sulfur dioxide allowance trading program under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.
International Financial Institutions and Environment: Multilateral Development Banks and the Global Environment Facility: The World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDB) have come under increasing pressure to assess the environmental impacts of bank-sponsored projects. The U.S. Congress has required that U.S. participation be based on policies that encourage the banks to raise the priority of environmental protection in their operations and to address environmental impacts; however, major issues continue to revolve around the effectiveness of all the MDBs in promoting environmentally sustainable development. Additionally, increasing concern over global environmental problems led to the creation in 1990 of a new multilateral fund -- the Global Environment Facility (GEF) -- to fund environmental projects of global concern that were generally not being funded by the MDBs. The pilot phase of the GEF ended in December 1993, and participants are currently in the process of determining how, or if, it should function as a permanent entity.
Trade and Environment: Treatment in Recent Agreements--GATT and NAFTA: This report reviews some of the concerns surrounding the environment work program and other environmental issues. It briefly describes work underway in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and current thinking underlying development of U.S. positions on trade and the environment in the GATT.
A Directory of Some Interest Groups and Governmental Organizations Concerned With National Environmental Policies: This report briefly describes selected associations that have demonstrated strong and continuous interest in environmental protection policies of the United States. It provides background information on some of the active participants in national policy discussions. The set of organizations abstracted for this report is not comprehensive; many groups necessarily have been omitted, often because they failed to respond to our request for information. An attempt was made to balance divergent political opinions and to include groups with different perspectives. All associations included in the report have nationwide membership, maintain an office in the vicinity of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and actively seek to influence national (as opposed to international or regional) environmental policies. The financial information provided varies depending on what was available to CRS.
Air Quality: Impacts of Trip Reduction Programs on States and Affected Employers: This report discusses employer trip reduction (ETR) programs, which would require large employers to implement certain transportation control measures as part of a national effort to combat air pollution, largely as a direct result of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
Global Climate Change: This report details the information related to Global Climate Change. The contents include the Greenhouse effect and Global warming, Greenhouse gases, international action, and Congressional interest and activities.
The Endangered Species Act and Private Property: If the 103rd Congress embarks upon an effort to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it will run into an old acquaintance: the property rights issue. As now written, the ESA has at least the potential to curtail property rights (whatever its actual impact as implemented may be). This report explores the legal repercussions of those impacts, especially whether they constitute takings of property under the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Deforestation: An Overview of Global Programs and Agreements: In recent years, global environmental concerns have figured prominently on the American political agenda. In particular, tropical deforestation and its implications for global climate change and biological diversity loss have prompted public outcry. Concerns have since grown to include other forest types as well. The Congress has considered a variety of legislation to stem the tide of increasing deforestation and the United States has supported a number of bilateral and multilateral initiatives to assist other countries in managing their forest resources.
Environmental Equity: More than 20 years of Federal pollution control programs notwithstanding, growing perception that minority and low-income communities remain at disproportionately high risk of exposure to toxic pollutants is focusing attention on "environmental equity" issues. Federal legislation has been introduced to ensure equal protection of environmental quality and public health. Equity legislation is opposed by people who are skeptical of its long-term prospects and believe that there is insufficient evidence of discrimination and that some inequities are inevitable in a free-market economy. Both sides agree there is a need to collect and analyze data on public health and exposure to environmental hazards and to compare health risks among racial and socio-economic groups.
Acid Rain: Does it Contribute to Forest Decline?: This minibrief describes the major hypothesis explaining why acid rain may be contributing to forest decline, along with the major arguments against this hypothesis. For additional information on acid rain and current legislation for pollutant emissions controls, see IB83016 -- Acid Rain: Current Issues, and IB83005 -- Clean Air Act: An Overview.
Summaries of Federal Environmental Laws Administered by the Environmental Protection Agency: No Description Available.
Dioxin: Environmental Impacts and Potential Human Health Effects: This issue brief presents a short background on the physical/chemical properties of dioxin, describes several existing sources of possible human exposure, and highlights what is currently known about its environmental impacts and human health effects. Congressional interest is intense at this time because of large numbers of Vietnam veterans' claims for benefits associated with use of herbicides in that war as well as because of certain incidents of potential significance to health involving disposal of wastes containing dioxin.
Reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act: This report discusses about the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The reauthorization dilemma addresses all the treaty requirements, most importantly in regards to exports of pelts of American bobcats along with international trade in Endangered species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Environmental Protection Agency Programs: Congressional Actions: This report details the environmental protection activities of the 96th Congress. Specifically, it reviews the three major issues which that Congress faced in regard to environmental protections: reauthorizations, oversight of regulations and their impacts on energy and the economy, and hazardous substances.
The Proposed consumer protection agency: Legislative history and arguments Pro and con: This report is about the proposed consumer protection agency, in specific legislative history and arguments pro and con.
Environmental Protection: Legislation and Programs of the Environmental Protection Agency: This report is a historical review of major legislation and programs enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Alaskan Oil-Environment vs. Economy: A Compilation of Selected Writings: This report provides a compilation of writings from news media, professional magazines and journals, and government agencies regarding the environmental risks and considerations that must be taken regarding Alaskan oil drilling and transportation and the economic benefits of Alaskan oil drilling and transportation.
Economic Effects on Pollution Control Legislation: This report's three main objectives: outline major pieces of environmental protection legislation in the previous two congresses, examine selected emerging economic consequences of this legislation, and then congressional response to this legislation.
Environmental Organizations: This report provides a listing of major environmental organizations in the United States.
Highlights of the Department of the Interior's Environmental Report and Decision on the Proposed Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline: This report discusses the Department of the Interior's report regarding the environmental effects of building the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline and their recommendation to allow its building as long as certain requirements were met.
The Environment and Grass Roots Sentiment: This report discusses the results of Congressional polls of their constituents regarding public interest in and willingness to pay for environmental controls and pollution reduction. The polls found that the majority of the public wanted to reduce pollution despite the costs and potential effect on the economy.
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (P.L. 91-190): A Bibliography: This report is a bibliography on the National Environmental Policy Act, that requires federal agencies to take into account the environmental impact of their policies.

Congressional Research Service Reports - 951 Matching Results

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