How do we get areas into attainment

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Schedule

• Today
• Benefit-cost (finish 5 slides)
• Resource Conservation Recovery Act
• Monday Superfund (CERCLA)
• Wednesday Exam
• My office hours
• Monday 5 p.m. 7 p.m.
• Tuesday 9 a.m. 1230 p.m.
• Exam prep sheet posted over the weekend.
• Comments on exam.

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• 12. This question concerns the article, Costs
  and Benefits of Vehicle Inspection A Case Study
  of the Maryland Region.
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• What categories of benefits and costs were
  considered by this research? (8 pts.)
• ii) What cost did this research measure that had
  been missed by previous studies? (5 pts.) 
• iii) Explain briefly how this cost was measured.
  Is this an example of revealed preference?
  Explain briefly. (8 pts.) 

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Benefit-cost analysis

• Health (including premature deaths) play an
  outsize role in benefit-cost analysis.
• Statistical life definition
• Value of a statistical life
• Revealed preference
• Many other issues
• VSL differ by age?
• Quality adjusted?

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Benefit-cost analysis (short overview)

• Makes us spell out what we think will happen.
  (Very useful!)
• Makes decisions transparent and systematic.
• Cautions

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• Drawbacks
• Seems to tilt regulation toward issues that are
  concrete quantifiable.
• Lets be honest Its as much art as science.
• We got along fine without it for 180 years.
  Thats what representative democracy is for.
• But The alternatives are not as transparent or
  systematic.

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Benefit-cost analysis

• Bottom line
• Appears to help us make good decisions for
  policies that affect human health and safety.
• Unknown whether it helps us make good decisions
  for policies that affect the environment.

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• Who uses BCA?
• Congress (Hearings.)
• Administration
• Public. Advocacy groups.
• No laws require us to make a decision based on a
  benefit-cost test.
• A few laws prohibit consideration of the costs
  when making rules.
• We do benefit-cost analysis for pretty much
  everything.

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Next A set of policies mostly focused on human
health

• Pesticides Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and
  Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) - 1972
• Toxic Substances Toxic Substances Control Act
  (TSCA) 1976
• Solid Waste Resource Conservation and Recovery
  Act (RCRA) 1976
• Abandoned waste sites Superfund (CERCLA) 1980

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• To think about
• Why were pesticides part of the early set of
  laws?

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Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976
(RCRA)

• First major Federal law dealing with waste.
• Major amendments in 1984
• Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments
• Connected to Recycling is Garbage
• As with the other laws, it is useful to first
  think about what issues might come up. What
  would we want this law to deal with? How?

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RCRA (original focus)

• Solid waste.
• Environmental health effects (Risks from waste,
  such as hazardous waste)
• Materials Recycling
• Energy
• In actuality it has come to focus on
• Landfills - groundwater
• Hazardous materials disposal
• Illegal dumping
• Plugs holes that the CWA missed.

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• What would you do?
• Criteria for disposal sites.
• (Landfills Liners, groundwater monitoring...)
• Hazardous wastes
• Definition
• Labeling
• Recording-keeping
• Cradle to grave manifest
• Treat wastes before they are landfilled.
• Promote markets for recovered wastes.

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How well did it work?

• At first, way too loose.
• So, 1984 amendments
• (next slide or here.)

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• (2) Paragraph (1) applies to the following
  hazardous wastes listed or identified under
  section 6921 of this title
• (A) Liquid hazardous wastes, including free
  liquids associated with any solid or sludge,
  containing free cyanides at concentrations
  greater than or equal to 1,000 mg/l.
• (B) Liquid hazardous wastes, including free
  liquids associated with any solid or sludge,
  containing the following metals (or elements) or
  compounds of these metals (or elements) at
  concentrations greater than or equal to those
  specified below
• Arsenic and/or compounds (as As) 500 mg/l
• Cadmium and/or compounds (as Cd) 100 mg/l
• Chromium (VI and/or compounds (as Cr VI)) 500
  mg/l
• Lead and/or compounds (as Pb) 500 mg/l
• Mercury and/or compounds (as Hg) 20 mg/l
• Nickel and/or compounds (as Ni) 134 mg/l
• Selenium and/or compounds (as Se) 100 mg/l and
• Thallium and/or compounds (as Th) 130 mg/l.

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• (B) Until the effective date of such regulations
  or guidance documents, the requirement for the
  installation of two or more liners may be
  satisfied by the installation of a top liner
  designed, operated, and constructed of materials
  to prevent the migration of any constituent into
  such liner during the period such facility
  remains in operation (including any post-closure
  monitoring period), and a lower liner designed,
  operated \3\ and constructed to prevent the
  migration of any constituent through such liner
  during such period.
• For the purpose of the preceding sentence, a
  lower liner shall be deemed to satisfy such
  requirement if it is constructed of at least a
  3-foot thick layer of recompacted clay or other
  natural material with a permeability of no more
  than 1? 107 centimeter per second.

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How well did this work, cont.?

• Regulations made legal disposal expensive.
  (Compare to NSPS)
• Landfill crisis of late 1980s.
• Illegal dumping?
• Small gas stations driven out of business?
• Shift to incineration?

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• How did this work, cont.?
• Manifests too complicated to use as a tool.
  (What exactly are they supposed to do?)
• Does not directly discourage waste generation!
• Administrative overload
• Especially Definition of solid hazardous
  waste

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• Finally RCRA applies only to current disposal,
  not to pre-existing waste sites.
• This is yet another NSPS-like provision, with
  similar negative consequences (but not as bad).
• For those sites, there is Superfund!

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Superfund (CERCLA)

• Comprehensive Environmental Response, Liability,
  and Compensation Act of 1980
• Political history
• Passed in late 1980
• Federal role
• An example of a law that did not work (well).

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• Find abandoned waste sites
• EPA to create a list of sites, called the
  National Priority List. (NPL)
• http//www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/md.htm
• Circle Final Triangle Proposed Square -
  Deleted

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2006 map
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• Clean up
• - Who should do it?
• Paying for clean-up
• Clarify responsibility, liability
• Trust fund established by a tax on certain
  manufacturers. (Superfund, of course.)
• Emergency response liability

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Options for paying for clean-up

• PRP Potentially Responsible Party
• EPA pays (using the Superfund), then sues PRPs to
  recover the costs.
• EPA tells a PRP to clean up.
• Third party undertakes clean-up, then sues PRPs
  to recover the costs.