Regulating Pollutants, Good Neighbor Agreements, and Negative Externalities: Who Bears the Burden of Protecting Communities?

Abstract

Given the failure of federal, state, and common-law environmental regulation to deal with the external social costs of pollution on human health and the environment, local communities have turned to legal and nonlegal strategies to address their concerns. This Article seeks to address the increased need for the study of community environmental policing and monitoring of air quality. The case study presented of the Portland Good Neighbor Agreement considers whether the community benefits gained by a Good Neighbor Agreement are equitably balanced against the costs to the community of negotiation and implementation. While such agreements have the potential for a wide range of positive benefits for a community, there are significant transaction costs associated with negotiating, signing, implementing, and enforcing the terms and conditions. As such, reliance on Good Neighbor Agreements to remediate the negative human health impacts of pollution is misguided and detracts from the critical need for an environmental regulatory regime to take the responsibility off of communities and to adequately address the impacts of industrial pollution.