Technology-based Standards Research Articles

Facile, cost-effective, large-scale, reliable, and efficient fabrication of CuO as a potential catalyst for organic dyes removal from water

In recent decades, copper (II) oxide, also called cupric oxide (CuO) catalyst has shown promising results for decomposing organic water contaminants. This work aimed to optimize the different parameters linked with the fabrication of cupric oxide (CuO) to become feasible for industrial and commercial applications, meeting the technology-based treatment standards. The effects of calcination temperatures (CTs) and cooling rates (CRs) on the crystallographic properties were thoroughly studied employing Rietveld refinement and Statistical analysis. The phases are CuO > Cu2O > Cuo, with crystallite sizes <80 nm. The optimum conditions are 450 °C and air quench, yielding 98.5% cupric oxide [CuO] (54 nm) and 1.3% copper (I) oxide, also called cuprous oxide (Cu2O). The particle size distribution was found to follow the normal distribution at CT of 600 °C, indicating the maturity of the crystal system. The textural analysis exhibited Type-II adsorption. The preliminary catalytic activity results revealed high activity and room for enhancing process kinetics at mild conditions.

A new procurement and supply contract for manufacturing technology standards’ diffusion from home to host countries

The rise of industry 4.0 has led to the implementation of new technology-based manufacturing standards (TMSs). This study proposes a new contract to support a manufacturer, Haier, in diffusing its home-country TMSs into host countries with technology gaps. The manufacturer conducts the diffusion by operating two-sided networks (i.e. consumer and supplier networks) and dual sourcing (i.e. placing orders from two suppliers in different countries). A procurement contract is designed to coordinate the two-sided networks; it defines a market-pricing and part-procurement problem to maximise the scale of customers and local suppliers, respectively. These suppliers decide whether to accept the contract after considering their production conditions and technology gaps. A part-supply contract is executed if the procurement contract is accepted. Surplus parts are procured from the manufacturer’s home country if the local supply is insufficient. The coupling of procurement and supply contract (PSC) design is inherent, while a hierarchical collaborative optimisation (HCO) model based on Stackelberg game theory is formulated. The HCO model deploys a multi-objective bi-level programming decision structure to examine the PSC coupling. A nested non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II is designed to address this HCO model, while a case study of refrigerator TMS diffusion is analysed for verification.

A strategy for the implementation of water-quality-based discharge limits for the regulation of hazardous substances.

Many developing countries apply technology-based discharge standards that set quantitative limits on pollutant discharges. These standards do not inherently consider ambient constraints and, therefore, cannot guarantee to protect aquatic life from hazardous pollutants. It is a challenge for developing countries to enforce water-quality-based limits for wastewater discharges and guarantee the intended use of water. This study aims to develop a strategy that suits the needs of developing countries for a transition from technology-based discharge standards to water-quality-based discharge limits. To this end, a pilot monitoring program was carried in the Gediz River Basin in Turkey. Surface water, industrial, and urban wastewater samples were collected and analyzed for 45 priority pollutants identified by the European Union and 250 national river basin specific pollutants. The monitoring results revealed that the environmental quality standards (EQSs) were exceeded for 8 priority, and 28 specific pollutants. This finding indicated that the existing technology-based discharge standards are not satisfactory to guarantee the intended water quality, and there is a need for adopting a new strategy for the implementation of water-quality-based discharge limits in Turkey. As a widely applied approach for determining water-quality-based discharge limits, firstly, conservative mass balance with and without consideration of mixing zone was evaluated. The results indicated that this approach was not applicable due to the receiving environment concentrations being higher than the EQSs. As an alternative approach, the dilution methodology, which considers the level of dilution occurring at the immediate discharge point, was tested. The results proved that the dilution methodology is the most appropriate strategy for developing countries with relatively poor surface water quality to improve the water quality to the level where the conservative mass balance approach can be applicable.

Removal Methods of Heavy Metals from Laboratory Wastewater

The removal of heavy metals from the environment is the special concern due to their persistence without degradation. Methods for treating laboratory and industrial wastewater containing heavy metals often involve technologies for reduction of toxicity in order to meet technology-based treatment standards. Physico-chemical removal processes such as; adsorption on new adsorbents, ion exchange, membrane filtration, electrodialysis, reverse osmosis, and ultrafiltration were discussed. Their advantages and drawbacks in application were evaluated. In the processes of biological treatments microorganisms play a role of settling solids in the solution. Activated sludge, trickling filters, stabilization ponds are widely used for treating industrial wastewater. Bioadsorption is a new biological method and various low cost bioadsorbents (agricultural waste, forest waste, industrial waste, algae etc.) are used for maximum removal of heavy metals from wastewater. Bioadsorption techniques are eco friendly best solutions for removing heavy metals from wastewater rather than physic-chemical methods. But chemical methods are most suitable treatments for toxic inorganic compounds produced from various industries which cannot removed from any biological and physical techniques. Keywords: Heavy metals; removal techniques; Bioadsorption; physico-chemical treatments DOI : 10.7176/JNSR/9-2-04

Обзор математических моделей расписаний маршрутного городского транспорта

Objective: To survey international and domestic experience of building mathematical models for timetable and schedule presentation. Methods: The analysis of applicability of the current international experience in transport management in the sphere of public route transport was carried out. It particularly concerned scheduling for ex-USSR countries. Results: The necessity to develop special-purpose mathematical models of route public transport schedule was justified. The schedule models in question being serviceable under the limitations of current technology-based standards and traffic management restrictions in Russia. Practical importance: Implementation and development of domestic intelligence systems, designed to organize the management of public route transport operation, is of great relevance for economic development of the country.

Technology-Based? Cost Factoring in U.S. Environmental Standards

Environmental controls in the United States are often said to be “technology-based” because the polluter’s duties are determined by the available technology for controlling that pollution rather than by the social costs and benefits of doing so. Indeed, this is much of what distinguishes U.S. environmental law post-1970 from that which preceded it. But technology-based standards have in fact weighed the costs of controlling pollution in unique, often obscure ways, yielding an analysis that defies standardization and basic notions of transparency. Often lumped under an umbrella heading called “feasibility” analysis and justified on the grounds that it avoids many of the known pitfalls of cost-benefit analysis, the factoring of cost into technology assessments hands our Environmental Protection Agency a uniquely hard problem of prediction: the inducement of innovation. This Article traces the evolution of the practice to the state of the art today, offers several clarifications upon reflection, and suggests that cost estimation in technology- based standard setting is actually more likely to be a useful decision input than the orthodox cost-benefit balancing procedures. Most importantly, it is more likely to accurately assess the possibilities of inducing innovation—accuracy that is increasingly vital to meeting environmental challenges like climate change.

Technology adoption under time-differentiated market-based instruments for pollution control

Peak concentrations of ground-level ozone pose health risks to millions of U.S. citizens across the U.S. In order to reduce peak ozone concentrations, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from the power sector, among others, have been regulated with technology-based standards or, more commonly in recent years, market-based instruments such as cap-and-trade programs. However, the lack of temporal flexibility in current designs of these market-based instruments limits their cost-effectiveness on days forecasted to have the highest levels of pollution, including ozone precursors such as NOx, and as further emission reductions are sought, the marginal cost of these approaches increases dramatically. In this paper, we compare three regulatory schemes for reducing NOx emissions on high-ozone days: time-differentiated pricing, which prices NOx emissions only on days with high-ozone concentrations; undifferentiated pricing, which represents current NOx emission regulations; and technology-based standards. We develop a novel model that captures for the first time both the short- and long-term response of generators, through redispatching and control technology adoption, to a dynamic pricing scheme such as time-differentiated pricing. Unlike prior studies on time-differentiated pricing, the heart of our model, a unit commitment model, accounts for inter-temporal constraints on power generation that may be crucial to accurately capturing the response of generators to a transient price signal. We apply this model to the Texas power system and find that while control technology adoption (specifically selective catalytic reduction) does occur at very high time-differentiated prices, time-differentiated pricing mainly affects emissions and costs through redispatching of gas- for coal-fired generation. Furthermore, we show that time-differentiated pricing, due to its targeted pricing mechanism, provides a more cost-effective approach than undifferentiated pricing or technology-based standards for reducing NOx emissions on high-ozone days, but is not cost-effective at reducing summer-wide NOx emissions. Our results illustrate the trade-offs between these regulatory approaches and suggest that states should consider dynamic pricing schemes such as time-differentiated pricing for achieving further reductions in peak ozone concentrations.

A Technology-Based Approach to Water Conservation in California

I. INTRODUCTION II. CALIFORNIA WATER LAW A. Riparianism B. Prior-Appropriation III. CALIFORNIA'S APPROACHES TO EFFICIENT WATER USE IV. INTRODUCTION TO A TECHNOLOGY-BASED APPROACH A. Clean Water Act Approach B. Clean Air Act Approach C. The Clean Air Act Was Successful V. TECHNOLOGY-BASED STANDARDS AS APPLIED TO WATER CONSERVATION VI. IMPLEMENTING AND ENFORCING THE STANDARDS A. Implementation B. Enforcement VII. OPPOSITION TO A TECHNOLOGY-BASED STANDARD VIII. CONCLUSION I. Introduction In the coming decades, as already seen today, global climate change will impact hydrologic balances and water availability. (1) Among the scientific community, [t]here is a relatively firm consensus that arid and semiarid regions risk the net loss of stream runoff as winter snowpack diminishes and spring and summer evaporation increases each year. (2) As water becomes increasingly scarce, water use and management will have to adapt to these changing conditions. California water law is based on a combination of riparianism and prior-appropriation. These two doctrines assume regional water balances will remain relatively constant over time, but such an assumption is no longer viable. (3) As water becomes less available, water managers will have to change their assumptions and policies to better meet the needs of their water users. between senior users, junior users, and future claimants, as well as between consumptive and non-consumptive uses (such as environmental protection), will only increase. (4) In an effort to resolve these conflicts in uses and users, state policy must actively find new conservation methods. To date, most water conservation policy in California is voluntary, and the combination of riparianism and prior-appropriation does little to encourage conservation. This paper argues that California should take a new approach to water conservation based on the command-and-control pollution laws of the 1970s. California should adopt a technology-based approach similar to the clean Air Act (CAA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) to set new standards for water permits. A technology-based approach would require users to either adopt more efficient technology or use less water, thereby increasing conservation. It is also a flexible approach that typically considers cost-benefit analysis at some point in the process for determining the standards. The first section of this paper describes how California's system of riparianism and prior-appropriation functions, and explains why the system does not encourage conservation. The paper then looks at some of the conservation methods that California employs, ultimately concluding that those conservation policies are not adequate to deal with increasing water scarcity. The next section describes how technology-based standards work and how a technology-based standard can be applied to water conservation. Lastly, this paper addresses how a technology-based standard could be implemented and enforced, as well as responds to the potential opposition that a bill or regulation would face. II. California Water Law A. Riparianism In California, riparian water rights entitle owners of land bordering a stream to receive the flow of the stream undiminished except by the common right of all to receive a share of the (5) Permissible uses of water were essentially limited to fulfilling domestic needs, such as withdrawing sufficient water for drinking, bathing, and watering animals. (6) States adopted the riparian natural flow doctrine from England, the purpose of which was to allow all landowners along a river or lake a sufficient amount of water for their daily needs. (7) The natural flow doctrine thereby limited use of water to ensure that each landowner along the river would receive a reasonable amount of water. …

Houston's Novel Strategy to Control Hazardous Air Pollutants: A Case Study in Policy Innovation and Political Stalemate.

Although ambient concentrations have declined steadily over the past 30 years, Houston has recorded some of the highest levels of hazardous air pollutants in the United States. Nevertheless, federal and state regulatory efforts historically have emphasized compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone, treating “air toxics” in Houston as a residual problem to be solved through application of technology-based standards. Between 2004 and 2009, Mayor Bill White and his administration challenged the well-established hierarchy of air quality management spelled out in the Clean Air Act, whereby federal and state authorities are assigned primacy over local municipalities for the purpose of designing and implementing air pollution control strategies. The White Administration believed that existing regulations were not sufficient to protect the health of Houstonians and took a diversity of both collaborative and combative policy actions to mitigate air toxic emissions from stationary sources. Opposition was substantial from a local coalition of entrenched interests satisfied with the status quo, which hindered the city’s attempts to take unilateral policy actions. In the short term, the White Administration successfully raised the profile of the air toxics issue, pushed federal and state regulators to pay more attention, and induced a few polluting facilities to reduce emissions. But since White left office in 2010, air quality management in Houston has returned to the way it was before, and today there is scant evidence that his policies have had any lasting impact.

Adaptation features and emission standards execution control in the industry

Technology-based standards in force of allowable emissions of stationary sources of industrial enterprises were considered. The analysis of the standards on concentration, composition and range of energy emissions, agglomeration of metal ores, production of ferroalloys, electrocorundum, cement, glass and fiberglass, coke, was carried out. The majority of the technology-based standards regulate four main pollutants: dust (suspended particulate matter), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2). These pollutants are products of combustion processes of different fuels — liquid, gaseous, solid, which are common to the most of the above-mentioned processes. There is a lack of technology-based emission standards for a number of metallurgical processes: blast furnace and converter, woodworking, food, petrochemical, manufacturing of firebrick, brick and other building materials.Instrumental-gas analytical monitoring of the technology-based standards of different manufacturing processes is a prerequisite of the Western European industrial companies operation. Today, for solving the problem of the technology-based standards control, there are a few basic structural diagrams of constructing the gas analytical systems. The functional diagrams of constructing the gas analytical systems for controlling emissions of SIEMENS (FRG), «Environnement SA» (France), are presented. Specifications, functional diagram and description of the domestic gas analytical technological complex TK-1 are given. The TC-1 contains a multichannel gas analyzer 325 FA01, implemented by the method of infrared spectroscopy, measuring carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (СО2) and methane (СН4). The feature of the analyzer 325FA01 is an original optical scheme using zero (reference) channel, the effective scheme of sampling and hot filtration of contaminated gas sample, reliability, automatic selftest, reserving the main operation functions.

Maintaining a Healthy Water Supply While Growing a Healthy Food Supply: Legal Tools for Cleaning Up Agricultural Water Pollution

Although agriculture is one of the most significant and pernicious causes of water pollution in the U.S., federal environmental laws designed to protect water resources exclude or exempt most agricultural activities. State efforts to address water quality impacts from agriculture have met with little success. The challenge of finding a way to reduce agricultural water pollution without causing severe economic harm to farmers is one of the greatest environmental challenges of our time. Large scale industrialized agriculture, with its heavy reliance on fertilizer, pesticide and water inputs, is a major contributor to water pollution. Agricultural practices can cause serious adverse impacts to the quality of both groundwater and surfacewater. Rain or irrigation water that falls on farm fields, picks up water soluble pesticides such as atrazine and nutrients such as nitrites found in fertilizers, causing them to leach into groundwater. Rain and irrigation water that is not absorbed into the soil runs off of agricultural fields carrying with it a variety of pollutants which ultimately end up in surface water bodies. Run-off from farm fields frequently contains high levels of sediments from soil erosion from tilled fields, pesticides and fertilizers. Pesticides that enter waterbodies can adversely impact aquatic life. Nutrients from fertilizers can cause waterbodies to be hypereutrophied, which can severely impact submersed plants and aquatic animals. Run-off of sediments from soil erosion due to tilling can clog streams and fill in shallow areas in water bodies, thereby reducing habitat and light availability to submersed plants. A report by the National Water Quality Inventory identified agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution as “the leading source of water quality impacts on surveyed rivers and lakes, the second largest source of impairments to wetlands, and a major contributor to contamination of surveyed estuaries and ground water.”The federal Clean Water Act (CWA), the primary federal authority for addressing water pollution, has been largely successful at reducing water pollution from point sources such as wastewater treatment plants and industrial discharges through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). A major shortcoming of the NPDES program, however is that it does not apply to NPS discharges, including most agricultural runoff. Although most pollutant discharges to waterbodies from agriculture are not subject to NPDES regulation, the federal CWA does require states to establish water quality standards and total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) that can be used by the states to address agricultural water pollution through regulatory or non-regulatory mechanisms. A TMDL tells you how much of a particular pollutant a particular water body can assimilate without a violation of a water quality standard. Thus, the establishment of TMDL’s is an important step in ensuring that state water quality standards are met. The greatest challenge, however, is the allocation of TMDLs among all point and nonpoint source dischargers, and the implementation of the TMDLs. For point source discharges, TMDLs are allocated and implemented through the NPDES permit program and may require pollution reductions beyond what would be required using only technology-based standards. For nonpoint sources such as agricultural, the allocation and implementation of TMDLs is much more daunting. This Article will explore a number of legal mechanisms that could play a role in ensuring that discharges from agricultural activities do not cause or contribute to violations of water quality standards. Specifically, this article will evaluate the relative effectiveness of: 1) narrative nutrient criteria and numeric nutrient criteria, 2) TMDL implementation through regulatory and nonregulatory mechanisms; and 2) Design-based standards such as Best Management Practices (BMPs) and performance-based standards in reducing water pollution form agriculture. The Article will draw on experiences from the State of Florida, including Everglades’s restoration efforts, and efforts to reduce agricultural pollution in the Chesapeake Bay basin to demonstrate the efficacy of a variety of approaches and will suggest a multifaceted, watershed-based approach comprised of a combination of regulatory and nonregulatory federal and state efforts.

History of the 1972 Clean Water Act: The Story Behind How the 1972 Act Became the Capstone on a Decade of Extraordinary Environmental Reform

As the title suggests, this paper will trace the history of federal interventions in U.S. water pollution control from 1886 up to the adoption of the landmark 1972 Clean Water Act, which has provided the framework for federal programs to abate water pollution for the past forty years. After a brief description of the workings of state water pollution programs prior to the initiation of a major federal effort, the history of federal activity leading up to the 1972 Act will be set forth in three periods. The first period is the longest, but least active. It runs from the 1886 forerunner to the 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act (more commonly known as the Refuse Act) to the halting start on building a national program represented by the 1948 Federal Water Pollution Control Act. During the second period interest in developing a meaningful federal role in water pollution began to pick up speed. This period runs from adoption the 1948 Act as a temporary measure to the much more active federal role in overseeing the creation of water quality standards for interstate waters created by the 1965 Water Quality Act. The third period is one of almost frenetic activity in the environmental sector, when many of today’s most important programs to protect and preserve environmental resources were first adopted. This period runs from the 1965 Act to the 1972 Clean Water Act, which declared a national goal of eliminating all man-made water pollution and sought to implement achievement of that goal through a comprehensive federal regulatory strategy emphasizing technology-based effluent standards. Primary emphasis will be placed on the third period, and an effort will be made to locate precisely the origins of the major components of the 1972 Act in legislative initiatives and proposals leading up to its adoption. Considered in this connection will be such ideas as how to adapt basic principles of federalism to an effective nationwide program for regulating water pollution, the respective regulatory roles of “ambient water quality standards” and ”technology-based effluent standards,” and working out the proper linkages between them, distinguishing between “point sources” and “nonpoint sources” of water pollution, and designing different strategies for their control, and implementing a policy to assure “nondegradation” of existing high quality waters.

Can't Teach an Old Law a New Risk: The Awkward Application of Traditional Environmental Laws to the Problem of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in the United States’ Drinking Water Supplies

This Article is prompted by the discovery of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) from pharmaceutical and personal care product (PPCP) chemicals generated by myriad unregulated sources in drinking water supplies and aquatic ecosystems throughout the United States. Exposure to EDCs and other chemicals from PPCPs can cause observable adverse impacts to aquatic flora and fauna, and while not yet conclusively established at current levels, a potentially wide range of adverse human health impacts, from birth defects to obesity. While proverbial canaries in the coal mine show worrying symptoms, PPCP contaminants remain largely unregulated as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) carries out risk assessment processes. This Article summarizes the nature of this newly prioritized water contamination problem, current actions of the U.S. EPA, and the applicability of certain federal laws — the National Environmental Policy Act; Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; Clean Water Act; Resources Conservation and Recovery Act; Toxic Substance Control Act, and Pollution Prevention Act. The Article then surveys risk management theory for guidance on whether, and if so how much, the PPCP problem should be addressed. These theories include market regulation, no-risk, precautionary principle, technology-based standards, risk-risk tradeoff, risk-benefit assessment, cost-effectiveness, regulatory budget, cost-benefit analysis, and sustainability. Surveying these laws and risk management theories (1) provides practical foresight for how the PPCP problem would be addressed under federal law, and (2) uses a factually vexing public health and environmental problem as a case study for the appraisal of the laws and risk management theories themselves. The Article concludes that cost-benefit analysis, the precautionary principle, and sustainability should be applied to guide policy-makers in an appropriately comprehensive fashion, yet the U.S. EPA and U.S. FDA currently apply risk assessment and risk-benefit approaches to the PPCP problem. The main operational requirements of these federal laws would probably not successfully protect against low-level, chronic, synergistic, and cumulative exposure to PPCPs without changes in regulatory initiative, breakthroughs in risk assessment, and new risk management approaches.

DEP Takes Another Regulatory Step Toward 'Discharge Elimination': The New Chapter 92a Regulations Ratchet Down NPDES Discharge Standards Again

In 1972, the Clean Water Act established national policies and goals to enhance and protect our nation’s waters. The primary national goal was, “that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985.” An interim goal of what became known as, “fishable, swimmable,” waters, was to be achieved, “wherever attainable,” by July 1, 1983. A national policy was that, “the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts be eliminated.”Probably the most prominent creation of the Act was the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program and the so-called, “delegation,” of that program to the states. Hence, for the last forty years the goal of the Clean Water Act has been to eliminate the discharge of pollutants. While the implementation of water quality-based discharge limits seems generally to have eliminated the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts as planned, the discharge of other pollutants continues some twenty-five years after the deadline for elimination. Several provisions in the Act call for a gradual, “ratcheting down,” of discharge standards. Of particular interest in this respect is the concept of, “technology-based discharge standards,” or TBELs. Applicable to industrial dischargers through Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELGs) for the forty or so so-called, “categorical,” industries, and to publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) through the, “secondary treatment standards,” the innovative concept of TBELs served to standardize wastewater treatment, resulting in discharges that, in most cases, are significantly, “cleaner,” than necessary to meet established water quality standards, a substantial step toward the goal of discharge elimination. For some industrial categories, TBELs have already implemented that goal by setting, “no discharge,” as the allowable limit. For POTWs, however, the TBELs that were established in the 1970s have not changed and the discharge of, “conventional,” pollutants, nutrients, and some others continues, even though treatment technology and the skill of treatment plant operators have measurably improved. While EPA continues to evaluate potential new categories of industry for development of ELGs and revisits existing categories to determine if new technologies justify more stringent standards, no such program has been implemented to evaluate secondary treatment standards. From time to time, environmental groups propose additional or more stringent secondary treatment standards, but EPA has not acted on these proposals.

Environmental Policy Design and the Fragmentation of International Markets for Innovation

It has long been argued that the implementation of market-based environmental policy instruments such as environmentally-related taxes and tradable permits is likely to lead to greater technological innovation than more direct forms of regulation such as technology-based standards. One of the principle reasons for such an assertion is that they they give firms greater 'flexibility' to identify the optimal means of innovating to meet the given environmental objective. Thus, it can be argued that the benefits of (some) market-based instruments can also be true of well-designed performance standards. While the theoretical case for the use of flexible policy instruments is well-developed, empirical evidence remains limited. Drawing upon a database of patent applications from a cross-section of countries evidence is provided for the positive effect of 'flexibility' of the domestic environmental policy regime on the propensity for the inventions induced to be diffused widely in the world economy. For a given level of policy stringency, countries with more flexible environmental policies are more likely to generate innovations which are diffused widely and are more likely to benefit from innovations generated elsewhere. And while the focus of this paper is on the specific case of environmental policy, the discussion is equally applicable to aspects of product and labour market regulation which have implications for technological innovation, such as product and workplace safety.

Environmental Policy Design and the Fragmentation of International Markets for Innovation

It has long been argued that the implementation of market-based environmental policy instruments such as environmentally-related taxes and tradable permits is likely to lead to greater technological innovation than more direct forms of regulation such as technology-based standards. One of the principle reasons for such an assertion is that they give firms greater „flexibility‟ to identify the optimal means of innovating to meet the given environmental objective. Thus, it can be argued that the benefits of (some) market-based instruments can also be true of well-designed performance standards. While the theoretical case for the use of flexible policy instruments is well-developed, empirical evidence remains limited. Drawing upon a database of patent applications from a cross-section of countries evidence is provided for the positive effect of „flexibility‟ of the domestic environmental policy regime on the propensity for the inventions induced to be diffused widely in the world economy. For a given level of policy stringency, countries with more flexible environmental policies are more likely to generate innovations which are diffused widely and are more likely to benefit from innovations generated elsewhere. And while the focus of this paper is on the specific case of environmental policy, the discussion is equally applicable to aspects of product and labour market regulation which have implications for technological innovation, such as product and workplace safety.

Brief of Environmental Law Professors as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents

This is an amicus brief written by Professors Jim May (Widener) and Jared Goldstein (Roger Williams) on behalf of law professors in support of Respondent Riverkeeper, in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Entergy v. EPA, PSEG Fossil v. Riverkeeper, and Utility Water Group v. Riverkeeper, _ U.S. _, Nos. 07-588, 07-589 and 07-597, respectively. While the certified question seems improbably simple, Whether section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1326(b), authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to compare costs with benefits in determining the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact at existing cooling water intake structures, what is at stake is much more complex and sweeping. The outcome of this case could have profoundly negative effects not only on the environmental concerns 316(b) was designed to protect, but also on the technology-based undergirding of the CWA and the rest of Environmental Law. This amicus brief examines the relevant language, structure and history of the CWA, including the role of costs in setting technology-based standards. The history of water pollution regulation before 1972 demonstrates that Congress wisely chose to meet water quality standards by adopting performance-based standards based on technological capabilities rather than balancing costs and benefits based on water quality impacts. Experience under the Clean Water Act vindicates Congress's choice: the technology-based standards adopted under the Clean Water Act have produced significant environmental benefits without causing economic disruption or absurd results.

State enforcement of federal standards: Implications for interstate pollution

This paper explores the relationship between interstate air pollution and the division of power between federal and state agencies in setting and enforcing standards. In the context of the US Clean Air Act we argue that the EPA is able to monitor the adoption of technology-based standards more closely than it can monitor state-level enforcement, and that this causes an effective division of control between federal and state agencies. Our analysis offers three main insights into the interstate pollution problem in this setting. First, states have an incentive to enforce standards less stringently on firms located close to downwind borders, and this leads to excessive interstate pollution in equilibrium. Second, there can arise an inherent substitutability in the regulatory problem between strict standards and compliance effort, and this creates a strategic linkage between the federal policy on standards and state policies on enforcement. In particular, a tighter federal standard can induce less selective enforcement but can also lead to less enforcement overall. Third, states will attempt to neutralize the impact of location-based federal standards (that specifically target interstate pollution) in a way that actually exacerbates the underlying enforcement problem.

Support for selection of a methamphetamine cleanup standard in Colorado

Methamphetamine production for illicit use occurs in makeshift labs and is associated with the release of numerous chemicals, including methamphetamine residues. These methamphetamine residues may pose a health risk to residents who reoccupy these structures after property seizures. Several states have established technology-based cleanup standards for methamphetamine, but none have examined the health-protectiveness of these standards. In response to Colorado House Bill 04-1182, exposure intakes correlated with three technology-based standards were calculated for various groups of individuals. Intakes were assessed for a 1-year-old infant, 6-year-old child, and a female of childbearing age. Exposure intakes were compared to toxicity reference values developed from developmental endpoints following methamphetamine exposure from the available literature. Uncertainty factors were applied to the lowest adverse effect levels observed in these studies to arrive at the toxicity reference values. These reference values were greater than the calculated intakes from each proposed technology standard, suggesting that all of the proposed standards would be protective of human health exposure. The cost and practicality of attaining each of the proposed standards was also factored into the decision making process. In their final regulation (6 CCR 1014-3), the CDPHE selected 0.5 μg/100 cm 2 as the final cleanup standard for methamphetamine residues.

The Challenges of Air Pollution and Residual Risk Assessment

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 authorized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promulgate and implement technology-based standards on emissions of 188 hazardous air pollutants. These emission limits were to reflect the maximum achievable control technology (MACT) for categories of source. Although the MACT standards have resulted in a significant reduction of toxic air emissions, an assessment of the residual risk of toxic air emissions from MACT-regulated sources is needed to determine whether further controls are needed. This article discusses the problems associated with air pollution, and describes steps taken by the EPA to develop a risk assessment methodology that evaluates the residual health risks and ecological effects associated with exposure to toxic air pollutants from different source categories. The method, called total risk integrated methodology, depends upon a dispersion model to assess human exposure to toxic compounds.