Laws and Legislation

You are expected to know these for exams in AP Environmental Science.

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Clean Air Act

(1970)

• US federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile vehicles.
• Authorizes the EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and public welfare.
• Regulates emissions of hazardous air pollutants.

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Clean Water Act

(1972)

• US federal law that regulates discharges of pollutants.
• Makes in unlawful to dump any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters unless a permit is obtained (loopholes) .
• Ensures drinking water is safe, restores and maintains oceans and watersheds.

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SWDA

Safe Water Drinking Act

1974 with amendments in 1986 and 1996

• US federal law intended to ensure safe drinking water.
• Authorizes the EPA to establish minimum standards to protect tap waters.
• Establishes minimum standards for state programs to protect underground sources endangered by underground injection of fluids (fracking)
• 1996 amendments require the EPA to consider risk and cost assessments.

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CITES

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

1975

• International agreement that ensures that international trade in animals and plants does not threaten their survival in the wild.
• Species covered by CITES are listed in different appendices according to their conservation status:
• Species threatened with extinction
• Species not currently threatened but may become so without trade controls.
• Species for which a country has asked other CITES parties to help control.

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Endangered Species Act

(1973)

• US program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage species endemic to the our country and also gives them the power to enforce SITES in the US

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CERCLA

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.

1980

• AKA Superfund
• Provides a federal superfund to clean up uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites as well as accidents, spills, and other emergency releases of pollutants and contaminants.

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RCRA

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

1976

• US federal law that gives the EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from “cradle to grave”
• Includes generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of hazardous wastes.
• States are authorized to operate their own hazardous waste programs which must be at least as stringent as federal standards.

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Delaney Clause

1958

• Part of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
• Prohibits the addition of any chemical that has caused cancer to humans or animals into the human food supply.

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Montreal Protocol

(1987)

• International treaty designed to stop the production and import of ozone depleting substances and reduce their concentration in the atmosphere.

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Kyoto Protocol

(1997)

• International treaty to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change.

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