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PART I
Public policies for hazardous waste are an important part of environmental regulation in the United States. Complex regulations address hazardous wastes under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). ... The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that complying with hazardous waste regulations will cost $32 billion in 2000, about 20 percent of the cost for all U. ... (1)
Hazardous waste regulation, however, has not received as much critical attention as other major environmental policies. ... Indeed, there are serious problems with the current policy. ... environmental policy. The problem is particularly severe for hazardous waste regulation because of the diversity of the substances and waste management methods regulated.
In addition to their failure to prioritize risks, the current hazardous waste regulations also create strong incentives for illegally disposing of hazardous waste. Illegal disposal can damage the environment much more severely than legal waste management, so policies may even be counterproductive. ... Hazardous waste regulations, however, may suffer especially from enforcement problems because of the harms of illegal dumping.
Although some small changes would improve the policy, fundamental reforms are necessary to address these problems fully. ... In particular, taxes on environmental releases for waste management facilities provide the most robust way to make the hazardous waste policies responsive to the differential risks from different types of wastes and methods of waste management. Better still, a modified deposit/refund policy could implement the same desirable incentives, without the enforcement problems that plague taxes as well as current regulations.
This essay begins with an overview of current hazardous waste regulations and then documents their problems. After this discussion, I propose policy reforms, beginning with a simple modification of current policies and moving on to more radical changes. The essay focuses on policies that address the current management of hazardous wastes by industrial and commercial generators. Other public policies address contamination from waste management activities after it occurs; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Liability, and Compensation Act (CERCLA), better known as Superfund, concerns abandoned contaminated sites, and RCRAs Corrective Action program concerns contamination at active waste management sites. The problems with programs for cleanup of contaminated sites are well known; I give center stage to the less familiar hazardous waste regulations.
CURRENT POLICIES FOR HAZARDOUS WASTE
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act regulates currently generation and management of hazardous wastes. When Congress initially passed RCRA in 1976, it gave the Environmental Protection Agency great flexibility in designing a program for hazardous waste regulation. ...
Under RCRA, the EPA dubs a broad group of wastes hazardous and thus subject to regulation. Wastes are considered hazardous if they test positive for certain characteristics, such as being toxic or creating a risk of fire, or if the EPA explicitly lists them as hazardous waste. ...
Standards for Treatment and Disposal Facilities
Wastes classified as hazardous are subject to two important types of regulations. First, the regulations set standards for facilities that manage hazardous wastes. ...
For most treatment facilities, the regulations set standards for removing contaminants from the waste and for emissions. For example, incinerators--facilities that burn waste--must destroy 99. ... Finally, incinerators must manage their ash as a hazardous waste. ... Disposal facilities must also have liability insurance for gradual releases, as well as sudden and accidental releases, and guarantee that they can finance care of the facility after it closes (such care may include monitoring the groundwater for contamination and maintaining structures that contain the waste). ... Changes in the costs of commercial hazardous waste management give some indication of the effects of the regulations. Table 1 reports the average of low-end and high-end prices quoted by major waste management firms in 1981, 1987, and the early 1990s for various management methods. As table 1 shows, most types of waste management became much more expensive during the 1980s. ... In 1981, incinerators sometimes paid waste generators for clean wastes with high energy content. ... During the same time, communities became more aggressive in fighting local waste management facilities, making it more costly to site new facilities and expand existing ones. Waste management facilities (particularly land disposal facilities) also began to face much higher threats of litigation. ...
Land Disposal Restrictions
The EPA had only begun to implement the first standards for treatment, storage, and disposal facilities when Congress decided to restrict waste management more severely. In the late 1970s, widespread concern developed about the health effects of abandoned hazardous waste sites. ...
The land disposal restrictions prohibit any land disposal--including landfilling, land treatment (spreading waste on land), surface impoundment (containing liquid waste in lagoons), and underground injection--unless facilities first treat the wastes. If possible, treatment must destroy hazardous constituents, for example, by incinerating them. When destruction of the hazardous constituents is not possible, the treatment must reduce the mobility of hazardous substances. ... Since then, the EPA has continued to issue regulations pertaining to wastes newly classified as hazardous.
Again, the commercial waste management costs in table 1 indicate the stringency of these regulations.
Approximate Word count = 4049
Approximate Pages = 16.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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