Environmental Laws and Treaties

Clean Air Act (CAA)

Established primary and secondary air quality standards. Required states to develop implementation plans. Sets limits and goals to reduce mobile source air pollution and ambient air quality standards.

Clean Water Acts (CWA)

Regulates and enforces all discharge into water sources and wetland destruction/construction.

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation Liability Act (CERCLA Superfund)

Established federal authority for emergency response and clean-up of hazardous substances that have been spilled, improperly disposed, or released into the environment.

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)

Controls the exploitation of endangered species through international legislation. Bans hunting, capturing and selling of threatened species and bans the import of ivory.

Endangered Species Act (ESA)

Protects species that are considered to be threatened or endangered. Includes migratory birds and their habitats.

Kyoto Protocol (KP)

Agreement among 150 nations requiring greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Montreal Protocol (MP)

Banned the production of aerosols and initiated the phase out of all CFC's.

Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is allowed to set the standards for drinking water quality and oversees all of the states, localities, and water suppliers who implement these standards.

Conservation

-"Controlled Use", "Scientific Management" of natural resources. "Greatest good for the greatest number of people."

Preservation

-Remaining wilderness areas on public lands should be left untouched.

Restoration

-To bring back to former condition (Former Natural State/Condition), active restoration seeks to reestablish a diverse, dynamic community at sited that have been degraded.

Remediation

-Most often used with cleanup of chemical contaminants in a polluted area.

Mitigation

-Repairing/Rehabilitating a damaged ecosystem or compensation for damage, Most often by providing a substitute or replacement area; frequently involves wetland ecosystems.

Reclamation

-Typically used to describe chemical or physical manipulations carried out in severely degraded sites, such as open-pit mines or large-scale construction.

Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDA)

Assures the safety, wholesomeness, efficacy, and truthful packaging and labeling of food, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

Management of non-hazardous and hazardous solid waste including landfills and storage tanks. Set minimal standards for all waste disposal facilities and for hazardous wastes.

Delaney Clause of Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1958)

Prohibits the addition to the human food supply of any chemical that has caused cancer in humans or animals.

Used to apply to pesticides that had biomagnified: for example when more of a pesticide was present in ketchup than in-the-raw tomatoes used to make it. (It never applied to pesticides in raw foods.)