IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/rffdps/10608.html

Regulating Industrial Water Pollution in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Harrington, Winston

Abstract

The performance of the industrial point-source water pollution abatement program in the U.S. Clean Water Act is examined. I begin with a brief description of the statute and then turn to a description of the process used to develop the rules that govern effluent discharges. This is followed by a discussion of the outcomes resulting from efforts to apply these rules to industrial pollutant sources. Two types of outcomes are considered: administrative outcomes and outcomes in the water. Last, the issue of implementation is discussed: how the Clean Water Act may have affected the incentives governing the behavior of industrial dischargers, municipal waste treatment plant operators, and regulators. Surprisingly, there is some evidence that the Clean Water Act, at least as far as industrial point sources are concerned, may be evolving into an effluent fee policy, or at least a mixed policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Harrington, Winston, 2003. "Regulating Industrial Water Pollution in the United States," Discussion Papers 10608, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:rffdps:10608
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.10608
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/10608/files/dp030003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.10608?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Winston Harrington & Richard D. Morgenstern & Peter Nelson, 2000. "On the accuracy of regulatory cost estimates," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 297-322.
    2. MacLeod, Michael J. & Moran, Dominic & Harrington, Winston & Lago, Manuel & Morgenstern, Richard D., 2001. "Improving the Accuracy of UK Regulatory Cost Estimates," Working Papers 45874, Scotland's Rural College (formerly Scottish Agricultural College), Land Economy & Environment Research Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carmen Arguedas, 2008. "To Comply or Not To Comply? Pollution Standard Setting Under Costly Monitoring and Sanctioning," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 41(2), pages 155-168, October.
    2. Carmen Arguedas & Eva Camacho & José Zofío, 2010. "Environmental Policy Instruments: Technology Adoption Incentives with Imperfect Compliance," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 47(2), pages 261-274, October.
    3. Harrington, Winston & Morgenstern, Richard D., 2004. "Evaluating Regulatory Impact Analyses," Discussion Papers 10774, Resources for the Future.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pizer, William A. & Kopp, Raymond, 2005. "Calculating the Costs of Environmental Regulation," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1307-1351, Elsevier.
    2. Jackie Krafft & Evens Salies, 2008. "Why and how should innovative industries with high consumer switching costs be re-regulated?," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2008-04, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    3. Lori D. Snyder & Nolan H. Miller & Robert N. Stavins, 2003. "The Effects of Environmental Regulation on Technology Diffusion: The Case of Chlorine Manufacturing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 431-435, May.
    4. Burtraw, Dallas & Woerman, Matt & Paul, Anthony, 2012. "Retail electricity price savings from compliance flexibility in GHG standards for stationary sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 67-77.
    5. Norman, Catherine S. & DECANIO, STEPHEN J & Fan, Lin, 2007. "Opportunities and Challenges for the 20th Anniversary of the Montréal Protocol," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt3t90g0gr, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    6. Managi, Shunsuke & Opaluch, James J. & Jin, Di & Grigalunas, Thomas A., 2006. "Stochastic frontier analysis of total factor productivity in the offshore oil and gas industry," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 204-215, November.
    7. McCann, Laura, 2013. "Transaction costs and environmental policy design," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 253-262.
    8. A. Myrick Freeman III, 2002. "Environmental Policy Since Earth Day I: What Have We Gained?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 125-146, Winter.
    9. Frank Ackerman, "undated". "The Unbearable Lightness of Regulatory Costs," GDAE Working Papers 06-02, GDAE, Tufts University.
    10. Johannes Urpelainen, 2011. "Frontrunners and Laggards: The Strategy of Environmental Regulation under Uncertainty," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(3), pages 325-346, November.
    11. John Loomis & Bryon Allen, 2008. "Using Non Market Valuation to Inform the Choice Between Permits and Fees in Environmental Regulation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 40(3), pages 329-337, July.
    12. Stavins, Robert & Hahn, Robert & Cavanagh, Sheila, 2001. "National Environmental Policy During the Clinton Years," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-38, Resources for the Future.
    13. Katrin Millock & Céline Nauges, 2006. "Ex Post Evaluation of an Earmarked Tax on Air Pollution," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 82(1), pages 68-84.
    14. Farr, Marina & Stoeckl, Natalie, 2018. "Overoptimism and the undervaluation of ecosystem services: A case-study of recreational fishing in Townsville, adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(PC), pages 433-444.
    15. Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Pasurka, Carl, 2016. "Technical change and pollution abatement costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 715-724.
    16. Stavins, Robert, 2000. "Economic Analysis of Global Climate Change Policy: A Primer," Working Paper Series rwp00-003, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    17. Shobe, William & Palmer, Karen L. & Myers, Erica & Holt, Charles & Goeree, Jacob K. & Burtraw, Dallas, 2010. "An Experimental Analysis of Auctioning Emission Allowances Under a Loose Cap," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 1-14, April.
    18. Harrington, Winston, 2006. "Grading Estimates of the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulation," RFF Working Paper Series dp-06-39, Resources for the Future.
    19. Shreekar Pradhan & J. Scott Holladay & Mohammed Mohsin & Shreekar Pradhan, 2015. "Environmental Policy Instruments and Uncertainties Under Free Trade and Capital Mobility," EcoMod2015 8102, EcoMod.
    20. Camilla Adelle & Andrew Jordan & John Turnpenny, 2012. "Proceeding in Parallel or Drifting Apart? A Systematic Review of Policy Appraisal Research and Practices," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(3), pages 401-415, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:rffdps:10608. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.