Английский разговорный язык. Практическое пособие по развитию устной речи

The measures to control the pollution are divided into two groups. First, there exist different regulatory standards based on the idea of the «best available» technology for all sorts of pollution in every industry. But as each pollutant has many sources, national agencies that are supposed to ban pollution have to establish numerous maximum discharge standards for any of them.

Old sources of pollution (old factories, for example) can follow less strict standards than those devised for new sources, as it is considered more expensive to modernize an old factory than to introduce pollution control devices into a new one. Moreover, discharge standards for sources that already exist, as well for new sources, are more onerous in places with a higher-quality environment, that is with cleaner air, cleaner water, etc.

The regulations of pollution may be established by the federal government. Usually they are very expensive. For example, direct expenditures for compliance with vehicle standards in the USA totalled an estimated $14 billion in 1988, costs shouldered primarily by consumers.

The market-based approach to control pollution is less burdensome for taxpayers and the government. This approach is based on market incentives to reduce pollution, which fall into two groups: pollution fees and so-called «marketable permits.»

The first are taxes on polluters that are set proportionally to the amount they discharge into air, water, or local landfill.

Marketable permits are discharge licenses. Polluters can buy and sell them to meet the control levels established by the governments. Marketable permits, actually, allow manufacturers to pollute the environment up to a certain level, and within the whole industry emitters may pollute over the control level as long as other polluters compensate by polluting less. The government decides on the desired level of pollution and the initial distribution of pollution rights within an industry, the latter then being redistributed among all the enterprises concerned.