User:Marissaokum/Polluter pays principle

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In environmental law, the polluter pays principle is enacted to make the party responsible for producing pollution responsible for paying for the damage done to the natural environment. This principle has also been used to put the costs of pollution prevention on the polluter It is regarded as a regional custom because of the strong support it has received in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union countries. It is a fundamental principle in US environmental law.

History
According to the French historian of the environment Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, financial compensation (not named "polluter pays principle" at that time) was already the regulation principle of pollution favoured by industrialists in the nineteenth century. He wrote that: "This principle, which is now offered as a new solution, actually accompanied the process of industrialization, and was intended by the manufacturers themselves."

Australia
The state of New South Wales in Australia has included the polluter pay principle with the other principles of ecologically sustainable development in the objectives of the Environment Protection Authority.

Canada
The Canadian Energy Regulator mandates that oil companies must pay for any environmental impacts from a spill. This mandate requires oil companies to pay for damages, regardless of whether or not the spill is their fault.

European Union
The polluter pays principle is set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Directive 2004/35/EC of the European Parliament, and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage. The directive entered into force on 30 April 2004; member states were allowed three years to transpose the directive into their domestic law and by July 2010 all member states had completed this.

France
In France, the Charter for the Environment contains a formulation of the polluter pays principle (article 4):"Everyone shall be required, in the conditions provided for by law, to contribute to the making good of any damage he or she may have caused to the environment."

Ghana
In Ghana, the polluter pays principle was adopted in 2011.

United Kingdom
Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 established the operation of the polluter pays principle. This was further built upon by The Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) Regulations 2009 (for England) and the Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) (Wales) Regulations 2009 (for Wales).

United States
The principle is employed in all of the major US pollution control laws: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (solid waste and hazardous waste management), and Superfund (cleanup of abandoned waste sites).

Some eco-taxes underpinned by the polluter pays principle include:


 * the Gas Guzzler Tax for motor vehicles
 * Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE), a "polluter pays" fine.
 * the Superfund law requires polluters to pay for cleanup of hazardous waste sites, when the polluters can be identified.

Limitations of polluter pays principle
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has observed that the polluter pays principle has typically not been fully implemented in US laws and programs. For example, drinking water and sewage treatment services are subsidized and there are limited mechanisms in place to fully assess polluters for treatment costs.

Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwe Environmental Management Act of 2002 [full citation needed] prohibits the discharge of pollutants into the environment. In line with the "Polluter Pays" principle, the Act requires a polluter to meet the cost of decontaminating the polluted environment.

In international environmental law
In international environmental law it is mentioned in the principle 16 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development of 1992.

Exceptions
The polluter pays principle (PPP) has been doubted in cases where no one recognized that a type of pollution posed any danger until after the pollution began. An example occurs in the history of climate change science which shows that considerable carbon dioxide was emitted into the atmosphere by industrialized countries before there was scientific awareness or consensus that it could be dangerous.