The tools of prevention: Opportunities for promoting pollution prevention under federal environmental legislation

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 established a clear national policy that pollution should be prevented or reduced at the source whenever possible. Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has shown increasing interest in implementing this policy through a pollution prevention program that moves beyond the Agency`s initial attempts to encourage voluntary actions by industry. Yet the EPA has only begun to explore its options for encouraging pollution prevention in the industrial sector. This article undertakes a fresh consideration of the EPA`s statutory authority and identifies numerous opportunities for promoting industrial pollution prevention. The article focuses principally on the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), two statutes currently under consideration for congressional reauthorization. Analysis of these laws reveals that the major barriers to pollution prevention are not statutory in origin. Both the Clean Water Act and RCRA-without significant revision-provide substantial authority for promoting pollution prevention using a variety of regulatory approaches.