Hazards of our hazardous waste policy

1.The first Federal Water Pollution Control Act was enacted in 1948 (Pub.L. No. 80-845).The Act was significantly amended in 1956 (Pub.L. No. 84-660), 1965 (Pub.L. No. 89-234), 1966 (Pub.L. No. 89-753), 1970 (Pub.L. No. 91-224), 1972 (Pub.L. No. 92-500), and 1977 (Pub.L. No. 95-217).The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act) has been codified at 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq (1976).Federal air pollution control legislation originated with the Air Pollution Act of 1955 (Pub.L. No. 84-159).It was substantially modified by the Clean Air Act of 1963 (Pub.L. No. 88-206) and amendments in 1965 (Pub.L. No. 89-272), 1967 (Pub.L. No. 90-148), 1970 (Pub.L. No. 91-604), and 1977 (Pub.L. No. 95-95).The Clean Air Act has been codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7401 et seq.2. Pub.L. No. 94-580, 42 U.S.C. §6901 etseq (1976).3. The Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended (Title II of Pub.L. No. 89-272 (1965), and Pub.L. No. 91-512 (1970)) authorized funding for research and planning.Regulation of solid waste facilities was limited to mandatory guidelines for federal installations.RCRA completely replaced the previous language of the Solid Waste Disposal Act.For the conceptual differences between the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act on the one hand and RCRA on the other, see text material at footnotes 26-30.In general, the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act attempt to regulate all dischargers to air and water, whereas RCRA seeks only to regulate certain aspects of the solid waste process-hazardous waste disposal and open dumps.