United States environmental law

United States environmental law concerns legal standards to protect human health and improve the natural environment of the United States. While subject to criticism at home and abroad on issues of protection, enforcement, and over-regulation, the country remains an important source of environmental legal expertise and experience.

This is true in the United States. The United States Congress has enacted federal statutes intended to address pollution control and remediation, including for example the Clean Air Act (air pollution), the Clean Water Act (water pollution), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, or Superfund) (contaminated site cleanup). There are also federal laws governing natural resources use and biodiversity which are strongly influenced by environmental principles, including the Endangered Species Act, National Forest Management Act, and Coastal Zone Management Act. The National Environmental Policy Act, governing environmental impact review in actions undertaken or approved by the U.S. federal government, may implicate all of these areas.

Federalism in the United States has played a role in the shape of national environmental legislation. Many federal environmental laws employ cooperative federalism mechanisms - many federal regulatory programs are administered in coordination with the U.S. states. Furthermore, the states generally have enacted their own laws to cover areas not preempted by federal law. This includes areas where Congress had acted in limited fashion (e.g., state site cleanup laws to handle sites outside Superfund) and where Congress has left regulation primarily to the states (e.g., water resources law).

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