Although environmental laws are generally considered a 20th-century phenomenon,
Although environmental laws are generally considered a 20th-century phenomenon, attempts have been made to legislate environmental controls throughout history. In 2,700 B.C., the Middle Eastern civilization in Ur passed laws protecting the few remaining forests in the region. In 80 A.D., the Roman Senate passed a law to protect water stored for dry periods to be used for street and sewer cleaning. During American colonial times, Benjamin Franklin argued for “public rights” laws to protect the citizens of Philadelphia against industrial pollution produced by animal hide tanners.
Significant environmental action began at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1906, Congress passed the “Antiquities Act,” which authorized the president to protect areas of federal lands as national monuments. A few years later, Alice Hamilton pushed for government regulations concerning toxic industrial chemicals. She fought, unsuccessfully, to ban the use of lead in gasoline. She also supported the legal actions taken by women dying of cancer from their exposure to the radium then used in glow-in-the-dark watch dials. During the early 1960s, biologist Rachel Carson pointed out the need to regulate pesticides such as DDT to protect the health of wildlife and humans.
With the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, environmental law became a field substantial enough to occupy lawyers full-time. Since then, federal and state governments have passed numerous laws and created a vast network of complicated rules and regulations regarding environmental issues. Moreover, international organizations and agencies, including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, have also contributed to environmental rules and regulations.
Because of the legal and technical complexities of the subjects covered by environmental laws, persons dealing with such laws must be knowledgeable in law, science, and public policy. Environmental laws today encompass various subjects such as air and water quality, hazardous wastes, and biodiversity. These environmental laws aim to prevent, minimize, remedy, and punish actions that threaten or damage the environment and those that live in it. However, some believe these laws unreasonably limit the freedom of people, organizations, corporations, and government agencies by controlling their actions.
Federal Laws
Early attempts by Congress to enact laws affecting the environment included the Antiquities Act in 1906, the National Park Service Act in 1916, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act in 1947, and the Water Pollution Control Act in 1956. The Wilderness Act of 1964 protected large areas of pristine federal lands from development and ushered in the new age of environmental activism that began in the 1960s. However, it was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) enacted in 1969 and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 that started environmental le