Environmental Policy

Environmental Policy
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Professor
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Environmental Policy
The environmental policy of the United States is a federal initiative to control and regulate activities that have environmental impact in the United States. The ultimate aim of environmental policy is to protect the environment for the coming generations while producing little interference with the state of commerce or the liberty of citizens. The relationship between the State and Federal parties shape environmental laws and the impact of these laws. Jurisdictional overlap often complicates the efficiency with which environmental laws are enforced. It is sometimes unclear whether the State or the federal government has complete jurisdiction CITATION Yae05 \l 1033 (Calhoun, 2005). In 1970 president Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which later created the Council on Environmental Quality. The council oversaw the environmental impact of the federal actions. Later in the same year, Nixon created the Environmental protection Agency (EPA). EPA consolidated environmental programs from other agencies into one single entity. President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) saw the change of the operations of environmental protection from rigid...