ABSTRACT
American industry faces both new constraints and new opportunities. Over the past 20 years, Americans have become increasingly concerned about environmental degradation and more supportive of efforts to protect the environment. Government has responded to public pressure with far-reaching regulation restricting industry’s access to collectively owned resources such as air, surface water, and groundwater. Practices that threaten individuals or these collectivelyowned resources may be restricted even when conducted on private property. Such practices include the generation, use, treatment, storage, or disposal of inherently dangerous materials. Concurrent with these heightened environmental constraints, new international competitive challenges and limits on resources are increasing the performance pressure on firms.
