ABSTRACT
In response to growing environmental concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created by the federal government. Its agenda has been defined by a series of legislative acts since the late 1960s. (The reader is referred to Chapter 2 for more details.) The environmental policy of the EPA has historically had two main points of focus: defining an acceptable level of pollution and creating the legal rules to reduce pollution to a specified level. To some, it seems that the program has been most concerned with economic costs and efficiency [1]. Consequently, policy seems to lack considerations of equity, both distributional and economic. While EPA's two main points of focus are important considerations, relying on such criteria in the formation of environmental protection policy neglects to account for potential inequalities of capitalism and its effects throughout the policy process.
