Regulation

Government regulation has proven necessary to achieve many green goals. Although the prospect of corporate profit may encourage the development of biofuel and other [Page 383]alternative fuel sources, or the sales of hybrid cars, there are many areas in need of green policies and regulations where a profit motive does not exist. The benefits of preventing water, soil, and air pollution; of conserving water; of protecting biodiversity; and of preventing deforestation, are analogous to the gains of pure research compared to applied research. Although applied research—such as creating tape that has more adhesive power, or more energy-efficient refrigerators—leads to a direct benefit to the researcher's employer, the benefits of research into the human genome or the origins of the solar system are either intangible or distributed throughout the populace without ownership.

Similarly, the benefits of keeping water clean are felt by all of society and the ecosystem as a whole, not just those who take the time and effort to do so. However, such benefits in both cases do lead to tangible benefits later—it was the pure research of physicists like Albert Einstein that made the applied research of the atomic bomb possible. Over the years, the private sector has greatly reduced its commitment to pure research, feeling that they were not gaining profit from it; the government, to protect the scientific interests of the country, had to step in and increase public-sector funding of such research. Government intervention is similarly required when market forces fail to provide protection for the environment.

In the United States, a variety of federal agencies are empowered to regulate and enforce the regulation of various issues regarding the environment. The most obvious and most visible is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was established in 1970 and is the principal body responsible for U.S. environmental policy. Though pesticides had been regulated in the past, the EPA provided the federal government with the structure to regulate all pollutants. Some of its powers are delegated to state and tribal governments, but the agency itself is large, with 17,000 employees at 10 regional offices, 27 laboratories, and various program offices, as well as the headquarters in Washington, D.C.