CONTROLLING POLLUTION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

Although federal legislation restricts the discharge of oil and other hazardous substances into inland and coastal waterways, debate continues over the best choice of institutional arrangements to control waterway pollution through regulations, standards, penalties and cleanup charges. No one approach is necessarily best in all situations. Issues addressed when determining public policy must be concerned with the tradeoff between methods chosen to influence polluter behaviour and cost of their enforcement. Using data from the U.S. Coast Guard's Pollution Incident Reporting System (PIRS) and the Port Safety and Security/Marine Environmental Protection Quarterly Activities Report, this paper examines a model describing the behaviour of polluters in response to pollution control costs and, in so doing, stresses the potential economic impact. Implications for public policy also are presented.

Media Info

  • Features: References;
  • Pagination: p. 31-34

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00152029
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: American Petroleum Institute
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Apr 27 1977 12:00AM