A Civil Action: Anderson Vs. Cryovac Case

The United States Environmental Agency (EPA) is the agency in the federal government of the United States which deals with the protection of the human health and the environment. It writes and enforces laws based on the laws that are approved and passed in the congress. In Feb this year, abill to abolish the agency was introduced in the congress but due to the following reasons the EPA should not be abolished and discontinued;

Most environmental regulations started with good intentions. Somebody saw or perceived a problem or consequence from some activity or practice and then asked an agency to regulate the practice to mitigate or prevent the problem. As others here pointed out here, agencies typically try to get the persons or industry causing the problem to stop the harmful practices, and pay for solving the problems that were caused. They write a new regulation or law making it illegal to do the harmful practice, get it passed by executive order or statute, and then

The protection of environment is crucial to the wellbeing of this planet. The job of government is to protect and preserve the land on which its people live. However, there is a bill being considered that completely goes against this, one that calls for the eradication of the Environmental Protection Agency, a government program created to protect human and environmental wellbeing through their regulation of laws. I urge you to oppose bill H.R. 861 - the termination of the Environmental Protection Agency - because of the ways that the EPA protects air, water, and land.

In 1945 World War two had come to an end. Canada, a great contributor to the war, had many challenges to face and overcome post war. A major part of these challenges were environmental challenges, which Canada primarily encountered from 1945 - 1982. The main environmental challenges include: pollution of the great lakes, mining, and deforestation.

A seemingly uncorrelated death of a child becomes an attack on two businesses that brought forth unwanted attention. It reveals how corporations can truly neglect their surroundings and the safety of citizens without remorse. In the quaint town of Woburn, Massachusetts, the death of Anne Anderson’s son due to leukemia quickly transformed from a personal tragedy to an extensive lawsuit. Anne Anderson approached Jan Schlichtmann, a personal injury lawyer, to tackle the case. From the beginning, Anne makes it clear that she does not want money, she simply wants an apology. At first, Jan rejects the case because he does not see money being made from the case. However, after a fateful encounter with a police due to speeding, Jan had the chance to scan the environment which promptly changed his mind

The purpose of environmental justice is fair treatment for everyone. Everyone should have respect to environmental practice and regulations, regardless of the their nationality, income, religion, and ethnicity. “The environmental justice movement has the idea that poor people are more exposed to a greater pollution, hazards, and environmental degradation than richer people.” (Withgott & Laposata, 2012). For example, during 1989 Exxon Valdez, a disaster struck causing an oil tanker with 38-million gallons of oil to wreck at Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef offshore of Alaska. The disaster caused much damage such as wiping out ocean life as result Exxon paid billions in fines for the crisis.

In the movie, A Civil Action, the plaintiff’s case began when a group of various parents and families believed that the health related issues and deaths in their city of Woburn was the result of contaminated water. Although the attorney, Jan Schlichtmann, was reluctant to take the case at first because they didn’t have plausible cause, he realized that 2 corporations sat at the border of the river. Mr. Schlichtmann and his firm thus took the case and file a major lawsuit which stated that the the two corporations, Grace and Beatrice, caused wrongful deaths due to the dumping of hazardous waste. The plaintiff side of this case then begins to collect scientific evidence and witness statements in order to prove that both Grace and Beatrice were

The EPA’s environmental statutes did not have an internal regulation of the administration that describe the long-term goals of the CAA. Meaning that the EPA needed to establish several strategic plan that will emphasiz the goals of the CAA, such as trying to accommodating progress in reducing air pollution with economic growth. In addition, goals that mention on figuring out which plants are designed to maintain clean air. Since the EPA’s manual did not “give fuller effect to the foregoing,” it gives the impression that modifying regulations is not an easy task (Dimock,1980). The EPA decisions on how to use their carbon dioxide emissions did not satisfied the states and the industries and this implies that their use of rules on carbon dioxide emissions needs improvements for the future of the public

Idle No More is a movement that emerged in late November 2012. It is a movement that was created to protest the passing of Bill C-45. It is created by four women in Saskatchewan: Nina Wilson, Sylvia McAdam, Jessica Gordon, and Sheelah McLean (Graveline, 2012: 293). The movement is indigenous led, with a large percentage being youth and women organizers, and is a grassroots movement. Thus meaning that all the protesting and raising awareness is spread locally and then nationwide. Like many modern protest the Idle No More was popularized and organized through social media, including platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Bill C-45 is a bill that changes “64 different acts and regulations, including the Indian Act, the Navigable Waters Protection

Furthermore, the CWA specifically defined what is considered a “pollutant” under the act: “any dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt, and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into water.” This extensive list helped show exactly what was prohibited under the act, providing proper notice to potential polluters. Overall the CWA went further than the FWPCA to combat rampant water pollution by making it explicitly illegal to discharge pollutants into waterways without a permit, while also giving the governing body, the EPA, more power to effectively enforce the

However, the act was poorly designed and initially was largely ineffective. It did not provide enough authority to the federal government nor did it generally prohibit pollution; furthermore, it maintained an “extremely cumbersome enforcement mechanism.” Because the original act was largely ineffective, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act was amended six times and eventually rewritten entirely into the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments, better known as the Clean Water Act. The 1972 amendments authorized the basic structure for regulation of pollutant discharges and gave the EPA authority to enforce pollution control programs. Even still, there remain discrepancies in the revised act; for example, though the act claims to cover all waters with a “significant nexus” to “navigable waters”. These phrases are rather broad and open to judicial interpretation, consequently leading to substantial controversy. Despite the revisions, the oil and gas industry is still exempt from governance, as seen in its exclusion from the regulation of pollutant discharge into US waters. In addition to the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act was enacted in 1974 to regulate the US’s public drinking water and serves as the main federal law regarding drinking water quality. However, the oil and gas industry is exempt from this act as

Before to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, BP encountered numerous disasters and scandals and have a track record of ignoring saftey.

During the Cold War era from 1945-1980, the environment took priority in American society. Awareness about the need to preserve the planet culminated in a nationwide Earth Day which proved the growing worry about the lack of sustainability found on Earth. Other environmental factors required immediate action to be taken before the detrimental effects of humans and their role in society would be too much for this world to handle. Although there are a variety of factors that raised awareness about the dangerous environment on earth, it was ultimately the implementation of the first Earth Day, tempting climate in the Sun Belt, and the environmental movement by Rachel Carson that brought the awareness to harsh environmental factors in the late

It was a pleasure reading your response to the Leonard v PepsiCo case. I agree with you on your discussion. According to Melvin Sean, “In order for an offer to have legal effect, the offeror must have an objective intent to contract when making the offer. Generally, the offerer must have a serious intention to become bound by the offer and the terms of the offer must be reasonably certain. (The Legal Environment of Business: A Managerial Approach: Theory to Practice, p 131) If PepsiCo did not have an objective intent to giving out a jet, then it should not have part of the TV advertisement. As Christians, we should be very watchful with the kind of people we interact with. The bible admonishes us to “let no one deceive you with empty words,

Following the restructuration of Scott Paper and the subsequent acquisition of the energy complex by the Southern Company, a heavy contractual framework was displayed in order to try to secure the relationships between the parties.