The criminal law characterizes an environmental law violation as a form of white-collar crime. If convicted, violators face fines, probation, jail time, or some combination thereof.
There are many types of environment violations, including improper trash disposal of things like paint, pesticides or chemicals, littering, improper emissions from motor vehicles, unpermitted dredging of wetlands, and polluted water.
However, compliance with environmental regulations usually requires the expenditure of significantly increased overhead for businesses. In an attempt to avoid these additional costs, some businesses will refuse to comply with the regulations.
The criminal law characterizes an environmental law violation as a form of white-collar crime. If convicted, violators face fines, probation, jail time, or some combination thereof. Typically, a sentence of jail time is used when dealing with individuals, while corporations face stiff fines.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) bears the responsibility for carrying out the regulations set forth in Congressional legislation but also wields ...
The many different complicated laws that make up federal environmental law are inevitably broken from time to time. Some laws are broken by accident and others are broken with blatant disregard for the law. The severities of the violations also differ significantly.
Federal environmental law is complex. It regulates many different things from protecting endangered species, to the production of energy and from protecting the water that we drink, to protecting the air that we breathe.
The most common types of environmental threats include oil spills, chemical spills, radiation emergencies, or biological threats . Anyone who has knowledge of an environmental threat that is likely to cause a sudden threat to public health or to the environment should call the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802.
While the cumulative effects of environmental violations can be significant and hazardous to the environment or public health, it is unlikely that an individual breach will cause an immediate threat to public safety. However, an environmental threat, as defined by the EPA, is likely to cause a sudden threat to public health or to the environment.