Environmental Law
| Material Safety Data Sheets |
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| In order to make sure that employers and employees are fully informed of the hazards of chemicals in the workplace, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has promulgated regulations requiring that comprehensive hazard communications programs be established by manufacturers and importers of chemicals. One aspect of hazard communications programs are material safety data sheets, which are required to be prepared for each hazardous chemical manufactured or imported, and employers must have material safety data sheets on hand for each hazardous chemical they use. More... |
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| The Nuclear Regulatory Commission |
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| The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 formed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to regulate nuclear energy in order to protect public health and welfare and the environment from the known dangers of nuclear energy. More... |
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| The Constitutional Basis of Federal Environmental Regulation |
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| Authority to enact laws for the protection of the environment is not among the powers specifically granted to Congress by the United States Constitution. Yet, the constitutionality of most of the environmentally-oriented legislation passed by Congress has been upheld. More... |
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| The Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988 |
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| Because it was difficult to determine both the source and the extent of the problem, Congress passed the Medical Waste Tracking Act (MWTA) in 1988, which established a two-year demonstration program administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that required the detailed tracking of infectious medical waste from its creation to its ultimate disposal. The program was modeled after the regulatory scheme for handling other hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which requires "cradle-to-grave" regulation and tracking of hazardous waste. More... |
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| Environmental Tobacco Smoke |
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| Although early regulation of the tobacco industry in the United States was geared towards limiting advertising and providing warnings of the dangers of smoking, efforts to protect nonsmokers from the hazards of secondhand smoke, which was widely regarded as a form of air pollution rather than a harmless byproduct of personal behavior choice, slowly began to take root. Although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) presently has no authority to regulate secondhand smoke, it considers it an important indoor air pollutant and has made it a significant target of its indoor air quality programs. Because the EPA already ranks indoor air pollution in the top five environmental risks to public health, buildings in which smoking is permitted pose all that more of a hazard to the occupants. More... |
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