Emission Standards

An emission standard is a maximum rate of efuent

discharge that is legally permitted. Emission standards
can take a variety of forms. The form that is intuitively
most obvious is, of course, a standard expressed in terms
of quantity or volume of waste material released into the
ambient environment per unit time. In some cases, in
setting emission standards the focus is on maintaining
the overall quality of a more diffuse environmental
medium. This is normally done by setting an ambient
standard on the basis of an allowable concentration of
pollution. One other commonly used regulatory practice is
technology standards. In this case, regulators specify the
technologies that potential polluters must adopt.
In principle, the emission standard mandated is
supposed to reect the public interest at large; any
violators are subjected to legal prosecution. Moreover, if
found guilty,violators are punished by a monetary ne
and/or imprisonment. In this sense, then, emission
standards are environmental policies that are based on
command-and control approaches.
Suppose the amount of waste that would have been
emitted in the absence of regulation is 300 units. If we
assume that the public authorities have full information
about the damage and control cost functions, then they
will be in a position to recognize that the socially optimal
level of pollutionis 150 units, which is less than 300. To
attain the socially optimal level of pollution, public
authorities would now set the emission standard at 150,
and strictly enforce it. The ultimate effects of this are as
follows. First, if the standard is successfully implemented,

the socially optimal level of pollution is preserved.

Second, polluters will be forced to internalize the cost of
controlling pollution emissions up to the socially optimal
level. Thus the total cost for the polluters in controlling
the pollution will be WeFW*.
$
MDC

MCC

F
W*
0

100

We

175

Waste
Emission

Advantages of emission standard

1)Emission standards can be simple and direct to the
extent that they aim at the attainment of clearly
dened numerical or technological objectives.
2)They can be effectively used to keep extremely
harmful pollution, such as DDT and industrial toxic
wastes, below dangerous levels.
3)They tend to be politically popular because they have
a certain moralappeal.Pollution is regarded as a

public bad,therefore the activities of polluters

should be subject to considerable public scrutiny.
Flaws of emission standard
1)standards are set solely by government at. To this
extent they are highly interventionist and signify a
major departure from the cherished spirit of the free
market.
2)pollution control practices are applied through
administrative laws and they generally require the
creation of a large bureaucracy to administer the
program
in
which
the
administrative
and
enforcement costs would be considerable.
3)in setting standards, a strong tendency may exist for
the regulators and the established rms to
cooperate. The end result of this may be a
regulatory capture, where regulators are inuenced
to set standards in ways that are likely to benet the
existing rms.Thus,standards have the potential to
be used unjustly as barriers to entry.
4)while the administrative and enforcement costs of
pollution control laws are considerable, the
regulatory agency is not designed to generate its
own revenue, except for the occasional collection of
nes from violators of the law.
5)the administrative process that is used to set the
standard may neglect consideration of economic
efciency. This manifests itself in two ways.
economic efciency requires both damage and
control costs should be taken into account while
setting a standard. At times public regulators,
may be inclined to set standards on the basis of

6)

either damage or control cost, but not both, in

their desire please any particular group.
emission standards are typically applied
uniformly across emission sources. This happens
for
two
practical
reasons.
First,
the
administrative and enforcement costs of
designing and implementing standards that vary
with the different circumstances of each
pollution source could be quite costly. Second,
from a purely administrative viewpoint, it is
much easier to monitor and enforce standards
that are uniform across emission sources.
the unintended effect of setting a standard may in
reality be to discourage investment in new and
improved pollution control technology.