EnvironmentalPermitting
Environmental Permitting and Compliance: The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and NEPA
Environmental compliance runs on permits, and a permit is both a shield and a trap: operating within its terms is a complete defense to most enforcement, and operating outside them is a strict liability violation regardless of whether any harm occurred. The two dominant programs — the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act — share an architecture in which the federal government sets standards, states administer permits under delegated authority, and private citizens may sue to enforce. NEPA operates differently, imposing a procedural obligation on federal agencies to study environmental effects before acting, and it has become the principal battleground over infrastructure and energy projects. This article covers the permitting programs a facility actually encounters, the compliance obligations that follow, the enforcement architecture including citizen suits, and the diligence and disclosure that transactions require.