Environmental and Occupational Health Protection Laws

Abstract

The manufacturing, processing, and use of chemicals and materials in industrial workplaces are often accompanied by environmental, health, and safety hazards and risks. Occupational and environmental factors cause or exacerbate major diseases of the respiratory, cardiovascular, reproductive, and nervous systems and cause systemic poisoning and some cancers and birth defects. Occupational and environmental disease and injury place heavy economic and social burdens on workers, employers, citizens, and taxpayers. Government intervention to address those issues largely takes the form of regulatory standards promulgated under the authority of federal legislation. This article addresses the major regulatory systems (or regimes) designed to protect public and worker health from chemicals discharged from sources that pollute the air, water, ground, and/or workplace in the United States. The European Union and other developed countries use similar approaches.