Читать книгу Industrial Environmental Management - Tapas K. Das - Страница 151

The history of environmental law in the United States can be traced back to early roots in common law doctrines, for example, the law of nuisance and the public trust doctrine. The first environmental statute was the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which has been largely superseded by the Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA). However, most current major environmental statutes, such as the federal statutes listed previously, were passed in the time spanning the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Prior to the passage of these statutes, most federal environmental laws were not nearly as comprehensive.

Silent Spring, a 1962 book by Rachel Carson, is frequently credited as launching the environmental movement in the United States. The book documented the effects of pesticides, especially DDT, on birds and other wildlife (Carson 1962; Hynes 1989). Among the most significant environmental disasters of the 1960s was the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which generated considerable public outrage as Congress was considering several major pieces of environmental legislation. (See Environmental movement in the United States, Clean Water Act (1972), USEPA.)

One lawsuit that has been widely recognized as one of the earliest environmental cases is Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, decided in 1965 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, prior to passage of the major federal environmental statutes. The case helped halt the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York State. The case has been described as giving birth to environmental litigation and helping create the legal doctrine of standing to bring environmental claims (Scenic Hudson Inc. 1963). The Scenic Hudson case also is said to have helped inspire the passage of the NEPA, and the creation of such environmental advocacy groups as the Natural Resources Defense Council.