Audit Report EPA Can Do More to Help Minimize Hardrock Mining Liabilities

Zachary A. Smith and John Freemuth bring together a roster of top scholars to explicate the unique policies and politics in the West as well as other key questions in this new edition of Environmental Politics and Policy in the West, which was first published in 1993. This thoroughly revised and updated edition offers a comprehensive and current survey.

"An Introduction to the Law and Economics of Environmental Policy" emphasises the importance of institutional design in addressing social problems. Three important issues concerning institutional design are: policies, instruments, and enforcement. This volume surveys each of the issues, and emphasises the common themes arising in optimal institutional design. These themes include the cost of complex institutional design, and the role of private institutions attaining social objects. This book will be particularly useful to law schools, departments of government, policy or economics, environmental managers and insurance companies.

This book, the result of a congressionally mandated study, examines the adequacy of the regulatory framework for mining of hardrock mineralsâ€"such as gold, silver, copper, and uraniumâ€"on over 350 million acres of federal lands in the western United States. These lands are managed by two agenciesâ€"the Bureau of Land Management in the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. The committee concludes that the complex network of state and federal laws that regulate hardrock mining on federal lands is generally effective in providing environmental protection, but improvements are needed in the way the laws are implemented and some regulatory gaps need to be addressed. The book makes specific recommendations for improvement, including: The development of an enhanced information management system and a more efficient process to review new mining proposals and issue permits. Changes to regulations that would require all mining operations, other than "casual use" activities that negligibly disturb the environment, to provide financial assurances for eventual site cleanup. Changes to regulations that would require all mining and milling operations (other than casual use) to submit operating plans in advance.