Polluter Pays Principle
What does "Polluter Pays Principle" mean in law?
The polluter pays principle is a foundational norm of environmental law holding that the party responsible for producing pollution should bear the costs of managing, remediating, and compensating for the environmental damage it causes, rather than shifting those costs to society at large. In U.S. law, this principle is most forcefully embodied in CERCLA's strict, joint and several, and retroactive liability scheme, which compels potentially responsible parties to fund the cleanup of hazardous waste sites regardless of fault or the lawfulness of their conduct at the time of disposal. The principle also underlies the structure of technology-based effluent standards under the Clean Water Act and emission standards under the Clean Air Act, which require polluters to internalize abatement costs. Internationally, the principle was endorsed in Principle 16 of the 1992 Rio Declaration and informs the design of emissions trading systems and pollution taxes worldwide.
Definition
The polluter pays principle is a foundational norm of environmental law holding that the party responsible for producing pollution should bear the costs of managing, remediating, and compensating for the environmental damage it causes, rather than shifting those costs to society at large. In U.S. law, this principle is most forcefully embodied in CERCLA's strict, joint and several, and retroactive liability scheme, which compels potentially responsible parties to fund the cleanup of hazardous waste sites regardless of fault or the lawfulness of their conduct at the time of disposal. The principle also underlies the structure of technology-based effluent standards under the Clean Water Act and emission standards under the Clean Air Act, which require polluters to internalize abatement costs. Internationally, the principle was endorsed in Principle 16 of the 1992 Rio Declaration and informs the design of emissions trading systems and pollution taxes worldwide.
Example
Under the polluter pays principle, a mining company whose tailings pond leaked arsenic into a river was required to fund the entire $30 million groundwater remediation rather than taxpayers absorbing the cost.