Visit the Small Business Administration’s “Environmental Regulations (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” page and visit the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s “Laws & Regulations (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” page.
Identify one environmental law that is relevant to your past, current, or future employer. Apply that law to a business situation created by that employer. How does (or did) that employer maintain compliance with that statute? Do you believe that environmental regulations help or hinder business? Why, or why not?
Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner.
Agree or disagree with your classmate’s position concerning whether environmental regulations help or hinder business. Use current events or your assigned readings to support your position.
REPLY TO STUDENT -QUENTIN YOU MUST REPLY
I did not have direct experience with any law to my knowledge that dealt with the environment being related to work. However, my father came from South Carolina to work for a major cigarette company in North Carolina. After being cognizant of the air pollutants that were being released into the air that humans, animals, and plants breathe, it surely became a huge issue. The law that comes to mind is the Clean Air Act of 1970. “The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources. Among other things, this law authorizes EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and public welfare and to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants” (epa.gov, 2018). Driving down the highways, we are bound to see factories with chimneys and smokestacks with, as I say, pollution being released for us to breathe. The company my father worked had to comply with the law as everyone else did and now we see minimum contaminants exuding from the pipes. They found ways to manufacture cigarettes that did not require much manual labor that caused the smoke and made many of their processes digital that eliminated the antiquated way of production.
Environmental regulations do not hinder business. If these smoke pipes are killing the people, who will be left to purchase the products? These regulations have to be in place and if companies do not want to abide by them, they should not enter into business. Protect the environment and the consumer.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2018). Summary of the Clean Air Act. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-air-act
Last summer I did volunteer work at my local SPCA and I worked as a behavior and training associate with the dogs which included training them to be obedient, walking them and helping with their general care. “Handling, housing, feeding, watering, sanitation, ventilation, shelter from extremes of weather and temperatures, adequate veterinary care, and separation by species where the Secretary finds necessary for humane handling, care, or treatment of animals; and exercise” (Animal Welfare Act and Animal Welfare Regulations, § 2143, p. 10). This law was important for every worker and volunteer to abide by while in the facility with the animals, if we saw any wrongdoing we were advised to report the issue immediately. However, during my volunteer time I did not see any type of wrong doing towards the dogs in regards to their shelter, feeding and care.
While the SPCA is not known to put animals down, the veterinarian did have to make an ethical decision to put to aggressive animals down because they were too wild to handle. Even though the dogs were acting wild and aggressive, the vet put them down without having the dogs to suffer by giving them euthanasia which is legal to do under animal welfare regulations. Stats are kept on record for each dog that is in the facility which includes all the care that they receive. These regulations don’t hinder the business, it promotes it because customers know that they will be purchasing a dog that has been well taken care of.
References
Animal Welfare Act and Regulations. United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved from https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/downloads/AC_BlueBook_AWA_FINAL_2017_508comp.pdf
