are required to account for the social costs of pollution in deciding how much output to produce.

Command-and-control regulation has been highly successful in protecting and cleaning up the U.S.

environment. In 1970, the Federal government created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to oversee

all environmental laws. In the same year, Congress enacted the Clean Air Act to address air pollution. Just two

years later, in 1972, Congress passed and the president signed the far-reaching Clean Water Act. These

command-and-control environmental laws, and their amendments and updates, have been largely responsible

for America’s cleaner air and water in recent decades. However, economists have pointed out three difficulties

with command-and-control environmental regulation.
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