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When it comes to the environment, you will be hard pressed to find an issue that is more politically active at the current moment in time. Whether fairly or unfairly, businesses are often indicted as one of the prime suspects when it comes to environmental damage and for that reason many people feel that businesses should be forced to follow strict environmental guidelines. There are others who feel that businesses should be free to operate as they please and for this reason a big debate has been sparked over the issue of government regulation of business insofar as the environment is concerned. There are arguments on both sides of the issue which will be introduced over the following paragraphs.
The Supporters' Cries
People that are pro-environmental regulation for businesses cite all of the different cases that have taken place over history where a large corporation has been directly responsible for environmental damage. Oil spills, pollution of rivers and streams, and contributions toward poor air quality indices in some areas of the world are laid at the foot of businesses who, in the minds of many of the pro-regulation crowd, are the principle aggressors against the environment.
The argument in favour of regulation is simply an argument from basic logic. According to the individuals who argue this position, when a business ends up causing damage to the environment, it is not the business that usually ends up getting hurt but rather the people that have to live in that environment. There have been cases where entire communities have contracted illness because of a business polluting the environment and therefore the argument in favour of regulation simply states that since businesses can not be trusted to protect people not associated with the business from health hazards due to environmental pollution, the job then falls to the government to do it.
The Detractors' Rebuttal
The anti position, as you may be able to guess just based on the pro position, takes the position that protecting the free market trumps the risks involved in non-regulation of business. While the accidents that have occurred from businesses polluting the environment are regrettable, according to the people that take this position, they are extremely rare and most businesses are in fact very environmentally conscious. Furthermore, people that take this position will frequently go on to argue that the disagreement regarding illness inherent to environmental pollution is not an argument that holds weight since these people have the right to sue the business that did the dumping and in many cases huge class action lawsuits have been won in this exact manner.
According to most people that take the “anti” position with respect to this question, the real thing that needs to be debated is whether the perceived benefits of environmental regulation outweigh the costs of potentially millions of dollars of income for the businesses; income that goes to the communities and employees of that particular company. Because of the previous paragraph's assertions, anti-regulation supporters believe that the costs outweigh the benefits and therefore the government regulation business vis-à-vis the environment is a bad idea.
Environmental regulation of business by the government has good points and bad. Some wonder what are the costs and benefits of environmental regulations while others take a look at foreign environmental laws and regulations to see what is going on. For example, Belgium environmental health regulations are quite different from federal environmental regulations and some feel that policies like California environmental regulations need to be addressed in a way that involves environmental planning or regulation at a higher level.
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