OSHA is one of the few federal laws that relate to the environment that is not controlled by the EPA. Instead, OSHA is enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor in concert with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which was specifically created to deal with OSHA issues. In addition, many states have their own workplace safety and health acts. The state acts must have provisions in place which meet, if not exceed, the federal OSHA requirements.

The Pollution Prevention Act

One of the newer federal environmental protection laws, the Pollution Prevention Act, was passed in 1990. The Act includes provisions on reducing the amount of pollution in the environment by making changes in production, operation, and use of raw materials by both private industry and the government. In other words, the Act is proactively focused on source reduction of pollution, rather than reactively focusing upon how to deal with pollution once it has entered the environment, as many other federal environmental laws do. An area of the Pollution Prevention Act which has had a dramatic and recognizable impact on the general public is the push towards recycling and reuse of materials.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

This Act, which is pronounced "rick-rah" allows the EPA to control the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. RCRA also contains provisions for the management of nonhazardous solid wastes. In practice, RCRA complements CERCLA and the two, together, provide mechanisms for controlling all hazardous waste situations. While RCRA focuses upon active and future facilities, CERCLA deals with abandoned or historical sites and emergency situations.

In 1984, the federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA-pronounced "hiss-wa") were passed by Congress. HSWA amends RCRA to require the phasing out of land disposal of hazardous waste. To accomplish this goal, and to respond to other insufficiencies in RCRA, HSWA also created greater enforcement authority for the EPA and more stringent hazardous waste management standards. With the phasing out of land disposal of hazardous waste, the EPA soon discovered that new storage issues were coming to the forefront. Therefore, in 1986 an amendment to RCRA was passed which allowed the EPA to focus upon and address specific issues and concerns related to the underground storage of petroleum and other products.