Response of Kansas' Small Businesses to Environmental Regulation: Implications for Training

Abstract

Current U.S. environmental law is based upon the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA, 42 U.S.C.A. Sec 4321-4370). NEPA and subsequent environmental policies and regulations significantly affect the economy and individual businesses. Policies and regulations create markets for goods and services needed by firms seeking to comply with regulations. While compliance can result in savings by use of more efficient processes, businesses can also incur costs as they seek to comply with environmental regulations. As the EPA's regulatory efforts spread, small businesses increasingly feel the impact. The large variety of local, state, and federal laws must be dealt with simultaneously, along with the inconsistency between local, state, and federal regulations. In some cases, small businesses just do not have the necessary capacity or funding to comply with existing regulations or to adjust to new regulations and policies.

In general, the most researched and publicized issues stemming from environmental regulations and policies are predominantly "after-the-fact" issues. For businesses, environmental issues can seem very large in scope, costly, and never ending. An individual company may face a large range of environmental issues: solid waste, waste water, air pollution, pesticides, PCB 's, radon, etc. The question becomes one of how to cope with the entire range of environmental requirements in a situation that never stabilizes. New rules and regulations beget even newer rules and regulations, so keeping up becomes difficult at best (Blue, Meneguzzi, & Cole, 1992). Unfortunately, keeping up is not the only problem. As environmental regulations and policies are modified, they will probably continue to increase in scope and complexity and become even more stringent (Ofori, 1992).

Once a firm has identified the regulations that apply, it must then determine how to comply. Compliance becomes complicated and expensive. Firms often face escalating excise taxes imposed because of old machinery (Ziffer, 1992). Firms must consider replacing old facilities and machinery not built to meet current regulations or standards. Intermediary solutions may require expensive retrofitting (Caney, 1992). Disposing of waste is a growing problem as landfills reach capacity, landfill costs increase, and regulations make siting a new landfill more difficult (Carlile, 1992). While compliance often costs, small businesses may find it more difficult to pass the cost of compliance on to their customers because passing on their costs may make them less competitive (McKee, 1992).

In the midst of trying to be informed of and comply with environmental regulations, firms also face legal issues stemming from environmental regulations and policies. Environmental laws, regulations, policies, enforcement procedures, and interpretations of compliance are set by all three levels of government and may not be in agreement (Forbes, 1992; Biles, 1992). Thus, firms face liability issues in the form of common law and specific legislation, regulations, bylaws, and policies (Blue et al., 1992; Darcey, 1992; Kiser, 1992).