As an environmentalist, you are very interested in how public opinion and economics play a role in determining how many and what type of environmental laws are passed. The research paper you prepare this week should be directed toward the general public to raise awareness of a particular environmental law, its reasons for being passed, and its economic impacts.

Start by writing a brief introduction to the topic of environmental law and its connection to economics. Next, choose an environmental law. Here are some of the major environmental laws that you can choose from:

• National Environmental Protection Act
• Clean Air Act
• Clean Water Act
• Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) Superfund sites
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

Address the following:

• Description of the law
• When was it passed?
• What are the major provisions of the law?
• What environmental problems motivated the writing of his law? Be as specific as possible.
• What kinds of costs, fines, or economic benefits are associated with the law? Provide economic data to support this.
• Discuss whether you feel that this particular environmental law has improved the environment or situation. Why or why not?

For your Unit 4 Individual Project, you completed the following five sections. Be sure that all of these elements are included in your Unit 5 Individual Project as well. Refer to last week’s worksheet for a review of each section, but be sure to use this week’s topics.

• Section 1: Title Information
• Section 2: Introduction
• Section 3: Body of paper
• Section 4: Conclusions
• Section 5: Reference list