The Dispute Settlement Mechanism Of The Environment

The Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pursuant to provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA), against the six defendant companies who are the owners and/or operators of five different coal-fired electric generating plants located in Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia on November 3, 1999. On November 18, 1999, eleven not-for-profit organizations (Citizens Groups) filed a similar law suit pursuant in another branch of this court against the same six defendant companies(American Electric Power Co.(AEP)...) for some of the same or similar alleged violations at the same five electric generating plants and a number of similar alleged violations at three additional plants in West Virginia and one in Virginia, each also allegedly owned and/ or operated by one or more of the same defendant companies. As did EPA, the citizens groups sought both injunctive relief and civil penalties under the CAA. The citizens groups promptly moved for consolidation with the EPA's case, which was not opposed by the defendant companies, and the cases were then consolidated before this branch of the court by joint Order filed in the two cases on January 19, 2000. Power companies have long claimed that the New Source Review does not require additional pollution controls after new plant equipment is installed, even if annual pollution goes up, as long as hourly pollution levels don't rise.An unprecedented coalition of eight states and 13 citizen groups joined the United States government in Oct. 9, 2007's settlement.The agreement with American Electric Power Co., struck just as the company was to defend itself in court, ends an eight-year battle over reducing coal-fired plant pollution that drifted across Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and chewed away at mountain ranges, bays and national landmarks. Government officials praised the deal as the largest environmental enforcement settlement in the nation's history. For example, it is the largest settlement in terms of the value of injunctive relief, and will result in the largest amount of emission reduction from stationary sources, such as power plants and factories.It is estimated that AEP will spend more than $4.6 billion to comply with the consent decree. AEP must also pay a $15 million civil fine and $60 million in cleanup and mitigation costs to help heal polluted land in the Shenandoah National Park and waterways including the Chesapeake Bay. The settlement also is the largest as measured in terms of pollution reductions obtained from the owner or operator of a Clean Air Act stationary source(s). Upon full implementation, the settlement will secure at least 813,000 tons per year of air pollution reductions from AEP's 16 power plants.The thesie conains five parts.The author formulate and analyze the ways of setting environmental disputes which including Civil Litigation in United State, as well as its defects and the causation of environment infringement,the legal policy of air pollution etc. base on this environment civil lawsuit in USA which is meaningful at justice practices. But the author dose not mean that China should copy the legislative of USA. Because China is under the different legal culture from USA, so the legal system will be different. Depends on the situation of our Country in now days, strong law enforcement is the necessary way to handle environmental pollution. From this point of view,the author consider that rethink the legal improvement in past few years is a inevitable topic for China.In the epilogue,the author drew a conclusion about the basic opinions of this disertation in hope of being benificial to the research on enviormental disputes in china.