ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS AND THE UNITED-STATES SYSTEM OF PROTECTION - WHYTHE US ENVIRONMENTAL-PROTECTION-AGENCY IS NOT A RIGHTS-BASED ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCY

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the subject of m uch controversy during the twenty or so years since its establishment- much more controversy than other agencies created at around the same t ime. Descriptions of the EPA's failures often focus upon the inherent faults in its structure and on the statutes it was asked to administer . One point almost completely ignored is the fact that, unlike other a gencies of the 'rights revolution', the EPA has been asked to protect an entity not yet truly recognized as a right. Although the EPA was a product of the 'rights revolution', it was not a rights-based agency, and was probably never intended to be so. This helps to explain why it has failed to meet its statutory mandates-all three branches of gover nment have been able to minimize the effects of environmental regulati on without ever having to consider fully the environmental rights of t he citizenry. The National Environmental Policy Act provided the citiz enry with the assurance that environmental interests would be consider ed within the governmental and bureaucratic decisionmaking process, bu t this was no guarantee of rights. In this paper it is suggested that without any recognition of true environmental rights it will always be possible for pro-development interests to reduce the obligations and effects of environmental protection legislation upon industry.