control and command approach and pollution

Explain briefly the command-and-control approach to dealing with an externality like pollution. Give an example of how the United States administration used the command-and-control technique to address the emissions crisis.
Pollution is and will still be a major environmental problem that disrupts all economic activity and externalities. An externality is described by Glenn and Pearson (2015) as a potential advantage or expense that affects people who are neither consumers nor producers of a product. Historically, the United States government has used a variety of measures to compel businesses to use specific approaches to help reduce emissions.
One of the policies that have been commonly used is the Command and Control Approach (CAC).
A Command and Control Approach is a situation where the government imposes quantitative regulations of the amount of pollution that production firms can emit (Glenn & Pearson, 2015). CAC approach can also require firms to put in place particular pollution control devices, and one of the checks that the government can use is the direct controls approach. However, it is worth noting that, the application of the CAC always seeks to address the issue of the level protection that is desired hence achieving a zero pollution is not always a primary goal. Direct control is a form of CAC policy that bans particular activities that are possible creators of negative externalities or limit them to a certain level such as limiting toxic wastes by use of specific procedures. The approach requires that firms find ways of increasing their costs by installing specific anti-pollution technologies/equipment to take into account the social costs of the pollution.

There are instances where the US government successfully applied the CAC approach. Using the CAC regulation has contributed a lot towards the cleaning up of the US environment. Jaffe et al. (2002), states that the US government successfully used CAC in 1983 when the federal government ordered the automobile manufacturers to ensure that they installed specific catalytic converters that were to help in reducing the auto emissions on every single new vehicle they produced. However, in as much as the CAC approach has been successful in some instances, there are sections of environmentalists who have been critical of CAC and argue that market-based approach is the most efficient way to address pollution issues.























References

Glenn R. Hubbard & Pearson Anthony P. O. (2015). Essentials of Economics, 4th Edition.

Jaffe, A. B., Newell, R. G., & Stavins, R. N. (2002). Environmental policy and technological change. Environmental and resource economics, 22(1), 41-70.