W EEKLY EDITION NOV 2, 2016
Portable Sanitation and the EPA …continued
Part III
• Step 1: Congress writes a bill.
A member of either the House or the Senate pro poses a bill. Eventually, the bill has to make it through a
series of committees in both houses, language has to be agreed upon, and Congressional leaders have to
allow it to be voted on. Bills usually cover both the general way in which the idea will work as a law and
specific language for how the government – through one or more of its agencies – will administer the new
law.
• Step 2: The President approves or vetoes the bill.
If both houses of Congress approve a bill, it goes to the President who has the o ption to either approve it or
veto it. If approved, the new law is called an act or statute. Some of the better - known laws that have a
bearing on our industry are the C lean Air Act , the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act . All of
t hese are the responsibility of the EPA at an administrative level.
• Step 3: The act is codified in the United States Code.
Once an act is passed, the House of Representatives standardizes the text of the law and publishes it in
the United States Code (USC) . The USC is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent
laws of the United States. Since 1926, the USC has been published every six years. In between editions,
annual cumulative supplements are published in order to present the most cu rrent information. While the
Government Printing Office ( GPO) is the sole agency authorized by the federal government to publish the
USC, the internet has made access to the laws much easier. Today the Code is online and searchable here .
While nobody is suggesting the USC will ever be on the bestseller list, you may find it interesting to read the
actual text of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Putting the laws into practice. As they are passed and recorded in the US Code, laws usually do not include all the
details needed to explain how an individual, business, state or local government, or others might follow the law.
The United States Code would not tell you, for example, what the speed limit is on the road leading to your yard or all of
the specific rules governing your loc al waste disposal site.
Congress authorizes government agencies - including EPA - to create
regulations for how laws will be implemented and monitored on a
day - to - day level. These regulations set specific requirements about
what is legal and what isn't. F or example, a regulation issued by EPA
to implement the Clean Water Act might explain what maximum
levels of a pollutant - such as lead – can be allowed if we are to
adequately protect human health and the environment. It would tell
local officials and bus inesses how much lead they can legally allow
into streams, rivers, and drinking water, and what the penalty will be if
they allow too much.
P AGE 3
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