How will large fines for factories that pollute the air affect future generations?

Answer 1

It is not in the best interest of a company to violate an air permit.

This includes failure to obtain an air permit.

The government is the entity which regulates discharges and issues permits. On the application, an officer of the corporation acknowledges that he will be subject to civil and criminal penalties for failure to comply with the terms of his air permit.

So, lets say XYZ Corporation is only permitted for 20 tons/year of volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere and 5 tons of fugitive dust into the air.

But, XYZ has a banner year and doubles output, or XYZ has a terrible year and their air scrubber fails to capture dust or VOCs.

They are legally required to report their excursion. When they are auditted, they will be discovered. (States administer permits and are in charge of enforcement).

Complaints are phoned in, emailed in, seen by inspectors, discovered in the field...., all the time. So, when the VP of XYZ is discovered, the state will send him a nasty letter telling him to pony up to$32,500 a day for the excursion. As you can see, this will quickly bankrupt a small to medium sized company.

Larger companies like Kerr McGee, will negotiate a fine away and laugh about how much money they saved because the repair of their equipment can run over $100G. This does not happen as much anymore because states will send managers to jail for flagrant violations of any permit.

Answer: Small companies will comply. Large companies will comply, unless the local manager is a stupid moron and wants to go to jail.