Minimal use of prosecution, flexible enforcement strategy eroded the rule of law; considerable administrative discretion created enormous economic waste; close co-operation between regulators and the regulated spawned a pernicious form of factional politics, which are all British approach to environmental enforcement.
　　It is clearly seen the traditional form of pollution control, command and control regulation, has delivered considerable improvements. However, it can’t meet environmental objectives at lowest cost for large amount of administrative cost, it can’t make polluters pay fully for the effects of their activities and it has not enough economic incentive to encourage the regulated go beyond the lowest standards. The new alternative mechanisms, such as economic instruments and voluntary measures, are adopted with an increasing frequency.
　　II. Economic Instruments and Voluntary Measures
　　(a) Economic Instruments (EIs)
　　EIs encourage the desired behaviour by financial incentives rather than by legal compulsion. The main feature of an economic instrument is to make clear to polluters the wider cost of their polluting activities. In short, they aim to demonstrate the ''price'' of environmental damage and make polluters pay accordingly. Polluters then have a choice between paying that price and taking action to reduce their pollution. Such incentives can be either negative (conduct is legally unconstrained but if a firm chooses to act in an undesired way it must pay a charge) or positive (if a firm chooses to act in a desired way it is awarded a subsidy).　
　Forms of EIs are identified as: (1) Charges, as one of the major EIs forms, are most widely used, which have important incentive effects, be levied on the results of pollution or on a process or a product. They can be introduced to achieve four different but not necessarily mutually exclusive purposes: to ensure that polluters pay for environmental costs they impose on society; to fund environmental protection measures or capacity building measures; to introduce incentives to more environmentally benign behavior; and to provide revenue to allow for the reduction of other less efficient taxes. The best example for charges levied on the polluting materials is the landfill tax, which applies to all waste, which is disposed of by way of landfill at a licensed landfill site on or after October 1, 1996, unless the waste is specifically exempt.　The charges or taxes are mainly used to cover the administrative cost of operating the regulatory system or to charge for the full environmental cost of an activity. (2) Subsidies, with positive incentives, induce the polluters to reduce undesirable activity by madding payment to them. An activity can be subsidized in many ways. A government may transfer funds to an enterprise, provide preferential tax treatment, supply commodities at below market prices, or restrict competing products to assist a particular activity. (3) Tradable permits, a kind of EIs is based on the idea that allocative efficiency can be achieved by allowing pollution rights to be treated. Both taxes and tradable permits tend to equate the marginal cost of emissions abatement for all affected sources. The difference is that the tax is set by the government, and the level of emissions is determined by the responses of the affected sources; whereas in a tradable permit system, the government determines the overall level of emissions, and permit prices are determined by the market.

第 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 页 共[8]页