Few will dispute the need for some kind of regulation in a complex society such as ours.
Environmental regulation accounts for a significant portion of today's regulatory cost burdens.
The answers to these questions are not easy to come by and require a lot of scientific data and understanding. Initially, environmental regulation did prove to be cost-effective. Removing the first large increment of pollutants from water and air probably produced more benefits than it cost. In the last 20 years there have indeed been tremendous improvements in the quality of the air, and of streams and lakes. But removing the last few per cent of pollution is enormously expensive and often not even within the reach of technology.