Media-by-media statutes let pollution migrate to the least-regulated pathway.

Evidence

The existing system comprising the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and similar initiatives subjected single sources of pollution to several largely uncoordinated regulatory schemes, each focused on just one environmental media—such as air, water, groundwater, or land. The result of such hobnailed regulation could be nonsensical and potentially perverse as industrial pollution would simply seek out the path of least regulatory resistance rather than the path where it might cause the least harm or be controlled at the least cost. But even more threatening to competing stakeholders and interest groups was the prospect of writing a unified cross-media statute that would place back on the legislative agenda their respective past political gains. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 739

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Eco-Justice: media-specific regulation systematically relocates harm onto whichever environmental sink is least protected — grounds the environmental-justice critique in institutional structure. — connects to: Rationally superior cross-media reform failed for lack of political support. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 738
• DEFINE: Clarifies what cross-media/multimedia regulation means and why the single-media structure exists.