Command-and-control regulation

Command-and-control regulation uses legal requirements to prescribe technologies, practices, or performance limits. It relies on compliance and enforcement rather than chiefly on market incentives.

Technology standard: A rule requiring regulated entities to use a specified technology or production method. This is the most prescriptive form: compliance depends on installing or using designated equipment.
Pigouvian tax: A tax on an activity calibrated to reflect the external cost it imposes. Unlike a fixed legal limit, it changes the cost of pollution while allowing firms to choose their response.
Clean Air Act: A United States federal law that regulates air pollution from stationary and mobile sources. Its programs use statutory standards and permits to impose enforceable pollution-control requirements.
Regulatory compliance cost: The expense of meeting legal requirements, including equipment, administration, and operational changes. Mandated controls can impose substantial costs that shape the design and effects of standards.
Performance standard: A rule setting a required level of environmental or operational performance without prescribing a specific method. It fixes the required outcome while leaving regulated entities some choice of means.
Emissions trading: A policy system in which regulated sources trade permits authorizing emissions under a fixed overall cap. Trading can achieve a shared emissions limit without assigning every source the same prescribed control.
Clean Water Act: A United States federal law governing pollutant discharges into the nation's waters. Discharge permits and technology-based effluent limits exemplify prescriptive environmental regulation.
Regulatory capture: A process in which a regulator advances the interests of the industry it oversees rather than the public interest. Detailed technical rules can give regulated firms influence over the requirements that govern them.
Emissions standard: A legal limit on the amount or concentration of pollutants released by a source. Emission limits turn a broad pollution goal into a measurable compliance requirement.
Subsidy: A government payment or tax reduction that lowers the cost of a chosen activity. Subsidies encourage cleaner choices through financial rewards rather than mandatory methods or limits.

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