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Noise
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Until the 1970s, noise control and abatement was the exclusive domain of state and local regulation. However, Congress determined that inadequately controlled noise posed a threat to public health and welfare, particularly in urban areas, and enacted the Noise Control Act of 1972 (NAC). The NAC acknowledged that the primary responsibility for noise control rested with state and local authority but at the same time concluded that federal regulation of certain major sources of noise pollution that stemmed from commerce was necessary. The NAC was designed to provide federal research and activities in noise control, to establish federal standards for products that were distributed in commerce, and to provide information to the public about the amount of noise produced or reduced by certain products.
The NAC authorized the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to coordinate noise and noise control research programs of other federal agencies and to periodically report on the status of those programs. The EPA was also required to identify major sources of noise, establish maximum safe levels of noise from those sources, and to regulate noise emissions produced by railroad and trucking operations. Two other federal agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, were given jurisdiction over the regulation of noise in their general areas of oversight.
Under the NAC, the EPA established the Office of Noise Control and Abatement (ONAC) to administer the requirements of the statute. The ONAC set noise emission standards and regulations for products such as trucks, motor homes, motorcycles, certain types of construction equipment, and for motor carrier and railroad operations as specifically mandated. Under EPA regulations, manufacturers are prohibited from introducing items into commerce that exceed the noise standards established by the ONAC and must provide a warranty to product buyers that the items meet those standards. Federal noise regulations do not apply to items after they have been purchased; however, once purchased, states and local governments are free to regulate the noise produced by products when used by their ultimate purchasers.
Under the Reagan administration, funding for the ONAC was eliminated. Accordingly, the EPA no longer has the financial resources to carry out the mandates of the NAC. Although the EPA continues to carry on some regulatory activity under the NAC, problems of noise pollution and abatement once again largely rest in the hands of state and local governments. In addition, private citizens may bring tort actions for the abatement of noise under the theory of nuisance. The problem of aircraft noise has led to a legal mechanism called inverse condemnation under which the nuisance caused by noise from aircraft flying over a landowner's property is regarded as a taking of the property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Because the nuisances in such cases are considered legal nuisances, a landowner cannot have the offending activity stopped but may be able to recover economic damages. Depending on the nature of the noise source, ordinary nuisance actions may be brought under which a court might order the cessation of the activity creating the noise. Copyright 2009 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
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