The heightened environmental consciousness of the 1970s prompted passage of a multitude of ambitious and unprecedented laws designed to clean up the environment and protect it for future generations. But beyond the mere passing of laws lay the difficult tasks of implementing, monitoring, and enforcing them. The authors of this book describe the current state of air and water pollution monitoring and enforcement activity a decade later, within the context of relevant legal, technological, and statistical developments. They mediate between the concerns of the theoretical literature-where it is generally assumed that violations are discovered and punished-and the real world-where violations are rarely discovered and almost never punished. Monitoring and enforcement procedures to date have been aimed at achieving initial rather than continuing compliance with regulations. The authors contend that it is time for a new approach focusing on the enduring problems of compliance. Economic models are used to show the extent of the difficulties involved in monitoring and enforcing pollution control laws on a continuous basis.