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A cardinal principle in dealing with every type of legal arrangement is to keep steadily in view the kinds of people to whom the directions of the arrangement in question are initially addressed-who the people are, in other words, who are expected to act or refrain from acting in accordance with the arrangement if it works successfully, and under what circumstances they are expected to act. 1

If asked to envision a polluter, most of us would describe a tall stack from a large industrial facility billowing smoke or a pipe releasing foaming liquid into a stream. The environmental laws and academic commentary of the last thirty years reflect this common conception. With few exceptions, the environmental laws enacted since the 1970s have directed command and control requirements at large industrial sources of pollution. Similarly, in law reviews, books and congressional hearings, advocates of command and control …