ENVIORNMENTAL REGULATIONS Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

ENVIORNMENTAL REGULATIONS - Coursework Example The absence of minimum wage rate in Singapore is a matter of concern especially for migrant workers. Due to increasing problems of environmental pollution caused by several industries and by industrialization policies pursued since the late 1960s, Malaysia developed its first framework environmental legislation called the Environmental Quality Act 1974. During the start of its life, the act took major steps to curb the ever increasing pollution in the country and it was not until 1987 that the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedures were introduced to undertake preventative measures as well. Section 34A of the Environmental Quality (Amendment) Act 1985 makes it obligatory for anyone who wishes to undertake some activity to conduct a study to weigh the environmental impacts that the activity will have and the measures to be undertaken. The Malaysian EIA procedures are comparable to the National Environmental Policy Act 1969 (NEPA) model of the USA (Memon, n.d.). The number of environmental laws has grown rapidly and may be sufficient in number but not in quality. These laws have been unable to curb the ever increasing pollution in Malaysia. One of the reasons is that the legislation was mainly passed to cover and address situations as they arose with time, not to address the core environmental issues. There are also a significant number of breaches of environmental law but enforcement action is extremely low: to date only 5 cases are reported in the law reports of Malaysia under the heading of environmental law (Bt. Maidin, 2005). Singapore’s environmental issues are typical of an urbanized city. The issues relate to pollution from industrialization and urbanization and the protection of nature areas. The overall environmental management lies with the Ministry of Environment (ENV) established in 1970 which has become a full-fledged ministry and is responsible for a number of areas such as providing infrastructure for waste management, and

Petroleum Economic and Oil field management 2013-2014 Essay

Petroleum Economic and Oil field management 2013-2014 - Essay Example Secondly, the natural gas industry requires a firm that has financial muscle to produce the natural gas because it is an expensive venture. Such a firm will have excessive power to dominate control, and regulation initiatives even from governments especially if it is a multinational company. The natural gas industry mainly operates through pipeline transportation and distribution aspects, which are naturally monopolistic because they are characterized by high fixed costs and long lead time making duplication uneconomical. This creates a wide barrier to entry for potential participants and competitors. They also require price and non-price regulation. Without effective regulation, the natural gas industry can develop into a natural monopoly. In fact, price regulations sometimes fail to control the prices because such prices depend on various factors such as production costs, inflation and transportation costs among others (DiLorenzo, 1996:45). In situations where governments run the natural gas industry, the industry turns to state monopoly such as in Mexico. The Mexican government introduced a program of reform in 1988. However, it was until 1995 that reform in natural gas industry began to include private companies. However, before this, state owned firms controlled the industry making it a monopoly. In fact, even after the entrance of private firms state owned firms still ruled the market making it a state monopoly (Joskow, 2007:1227). Q1 represents entire size of the market. Point E1 is the equilibrium that cooresponds to quantity at Q1 and determines the price at P1. Thus, when there is one firm only producing natural gas, the marginal cost of supply is P1 and is lower than the duopoly price P2. Thus, the presence of one firm in the market will be price efficient compared to two firms. If the natural gas industry