As we have seen in Part 1, a process of negative harmonization of traderestrictive state environmental standards through judicial intervention may not be sufficient to ease the various kinds of tension that may arise between trade and environmental protection. Against this background, the central objective of Part 2 is to examine how the Community and the US federal government have attempted to reconcile free-trade and environmental-protection objectives by setting common environmental standards for all states through centralized legislative action (a process of positive harmonization).

In Part 2, Community and United States law will be discussed separately (chapters 5 and 6 respectively). A comparative analysis of the various findings made in chapters 5 and 6 will then be made in chapter 7. Chapters 5 and 6 will each be divided in four comparable sections. The first two sections will deal with two important institutional questions. The first section will tackle the question of the existence of a legal or constitutional basis for environmental action in the EC Treaty and the US Constitution. The existence of such a basis is essential since both European Community and United States systems are based on the principle of attributed powers. Pursuant to this principle, the Community and the US federal government may only act within the limits of the powers that are assigned to them by the EC Treaty and the US Constitution respectively. The EC Treaty now contains specific provisions (Articles 100A, 130R, 130S and 130T) allowing Community action in the environmental field.