The beginning of the last third of the twentieth century can generally be characterized by a broad public awareness of the increasing deterioration of the natural environment, especially of the quality of air and water resources. The degradation of the quality of the natural resources has thus emerged as a public policy issue. The Federal and state governments responded to this public concern through the creation of various policy programs and administrative agencies. The environmental protection agency of the federal government is an example of a nationwide effort to establish policies related to the quality of the environmental resources. Many states established the legal framework within which administrative agencies could execute policies and ordinances related to the quality of environmental resources. Legislation recently passed by the Maine Legislature will be cited as examples. The site selection law specifies that the Environmental Improvement Commission must issue or deny a license for any commercial or industrial development which requires a land area of 20 or more acres; for structures in excess of a ground area of 60,000 square feet, for drilling or excavating natural resources (pits requiring an area of more than 5 acres). The recent denial of the application of Maine Clean Fuels, Inc., to construct a $200 million oil refinery on Sears Island, off the coast, attracted national attention. The vast majority of the project applications processed, however, are small in value and in size though their total impact on the environmental resource of the state are potential.