The body that is responsible for regulating environmental impacts, and its interaction with the body with overall responsibility for nuclear safety, is an important element of a developed nuclear institutional framework. The bodies charged with primary responsibility for regulating environmental impacts in the UK are the Environment Agency (EA) in England and Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in Scotland. Under the Environmental Act 1995 (their general duties and functions are set out in Sections 4-8), the EA is vested with primary responsibility, in relation to specified legislation (see Section 5(5)), including the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA 1993), Water Resources Act 1991 (WRA 1991) and the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 (the ‘Permitting Regulations 2010’), to use their powers ‘for the purpose of preventing or minimising, or remedying or mitigating the effects of, pollu­tion of the environment’ (Section 5(1)). The operators of nuclear power plants will require a variety of different environmental permits from the EA, and the EA will monitor their activities (and impose reporting require­ments) to ensure that they are complying with their permit conditions. The legislation empowers the EA to ensure compliance by providing them with the power to bring enforcement actions (see Part 4 of the Permitting Regulations 2010) against non-compliant operators, and to bring a halt to site operations by the revocation of permits where there have been serious or serial breaches (see Annex 1 of the EA’s ‘Submission to DTI — Pre­Licensing Assessments of New Nuclear Power Stations’ for a general over­view of the EA’s regulatory responsibilities in relation to nuclear power).