An important step in determining the feasibility of national laws and regulations in terms of compliance and enforcement is analysing the regulated community’s ability to comply with the laws’ requirements.
General requirements that are very specific, with little flexibility for modification when they are implemented at specific facilities, are easier to enforce but may not allow the economic flexibility that will encourage compliance. Policymakers will need to balance the advantage of specificity with the need for flexibility. Both economic and technological factors determine how great a burden the new requirements will pose to the regulated 
community. Some environmental programmes (such as those in the United States) often commission an independent study to examine the economic and technological impact that proposed general requirements will have on the regulated community. Factors studied often include:
Economic Considerations:
- Which types of facilities are subject to the requirements?
- What equipment will be required to comply and how much will it cost to obtain, operate, and maintain?
- What changes in work practices will be necessary for compliance? How much will these changes cost?
- If the regulated community is required to monitor its own compliance activities, how much will this monitoring cost?
- Are there any short- or long-term economic benefits to the regulated community from compliance (e.g. income from recycled materials, development of more cost-efficient processes)?
- Is the regulatory scheme cost-effective compared to other approaches that could improve this?
Technological Considerations:
- What technologies may be used to comply?
- How reliable are these technologies?
- How available are these technologies?
- How easy is it to accurately operate these technologies?
Size of the Regulated Community
The size of the regulated community can influence a program’s ability to successfully enforce general requirements. The larger the regulated community, the greater the effort generally required for successful enforcement. Too large a regulated community can make it impossible to implement and enforce requirements. For example, a province in the Netherlands passed a law requiring companies that wanted to use a processing installation to dispose of their wastes to apply for an exemption. After the law passed, the government discovered that 100,000 companies producing wastes would need an exemption. Inspections alone would have required hiring an additional 200 to 300 inspectors. The provincial government decided to revise the regulation. Exemptions are no longer required. Companies must keep a record of their waste deliveries and periodically report information on the most hazardous wastes. Enforcement efforts now focus on the waste processors (about 1,000) rather than the waste producers. Some pollution events involve a chain of facilities and/or individuals (e.g., manufacturers, distributors, and users). In such cases, regulating the smallest “link” in the chain (e.g., manufacturers rather than users) can achieve the desired environmental results with much less effort.