A pollutant's belief that their actions are not being observed will lead them to release more pollutants into the environment than is allowed. Naturally, if human beings undertake a particular action because of being closely supervised, the absence of supervision leads to these people's underperformance; such is the case for individuals who think they are not supervised. The same case applies in the plants that take part in pollution and have been allocated the maximum amount of emissions allowed to think they are not being observed.

If necessary action is not put in place, the system may not be useful in the long run as large quantities of pollution will be in the environment. If EPA is observing a firm's action, then the firm has to be penalized for the extra quantities of emissions in the environment. With more penalties, the firm may feel the cost of surpassing the set quantities of emission and may start paying attention to how much emissions are getting out of the firm to the environment. If this is the case, then the number of emissions will be controlled in the long run.