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United States Environmental Protection Agency

March 08, 2023

"EPA" and "Environmental Protection Agency" redirect here. For other uses, see EPA (disambiguation).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters.[2] President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order.[3] The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate.[3] The current administrator is Michael S. Regan. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D.C., regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions, and 27 laboratories.[4] The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education. It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U.S. states and the federally recognized tribes. EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts. The agency's budgeted employee level in 2023 is 16,204.1 full-time equivalent (FTE).[5] More than half of EPA's employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists; other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. Many public health and environmental groups advocate for the agency and believe that it is creating a better world. Other critics believe that the agency commits government overreach by adding unnecessary regulations on business and property owners.[6]

Environmental Protection Agency
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Agency overview
FormedDecember 2, 1970; 52 years ago (1970-12-02)
HeadquartersWilliam Jefferson Clinton Federal Building
Washington, D.C., U.S.
38°53′38″N 77°01′44″W / 38.8939°N 77.0289°W / 38.8939; -77.0289Coordinates: 38°53′38″N 77°01′44″W / 38.8939°N 77.0289°W / 38.8939; -77.0289
Employees14,581[1]
Annual budget$9,559,485,000[1]
Agency executives
Websitewww.epa.gov

History

Background

 
Stacks emitting smoke from burning discarded automobile batteries, photo taken in Houston in 1972 by Marc St. Gil, official photographer of recently founded EPA
 
Same smokestacks in 1975 after the plant was closed in a push for greater environmental protection

Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing public concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment.[7][8][9] Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act (RCA) of 1959, in the 86th Congress. The bill would have established a Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, declared a national environmental policy, and required the preparation of an annual environmental report.[10][11][12][13]

The 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides.[14]

In the years following, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment and Congress's potential responses. In 1968, a joint House–Senate colloquium was convened by the chairmen of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Senator Henry M. Jackson, and the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Representative George P. Miller, to discuss the need for and means of implementing a national environmental policy. In the colloquium, some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment.[10]

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA)[15] was modeled on the 1959 RCA bill.[16] President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1, 1970. The law created the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President.[7] NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The "detailed statement" would ultimately be referred to as an environmental impact statement (EIS).[7]

Establishment

 
Ruckelshaus sworn in as first EPA Administrator

On July 9, 1970, Nixon proposed an executive reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency, a new Environmental Protection Agency.[17] This proposal included merging pollution control programs from a number of departments, such as the combination of pesticide programs from the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of the Interior.[18]: 5  After conducting hearings during that summer, the House and Senate approved the proposal. The EPA was created 90 days before it had to operate,[18]: 11  and officially opened its doors on December 2, 1970. The agency's first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, took the oath of office on December 4, 1970.[9]

EPA's primary predecessor was the former Environmental Health Divisions of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), and its creation caused one of a series of reorganizations of PHS that occurred during 1966–1973. From PHS, EPA absorbed the entire National Air Pollution Control Administration, as well as the Environmental Control Administration's Bureau of Solid Waste Management, Bureau of Water Hygiene, and part of its Bureau of Radiological Health. It also absorbed the Federal Water Quality Administration, which had previously been transferred from PHS to the Department of the Interior in 1966. A few functions from other agencies were also incorporated into EPA: the formerly independent Federal Radiation Council was merged into it; pesticides programs were transferred from the Department of the Interior, Food and Drug Administration, and Agricultural Research Service; and some functions were transferred from the Council on Environmental Quality and Atomic Energy Commission.[19][20]

Upon its creation, EPA inherited 84 sites spread across 26 states, of which 42 sites were laboratories. The EPA consolidated these laboratories into 22 sites.[21]

1970s

In its first year, the EPA had a budget of $1.4 billion and 5,800 employees.[18]: 5  At its start, the EPA was primarily a technical assistance agency that set goals and standards. Soon, new acts and amendments passed by Congress gave the agency its regulatory authority.[18]: 9  A major expansion of the Clean Air Act was approved in December 1970.[22]

EPA staff recall that in the early days there was "an enormous sense of purpose and excitement" and the expectation that "there was this agency which was going to do something about a problem that clearly was on the minds of a lot of people in this country," leading to tens of thousands of resumes from those eager to participate in the mighty effort to clean up America's environment.[23]

When EPA first began operation, members of the private sector felt strongly that the environmental protection movement was a passing fad. Ruckelshaus stated that he felt pressure to show a public which was deeply skeptical about government's effectiveness, that EPA could respond effectively to widespread concerns about pollution.[24]

The burning Cuyahoga River in 1969 had led to a national outcry. In December 1970 a federal grand jury investigation led by U.S. Attorney Robert W. Jones began, of water pollution allegedly being caused by about 12 companies in northeastern Ohio.[25] It was the first grand jury investigation of water pollution in the area. The attorney general of the United States, John N. Mitchell, held a press conference on December 18, 1970, referencing new pollution control litigation, with particular reference to work with the new Environmental Protection Agency, and announcing the filing of a lawsuit that morning against the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation for discharging substantial quantities of cyanide into the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland.[26] Jones filed the misdemeanor charges in District Court, alleging violations of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.[27]

Partly based on such litigation experience, Congress enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, better known as the Clean Water Act (CWA).[28] The CWA established a national framework for addressing water quality, including mandatory pollution control standards, to be implemented by the agency in partnership with the states.[29] Congress also amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) in 1972, requiring EPA to measure every pesticide's risks against its potential benefits.[30][31]

In 1973 President Nixon appointed Ruckelshaus to the position of Deputy Attorney General.[32] Russell E. Train was appointed to be the next EPA Administrator.[33]

Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974, requiring EPA to develop mandatory federal standards for all public water systems, which serve 90% of the US population. The law required EPA to enforce the standards with the cooperation of state agencies.[34][35]

In October 1976, Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) which, like FIFRA, related to the manufacture, labeling and usage of commercial products rather than pollution.[36][37] This act gave the EPA the authority to gather information on chemicals and require producers to test them, gave it the ability to regulate chemical production and use (with specific mention of PCBs), and required the agency to create the National Inventory listing of chemicals.[37]

Congress also enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976, significantly amending the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965.[38] It tasked the EPA with setting national goals for waste disposal, conserving energy and natural resources, reducing waste, and ensuring environmentally sound management of waste. Accordingly, the agency developed regulations for solid and hazardous waste that were to be implemented in collaboration with states.[39]

President Jimmy Carter appointed Douglas M. Costle as EPA Administrator in 1977.[33] To manage the agency's expanding legal mandates and workload, by the end of 1979 the budget grew to about $5.4 billion and the workforce size increased to about 13,000.[1]

1980s

In 1980, following the discovery of many abandoned or mismanaged hazardous waste sites such as Love Canal, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, nicknamed “Superfund.” The new law authorized EPA to cast a wider net for parties responsible for sites contaminated by previous hazardous waste disposal and established a funding mechanism for assessment and cleanup.[40]

Anne Gorsuch was appointed EPA Administrator in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan.[41] Gorsuch based her administration of EPA on the New Federalism approach of downsizing federal agencies by delegating their functions and services to the individual states.[42] She believed that EPA was over-regulating business and that the agency was too large and not cost-effective. During her 22 months as agency head, she cut the budget of the EPA by 22%, reduced the number of cases filed against polluters, relaxed Clean Air Act regulations, and facilitated the spraying of restricted-use pesticides. She cut the total number of agency employees, and hired staff from the industries they were supposed to be regulating.[43] Environmentalists contended that her policies were designed to placate polluters, and accused her of trying to dismantle the agency.[44]

Following her mismanagement of the Superfund program, Assistant Administrator Rita Lavelle was fired by Reagan in February 1983.[45] Lavelle was later convicted of perjury.[46] Gorsuch had increasing confrontations with Congress over Superfund and other programs, including her refusal to submit subpoenaed documents. Gorsuch was cited for contempt of Congress and the White House directed EPA to submit the documents to Congress. Gorsuch (who had recently remarried, becoming Anne Gorsuch Burford) resigned in March 1983, followed by resignations of her Deputy Administrator and most of her Assistant Administrators.[45][47][48] Reagan then appointed William Ruckelshaus as EPA Administrator for a second term. Lee M. Thomas succeeded Ruckelshaus as Administrator in 1985.[41]

In April 1986, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred in Ukraine, the EPA was tasked with identifying any impacts on the United States and keeping the public informed. Administrator Lee Thomas assembled an interagency team, including personnel from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy to monitor the situation. They held press conferences for 10 days.[49]: 9  That same year Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which authorized the EPA to gather data on toxic chemicals and share this information with the public.[37]

EPA also researched the implications of stratospheric ozone depletion. Under Administrator Thomas, EPA joined with several international organizations to perform a risk assessment of stratospheric ozone, which helped provide motivation for the Montreal Protocol, which was agreed to in August 1987.[49]: 14 

In 1988, during his first presidential campaign, George H. W. Bush was vocal about environmental issues. Following his election victory, he appointed William K. Reilly, an environmentalist, as EPA Administrator in 1989.[33] Under Reilly's leadership, the EPA implemented voluntary programs and initiated the development of a "cluster rule" for multimedia regulation of the pulp and paper industry.[50] At the time, the environment was increasingly being recognized as a regional issue, which was reflected in 1990 amendment of the Clean Air Act and new approaches by the agency.[51]

1990s

In 1992 EPA and the Department of Energy launched the Energy Star program, a voluntary program that fosters energy efficiency.[52]

Carol Browner was appointed EPA Administrator by President Bill Clinton and served from 1993 to 2001.[53] Major projects during Browner's term included:

Since the passage of the Superfund law in 1980, an excise tax had been levied on the chemical and petroleum industries, to support the cleanup trust fund. Congressional authorization of the tax was due to expire in 1995. Although Browner and the Clinton Administration supported continuation of the tax, Congress declined to reauthorize it. Subsequently, the Superfund program has been supported only by annual appropriations, greatly reducing the number of waste sites that are remediated in a given year.[58] (In 2021 Congress reauthorized an excise tax on chemical manufacturers.[59])

Major legislative updates during the Clinton Administration were the Food Quality Protection Act[60] and the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act.[61]

2000s

President George W. Bush appointed Christine Todd Whitman as EPA Administrator in 2001. Whitman was succeeded by Mike Leavitt in 2003 and Stephen L. Johnson in 2005.[33]

In March 2005 nine states (California, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Mexico and Vermont) sued the EPA. The EPA's inspector general had determined that the EPA's regulation of mercury emissions did not follow the Clean Air Act, and that the regulations were influenced by top political appointees.[62][63] The EPA had suppressed a study it commissioned by Harvard University which contradicted its position on mercury controls.[64] The suit alleged that the EPA's rule exempting coal-fired power plants from "maximum available control technology" was illegal, and additionally charged that the EPA's system of cap-and-trade to lower average mercury levels would allow power plants to forego reducing mercury emissions, which they objected would lead to dangerous local hotspots of mercury contamination even if average levels declined.[65] Several states also began to enact their own mercury emission regulations. Illinois's proposed rule would have reduced mercury emissions from power plants by an average of 90% by 2009.[66] In 2008—by which point a total of fourteen states had joined the suit—the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the EPA regulations violated the Clean Air Act.[67] In response, EPA announced plans to propose such standards to replace the vacated Clean Air Mercury Rule, and did so on March 16, 2011.[68]

In July 2005 an EPA report showing that auto companies were using loopholes to produce less fuel-efficient cars was delayed. The report was supposed to be released the day before a controversial energy bill was passed and would have provided backup for those opposed to it, but the EPA delayed its release at the last minute.[69]

EPA initiated its voluntary WaterSense program in 2006 to encourage water efficiency through the use of a special label on consumer products.[70]

In 2007 the state of California sued the EPA for its refusal to allow California and 16 other states to raise fuel economy standards for new cars.[71] EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson claimed that the EPA was working on its own standards, but the move has been widely considered an attempt to shield the auto industry from environmental regulation by setting lower standards at the federal level, which would then preempt state laws.[72][73] California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with governors from 13 other states, stated that the EPA's actions ignored federal law, and that existing California standards (adopted by many states in addition to California) were almost twice as effective as the proposed federal standards.[74] It was reported that Johnson ignored his own staff in making this decision.[75]

In 2007 it was reported that EPA research was suppressed by career managers.[76] Supervisors at EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment required several paragraphs to be deleted from a peer-reviewed journal article about EPA's integrated risk information system, which led two co-authors to have their names removed from the publication, and the corresponding author, Ching-Hung Hsu, to leave EPA "because of the draconian restrictions placed on publishing".[77] The 2007 report stated that EPA subjected employees who author scientific papers to prior restraint, even if those papers are written on personal time.[78]

In December 2007 EPA Administrator Johnson approved a draft of a document that declared that climate change imperiled the public welfare—a decision that would trigger the first national mandatory global-warming regulations. Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett e-mailed the draft to the White House. White House aides—who had long resisted mandatory regulations as a way to address climate change—knew the gist of what Johnson's finding would be, Burnett said. They also knew that once they opened the attachment, it would become a public record, making it controversial and difficult to rescind. So they did not open it; rather, they called Johnson and asked him to take back the draft. Johnson rescinded the draft; in July 2008, he issued a new version which did not state that global warming was danger to public welfare. Burnett resigned in protest.[79]

Further information: Regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act

In April 2008, the Union of Concerned Scientists said that more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work. The survey included chemists, toxicologists, engineers, geologists and experts in other fields of science. About 40% of the scientists reported that the interference had been more prevalent in the last five years than in previous years.[80]

President Barack Obama appointed Lisa P. Jackson as EPA Administrator in 2009.[33]

2010s

In 2010 it was reported that a $3 million mapping study on sea level rise was suppressed by EPA management during both the Bush and Obama administrations, and managers changed a key interagency report to reflect the removal of the maps.[81]

Between 2011 and 2012, some EPA employees reported difficulty in conducting and reporting the results of studies on hydraulic fracturing due to industry and governmental pressure, and were concerned about the censorship of environmental reports.[82][83][84][85][86]

President Obama appointed Gina McCarthy as EPA Administrator in 2013.[33]

In 2014, the EPA published its "Tier 3" standards for cars, trucks and other motor vehicles, which tightened air pollution emission requirements and lowered the sulfur content in gasoline.[87]

In 2015, the EPA discovered extensive violations by Volkswagen Group in its manufacture of Volkswagen and Audi diesel engine cars, for the 2009 through 2016 model years. Following notice of violations and potential criminal sanctions, Volkswagen later agreed to a legal settlement and paid billions of US dollars in criminal penalties, and was required to initiate a vehicle buyback program and modify the engines of the vehicles to reduce illegal air emissions.[88][89]

In August 2015, the 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill occurred when EPA contractors examined the level of pollutants such as lead and arsenic in a Colorado mine,[90] and accidentally released over three million gallons of waste water into Cement Creek and the Animas River.[91] In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization, cited research linking glyphosate, an ingredient of the weed killer Roundup manufactured by the chemical company Monsanto, to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In March 2017, the presiding judge in a litigation brought about by people who claim to have developed glyphosate-related non-Hodgkin's lymphoma opened Monsanto emails and other documents related to the case, including email exchanges between the company and federal regulators. According to The New York Times, the "records suggested that Monsanto had ghostwritten research that was later attributed to academics and indicated that a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review of Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, that was to have been conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services." The records show that Monsanto was able to prepare "a public relations assault" on the finding after they were alerted to the determination by Jess Rowland, the head of the EPA's cancer assessment review committee at that time, months in advance. Emails also showed that Rowland "had promised to beat back an effort by the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct its own review."[92][93][94]

On February 17, 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator.[33] The Democratic Party saw the appointment as a controversial move, as Pruitt had spent most of his career challenging environmental regulations and policies. He did not have previous experience in the environmental protection field and had received financial support from the fossil fuel industry.[95] In 2017, the Trump administration proposed a 31% cut to the EPA's budget to $5.7 billion from $8.1 billion and to eliminate a quarter of the agency jobs.[96] However, this cut was not approved by Congress. Pruitt resigned from the position on July 5, 2018, citing "unrelenting attacks" due to ongoing ethics controversies.[97]

President Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler as EPA Administrator in 2019.[33]

On July 17, 2019, EPA management prohibited the agency's Scientific Integrity Official, Francesca Grifo, from testifying at a House committee hearing. EPA offered to send a different representative in place of Grifo and accused the committee of "dictating to the agency who they believe was qualified to speak." The hearing was to discuss the importance of allowing federal scientists and other employees to speak freely when and to whom they want to about their research without having to worry about any political consequences.[98]

In September 2019 air pollution standards in California were once again under attack, as the Trump administration attempted to revoke a waiver issued to the state which allowed more stringent standards for auto and truck emissions than the federal standards.[99]

2020s

President Joe Biden appointed Michael S. Regan to be Administrator in 2021. Regan began serving on March 11, 2021.[100]

In October 2021 EPA announced its "PFAS Strategic Roadmap." PFASs are organofluorine chemical compounds referred to as "forever chemicals". The roadmap is a "whole-of-EPA" strategy and the agency will consider the full life cycle of PFAS, including preventing PFAS from entering the environment, holding polluters accountable, and remediation of contaminated sites. It also will include drinking water monitoring and risk assessment for PFOA and PFOS in biosolids (processed sewage sludge used as fertilizer).[101]

In December 2021 EPA issued new greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and light trucks. The standards, which will reduce climate pollution and improve public health, became effective for the 2023 vehicle model year.[102]

In March 2022 the Biden administration allowed California to again set stricter auto emissions standards.[103]

In August 2022 the EPA was allotted a listed ~$53.216 billion in funding pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The EPA listed 24 total initiatives, the most notable among them being greenhouse gas reduction and monitoring, a superfund petroleum tax, replacing current heavy-duty vehicles with zero-emission vehicles, and a methane incentive program.[104]

On February 3, 2023, more than 100 train cars were derailed in East Palestine, and around half of those cars containing chemicals like butyl acrylate, vinyl chloride, and ethylhexyl acrylate.[105] Subsequently, the chemicals combusted into a flame being seen from miles around and the fumes filled the air with residents reporting animals falling ill and a burning sensation in their eyes and nose. The EPA is monitoring the situation and experts recommend that local residents take part in the EPA's at-home air screening.[106][107]

Organization

 
Headquarters of the EPA at the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building

The EPA is led by the administrator, appointed following nomination by the president and approval from Congress.

Offices

  • Office of the Administrator (OA). As of October 2020, the office consisted of 12 divisions:[108]
    • Office of Administrative and Executive Services
    • Office of Children's Health Protection
    • Office of Civil Rights
    • Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations
    • Office of Continuous Improvement
    • Office of the Executive Secretariat
    • Office of Homeland Security
    • Office of Policy[109]
    • Office of Public Affairs
    • Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education
    • Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization
    • Science Advisory Board
  • Office of Air and Radiation (OAR)[110]
  • Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP)[111]
  • Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO)[112]
  • Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights[113]
  • Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA)[114]
  • Office of General Counsel (OGC)[115]
  • Office of Inspector General (OIG)[116]
  • Office of International and Tribal Affairs (OITA)[117]
  • Office of Mission Support (OMS)[118]
    • Office of Resources and Business Operations (ORBO)
    • Environmental Appeals Board
    • Office of Federal Sustainability
    • Office of Administrative Law Judges
    • Office of Acquisition Solutions (OAS)
    • Office of Administration (OA)
    • Office of Human Resources (OHR)
    • Office of Grants and Debarment (OGD)
    • Office of Customer Advocacy, Policy and Portfolio Management (OCAPPM)
    • Office of Digital Services and Technical Architecture (ODSTA)
    • Office of Information Management (OIM)Office of Information Security and Privacy (OISP)
    • Office of Enterprise Information Programs (OEIP)
    • Office of IT Operations (OITO)
 
The Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center in Cincinnati is EPA's second-largest R&D center.[119]
  • Office of Research and Development (ORD), which as of November 2021, consisted of:[120][121]
    • Immediate Office of the Assistant Administrator
    • Office of Science Advisor, Policy, and Engagement (OSAPE)
    • Office of Science Information Management (OSIM)
    • Office of Resource Management
    • Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure (CCTE)
    • Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling (CEMM)
    • Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment (CPHEA)
    • Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response (CESER)
  • Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM), which as of March 2017, consisted of:[122]
    • Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation
    • Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery
    • Office of Underground Storage Tanks
    • Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization
    • Office of Emergency Management
    • Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office
  • Office of Water (OW)[123] which, as of March 2017, consisted of:[124]
    • Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW)
    • Office of Science and Technology (OST)
    • Office of Wastewater Management (OWM)
    • Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds (OWOW)

Regions

 
The administrative regions of the United States Environmental Protection Agency

Creating 10 EPA regions was an initiative that came from President Richard Nixon.[125] See Standard Federal Regions. Each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the agency's programs, except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states.

Each regional office also implements programs on Indian Tribal lands, except those programs delegated to tribal authorities.

Legal authority

The Environmental Protection Agency can only act pursuant to statutes—the laws passed by Congress. Appropriations statutes authorize how much money the agency can spend each year to carry out the approved statutes. The agency has the power to issue regulations. A regulation interprets a statute, and EPA applies its regulations to various environmental situations and enforces the requirements. The agency must include a rationale of why a regulation is needed. (See Administrative Procedure Act.) Regulations can be challenged in federal courts, either district court or appellate court, depending on the particular statutory provision.[127]

Related legislation

EPA has principal implementation authority for the following federal environmental laws:

There are additional laws where EPA has a contributing role or provides assistance to other agencies. Among these laws are:

Programs

 
EPA scientists conducting a stream survey on the Merrimack River in Massachusetts

EPA established its major programs pursuant to the primary missions originally articulated in the laws passed by Congress. Additional programs have been developed to interpret the primary missions. Some of the newer programs have been specifically authorized by Congress.[128] Former Administrator William Ruckelshaus observed in 2016 that a danger for EPA was that air, water, waste and other programs would be unconnected, placed in "silos", a problem that persists more than 50 years later, albeit less so than at the start.[129]

Core programs

Air quality and radiation protection

The Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) describes itself as the official authority in charge of "developing national programs, policies, and regulations for controlling air pollution and radiation exposure." The OAR is responsible for enforcing the Clean Air Act, the Atomic Energy Act, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act, and other applicable laws. The OAR is in charge of the Offices of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Atmospheric Protection, Transportation and Air Quality, and the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air.[110]

Ambient standards
Stationary air pollution source standards
Mobile source standards
 
Testing automobile emissions at an EPA laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Radiation protection

The Radiation Protection Program comprises seven project groups.[130]

  1. Radioactive Waste[131]
  2. Emergency Preparedness and Response Programs[132] Protective Action Guides And Planning Guidance for Radiological Incidents: EPA developed a manual as guideline for local and state governments to protect the public from a nuclear accident,[133] the 2017 version being a 15-year update.
  3. EPA's Role in Emergency Response – Special Teams[134]
  4. Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM) Program[135]
  5. Radiation Standards for Air and Drinking Water Programs[136]
  6. Federal Guidance for Radiation Protection[137]

Water quality

Science and regulatory standards
  • The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program addresses water pollution by regulating point sources which discharge to US waters. Created in 1972 by the Clean Water Act, the NPDES permit program authorizes state governments to perform its many permitting, administrative, and enforcement aspects.[138] As of 2021, the EPA has approved 47 states to administer all or portions of the permit program.[139] EPA regional offices manage the program in the remaining areas of the country.[138] The Water Quality Act of 1987 extended NPDES permit coverage to industrial stormwater dischargers and municipal separate storm sewer systems.[140] In 2016, there were 6,700 major point source NPDES permits in place and 109,000 municipal and industrial point sources with general or individual permits.[29]
See also: United States regulation of point source water pollution
Infrastructure financing
  • The Clean Water State Revolving Fund provides grants to states which, along with matching state funds, are loaned to municipalities for wastewater and "green" infrastructure at below-market interest rates.[29] These loans are expected to be paid back, creating revolving loan funds. Cumulative assistance from the revolving fund has surpassed US$153.6 billion As of 2021.[147] The revolving fund replaced the Construction Grants Program, which was phased out in 1990.
  • The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund provides financial assistance to local drinking water utilities.[148]

Land, waste and cleanup

  • Regulation of solid waste (non-hazardous) and hazardous waste under RCRA. To implement the 1976 law, EPA published standards in 1979 for "sanitary" landfills that receive municipal solid waste.[149] The agency published national hazardous waste regulations and established a nationwide permit and tracking system for managing hazardous waste. The system is largely managed by state agencies under EPA authorization. Standards were issued for waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs), and ocean dumping of waste was prohibited.[150]: 2–4  In 1984 Congress passed the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) which expanded several aspects of the RCRA program:[151]
  • * The Land Disposal Restrictions Program sets treatment requirements for hazardous waste before it may be disposed on land.[152] EPA began issuing treatment methods and levels of requirements in 1986 and these are continually adapted to new hazardous wastes and treatment technologies. The stringent requirements it sets and its emphasis on waste minimization practices encourage businesses to plan to minimize waste generation and prioritize reuse and recycling. From the start of the program in 1984 to 2004, the volume of hazardous waste disposed in landfills had decreased 94% and the volume of hazardous waste disposed of by underground injection had decreased 70%.[39]
  • * The RCRA Corrective Action Program requires TSDFs to investigate and clean up hazardous releases at their own expense.[39] In the 1980s, EPA estimated that the number of sites needing cleanup was three times more than the number of sites on the national Superfund list.[150]: 6  The program is largely implemented through permits and orders.[153] As of 2016, the program has led to the cleanup of 18 million acres of land, of which facilities were primarily responsible for cleanup costs. The goal of EPA and states is to complete final remedies by 2020 at 3,779 priority facilities out of 6,000 that need to be cleaned up according to the program.[39]
  • * Beginning in the mid-1980s EPA developed standards for small quantity generators of hazardous waste, pursuant to HSWA.[154]
  • * EPA was mandated to conduct a review of landfill conditions nationwide. The agency reported in 1988 that the effectiveness of environmental controls at landfills varied nationwide, which could lead to serious contamination of groundwater and surface waters. EPA published a national plan in 1989 calling for state and local governments to better integrate their municipal solid waste management practices with source reduction and recycling programs.[150]: 8 
  • * Regulation of Underground Storage Tanks. The Underground Storage Tank (UST) Program was launched in 1985 and covers about 553,000 active USTs containing petroleum and hazardous chemicals. Since 1984, 1.8 million USTs have been closed in compliance with regulations.[39] 38 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico manage UST programs with EPA authorization.[155] When the program began, EPA had only 90 staff to develop a system to regulate more than 2 million tanks and work with 750,000 owners and operators. The program relies more on local operations and enforcement than other EPA programs.[156] Today, the program supports the inspection of all federally regulated tanks, cleans up old and new leaks, minimizes potential leaks, and encourages sustainable reuse of abandoned gas stations.[157]
  • Hazardous site cleanup. In the late 1970s, the need to clean up sites such as Love Canal that had been highly contaminated by previous hazardous waste disposal became apparent. However the existing regulatory environment depended on owners or operators to perform environmental control. While the EPA attempted to use RCRA's section 7003 to perform this cleanup, it was clear a new law was needed. In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as "Superfund".[158] This law enabled the EPA to cast a wider net for responsible parties, including past or present generators and transporters as well as current and past owners of the site to find funding. The act also established some funding and a tax mechanism on certain industries to help fund such cleanup. Congress did not renew the Superfund tax in the 1990s, and subsequently funding for cleanup actions was supported only by general appropriations. Congress restored an excise tax on chemical manufacturers in 2021, which will eventually increase the available budget for site cleanups.[59] Today, due to restricted funding, most cleanup activities are performed by responsible parties under the oversight of the EPA and states. As of 2016, more than 1,700 sites had been put on the cleanup list since the creation of the program. Of these, 370 sites have been cleaned up and removed from the list, cleanup is underway at 535, cleanup facilities have been constructed at 790 but need to be operated in the future, and 54 are not yet in cleanup stage.[40]
  • EPA's oil spill prevention program includes the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) and the Facility Response Plan (FRP) rules. The SPCC Rule applies to all facilities that store, handle, process, gather, transfer, refine, distribute, use or consume oil or oil products. Oil products includes petroleum and non-petroleum oils as well as: animal fats, oils and greases; fish and marine mammal oils; and vegetable oils. It mandates a written plan for facilities that store more than 1,320 gallons of fuel above ground or more than 42,000 gallons below-ground, and which might discharge to navigable waters (as defined in the Clean Water Act) or adjoining shorelines. Secondary spill containment is mandated at oil storage facilities and oil release containment is required at oil development sites.[159]

Chemical manufacture and usage

  • EPA regulates pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Food Quality Protection Act.[31] The agency assesses, registers, regulates, and regularly reevaluates all pesticides legally sold in the United States. A few challenges this program faces are transforming toxicity testing, screening pesticides for endocrine disruptors, and regulating biotechnology and nanotechnology.[31]
  • TSCA required EPA to create and maintain a national inventory of all existing chemicals in U.S. commerce. When the act was passed in 1976, there were more than 60,000 chemicals on the market that had never been comprehensively cataloged. To do so, the EPA developed and implemented procedures that have served as a model for Canada, Japan, and the European Union. For the inventory, the EPA also established a baseline for new chemicals that the agency should be notified about before being commercially manufactured. Today, this rule keeps the EPA updated on volumes, uses, and exposures of around 7,000 of the highest-volume chemicals via industry reporting.[37]
  • The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is a resource established by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act specifically for the public to learn about toxic chemical releases and pollution prevention activities reported by industrial and federal facilities.[37] TRI data support informed decision-making by communities, government agencies, companies, and others.[160] Annually, the agency collects data from more than 20,000 facilities.[37] The EPA has generated a range of tools to support the use of this inventory, including interactive maps and online databases such as ChemView.[37]

Enforcement

In 2019 the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, "a network of academics, developers, and non-profit professionals", published a report which compared EPA enforcement statistics over time.[163] The number of civil cases filed by EPA have gradually decreased, and in 2018 the criminal and civil penalties from EPA claims dropped over four times their amounts in 2013, 2016, and 2017.[164] In 2016 EPA issued $6,307,833,117 in penalties due to violations of agency requirements,[165] and in 2018 the agency issued $184,768,000 in penalties.[166] EPA's inspections and evaluations have steadily decreased from 2015 to 2018.[166] Enforcement activity has decreased partially due to budget cuts within the agency.[167]

Additional programs

  • The EPA Safer Choice label, previously known as the "Design for the Environment" (DfE) label, helps consumers and commercial buyers identify and select products with safer chemical ingredients, without sacrificing quality or performance. When a product has the Safer Choice label, it means that every intentionally-added ingredient in the product has been evaluated by EPA scientists. Only the safest possible functional ingredients are allowed in products with the Safer Choice label.
  • Through the Safer Detergents Stewardship Initiative (SDSI),[168] EPA's Design for the Environment (DfE) recognizes environmental leaders who voluntarily commit to the use of safer surfactants. Safer surfactants are the ones that break down quickly to non-polluting compounds and help protect aquatic life in both fresh and salt water. Nonylphenol ethoxylates, commonly referred to as NPEs, are an example of a surfactant class that does not meet the definition of a safer surfactant. The Safer Choice program identified safer alternative surfactants through partnerships with industry and environmental advocates. These alternatives are comparable in cost and are readily available. The CleanGredients website [169] is an information source about safer surfactants.
  • The Energy Star program, initiated in 1992, motivated major companies to retrofit millions of square feet of building space with more efficient lighting.[170] As of 2006, more than 40,000 Energy Star products were available including major appliances, office equipment, lighting, home electronics, and more. In addition, the label can also be found on new homes and commercial and industrial buildings. In 2006, about 12 percent of new housing in the US displayed an Energy Star label.[171] EPA estimates that the program saved about $14 billion in energy costs in 2006 alone. The program has helped spread the use of LED traffic lights, efficient fluorescent lighting, power management systems for office equipment, and low standby energy use.[172]
  • EPA's Smart Growth Program began in 1998 and was created to help communities improve their land development practices and get the type of development they want. Together with local, state, and national experts, EPA encourages development strategies that protect human health and the environment, create economic opportunities, and provide attractive and affordable neighborhoods for people of all income levels.[173]
  • The Brownfields Program started as a pilot program in the 1990s and was authorized by law in 2002. The program provides grants and tools to local governments for the assessment, cleanup, and revitalization of brownfields. As of September 2015, the EPA estimates that program grants have resulted in 56,442 acres of land readied for reuse and leveraged 116,963 jobs and $24.2 billion to do so. Agency studies also found that property values around assessed or cleaned-up brownfields have increased 5.1 to 12.8 percent.[40]
  • EPA's Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Program helps schools to maintain a healthy environment and reduce exposures to indoor environmental contaminants. It helps school personnel identify, solve, and prevent indoor air quality problems in the school environment. Through the use of a multi-step management plan and checklists for the entire building, schools can lower their students' and staff's risk of exposure to asthma triggers.[174]
  • The National Environmental Education Act of 1990 requires EPA to provide national leadership to increase environmental literacy. EPA established the Office of Environmental Education to implement this program.[175]
  • Clean School Bus USA is a national partnership to reduce children's exposure to diesel exhaust by eliminating unnecessary school bus idling, installing effective emission control systems on newer buses and replacing the oldest buses in the fleet with newer ones. Its goal is to reduce both children's exposure to diesel exhaust and the amount of air pollution created by diesel school buses.[176]
  • The Green Chemistry Program encourages the development of products and processes that follow green chemistry principles.[37] It has recognized more than 100 winning technologies.[177] These reduce the use or creation of hazardous chemicals, save water, and reduce greenhouse gas release.[37]
  • The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, was authorized in a 2000 amendment to the Clean Water Act. The program focus is on coastal recreational waters, and requires EPA to develop criteria to test and monitor waters and notify public users of any concerns.[178] The program involves states, local beach resource managers, and the agency in assessing risks of stormwater and wastewater overflows and enables better sampling, analytical methods, and communication with the public.[29]
  • The EPA has also established specific geographic programs for particular water resources such as the Chesapeake Bay Program, the National Estuary Program, and the Gulf of Mexico Program.[29]
  • Advance identification, or ADID, is a planning process used by the EPA to identify wetlands and other bodies of water and their respective suitability for the discharge of dredged and fill material. The EPA conducts the process in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local states or Native American Tribes. As of February 1993, 38 ADID projects had been completed, and 33 were ongoing.[179]
  • EPA's "One Cleanup Program" initiative was designed to improve coordination across different agency programs that have a role in cleanup at a particular site. The coordination efforts apply to the brownfields, federal facilities, USTs, RCRA and Superfund programs.[180]
  • EPA reviews environmental impact statements prepared by other agencies and maintains a national EIS filing system.[109]

Past programs

  • The former Construction Grants Program distributed federal grants for the construction of municipal wastewater treatment works from 1972 to 1990. While such grants existed before the 1972, the 1972 CWA expanded these grants dramatically. They were distributed through 1990, when the program and funding were replaced with the State Revolving Loan Fund Program.[29]
  • In 1991 under Administrator William Reilly, the EPA implemented its voluntary 33/50 program.[181] This was designed to encourage, recognize, and celebrate companies that voluntarily found ways to prevent and reduce pollution in their operations.[182] Specifically, it challenged industry to reduce Toxic Release Inventory emissions of 17 priority chemicals by 33% in one year and 50% in four years.[37] These results were achieved before the commitment deadlines.[37]
  • Launched in 2006, the voluntary 2010/2015 PFOA Stewardship Program worked with eight major companies to voluntarily reduce their global emissions of certain types of perfluorinated chemicals by 95% by 2010 and eliminate these emissions by 2015.[37][183]

Controversies

Scope and fulfillment of agency's authority

Congress enacted laws such as the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and CERCLA with the intent of preventing and reconciling environmental damages. Beginning in 2018 under Administrator Andrew Wheeler, EPA revised some pollution standards that resulted in less overall regulation.[186] Furthermore, the CAA's discretionary application[187][188] has caused a varied application of the law among states. In 1970, Louisiana deployed its Comprehensive Toxic Air Pollutant Emission Control Program to comply with federal law.[189] This program does not require pollution monitoring that is equivalent to programs in other states.[190]

Environmental justice

The EPA has been criticized for its lack of progress towards environmental justice. Administrator Christine Todd Whitman was criticized for her changes to President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12898 during 2001, removing the requirements for government agencies to take the poor and minority populations into special consideration when making changes to environmental legislation, and therefore defeating the spirit of the Executive Order.[191] In a March 2004 report, the inspector general of the agency concluded that the EPA "has not developed a clear vision or a comprehensive strategic plan, and has not established values, goals, expectations, and performance measurements" for environmental justice in its daily operations. Another report in September 2006 found the agency still had failed to review the success of its programs, policies, and activities toward environmental justice.[192] Studies have also found that poor and minority populations were underserved by the EPA's Superfund program, and that this situation was worsening.[191] In August 2022 the EPA was allotted a listed ~42.8 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) towards what the EPA classifies as "Advancing Environmental Justice", and published the statement "Through the Inflation Reduction Act, EPA will improve the lives of millions of Americans by reducing pollution in neighborhoods where people live, work, play, and go to school; accelerating environmental justice efforts in communities overburdened by pollution for far too long; and tackling our biggest climate challenges while creating jobs and delivering energy security."[193] In September 2022 EPA announced the creation of a new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights that reports directly to the EPA administrator.[194] The new office has an expanded budget and staff with broader responsibilities than under the previous organizational arrangement.[113]

Freedom of Information Act processing performance

In the latest Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, published in 2015 (using 2012 and 2013 data, the most recent years available), the EPA earned a D by scoring 67 out of a possible 100 points, i.e. did not earn a satisfactory overall grade.[195]

Pebble Mine

Pebble Mine is a copper and gold mining project located in the southwest region of Alaska in the Bristol Bay region organized by Northern Dynasty Minerals.[196] In 2014 the EPA released its statement on the impacts that mining would have on Bristol Bay and its tributaries. Among many things, the statement assesses geological, topographic, ecological, hydrological, and economic data and determined that mining could negatively impact the salmon population.[197] Seeing as Bristol Bay and its watershed provides around 46% of the world's sockeye salmon, the EPA did not want to risk an ecological disaster.[198] In July 2014, before Northern Dynasty Minerals had submitted its EIS, EPA's Region 10 office proposed restrictions pursuant to section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act, restrictions that would effectively prohibit the project.[199][200] Northern Dynasty Minerals protested this decision and on July 18, 2014, in a published statement, Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier said that the project would continue its litigation against EPA; noted that the EPA's action was under investigation by the EPA inspector general and by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; and noted that two bills were pending in Congress seeking to clarify that EPA did not have the authority to preemptively veto or otherwise restrict development projects prior to the onset of federal and state permitting. Collier's statement also said that EPA's proposal was based on outdated mining scenarios that were not part of the project's approach.[200] Multiple journalists and organizations have reported on the controversy including the Natural Resources Defense Council in support of the cancelation of the project and John Stossel in support of the development of the mine. As of 2023, the mine remains a controversial topic.[201]

See also

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Further reading

  • Bosso, Christopher. Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2005
  • Bosso, Christopher, and Deborah Guber. "Maintaining Presence: Environmental Advocacy and the Permanent Campaign." pp. 78–99 in Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty First Century, 6th ed., eds. Norman Vig and Michael Kraft. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2006
  • Brooks, Karl Boyd, ed. The Environmental Legacy of Harry S. Truman (Truman State University Press, 2009).
  • Carter, Neil. The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy, 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007
  • Davies, Kate. The Rise of the U.S. Environmental Health Movement (2013). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
  • Demortain, David, The Science of Bureaucracy: Risk Decision-Making and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The MIT Press, 2020
  • Gottlieb, Robert (August 1, 1993). Forcing the spring: the transformation of the American environmental movement. Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-123-6.
  • Hays, Samuel P. A history of environmental politics since 1945 (2000)
  • Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985 (1989)
  • Richardson, Elmo. Dams, Parks and Politics: Resource Development and Preservation the Truman-Eisenhower Era (1973).
  • Strong, Douglas Hillman (1988). Dreamers & Defenders: American Conservationists. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-9156-0.
  • EPA Alumni Association, "Protecting the Environment, A Half Century of Progress" – an overview of EPA's environmental protection efforts over 50 years
  • EPA Alumni Association individual Half Century of Progress reports for air, water, pesticides, drinking water, waste management, Superfund, and toxic substances

External links

 
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March 08, 2023
united, states, environmental, protection, agency, environmental, protection, agency, redirect, here, other, uses, disambiguation, this, article, needs, updated, reason, given, many, dates, several, years, please, help, update, this, article, reflect, recent, . EPA and Environmental Protection Agency redirect here For other uses see EPA disambiguation This article needs to be updated The reason given is many dates are several years old Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information March 2021 The Environmental Protection Agency EPA is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters 2 President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9 1970 it began operation on December 2 1970 after Nixon signed an executive order 3 The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate The agency is led by its administrator who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate 3 The current administrator is Michael S Regan The EPA is not a Cabinet department but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank The EPA has its headquarters in Washington D C regional offices for each of the agency s ten regions and 27 laboratories 4 The agency conducts environmental assessment research and education It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws in consultation with state tribal and local governments It delegates some permitting monitoring and enforcement responsibility to U S states and the federally recognized tribes EPA enforcement powers include fines sanctions and other measures The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts The agency s budgeted employee level in 2023 is 16 204 1 full time equivalent FTE 5 More than half of EPA s employees are engineers scientists and environmental protection specialists other employees include legal public affairs financial and information technologists Many public health and environmental groups advocate for the agency and believe that it is creating a better world Other critics believe that the agency commits government overreach by adding unnecessary regulations on business and property owners 6 Environmental Protection AgencySealLogoFlagAgency overviewFormedDecember 2 1970 52 years ago 1970 12 02 HeadquartersWilliam Jefferson Clinton Federal BuildingWashington D C U S 38 53 38 N 77 01 44 W 38 8939 N 77 0289 W 38 8939 77 0289 Coordinates 38 53 38 N 77 01 44 W 38 8939 N 77 0289 W 38 8939 77 0289Employees14 581 1 Annual budget 9 559 485 000 1 Agency executivesMichael S Regan AdministratorJanet McCabe Deputy AdministratorWebsitewww wbr epa wbr gov Contents 1 History 1 1 Background 1 2 Establishment 1 3 1970s 1 4 1980s 1 5 1990s 1 6 2000s 1 7 2010s 1 8 2020s 2 Organization 2 1 Offices 2 2 Regions 3 Legal authority 3 1 Related legislation 4 Programs 4 1 Core programs 4 1 1 Air quality and radiation protection 4 1 1 1 Ambient standards 4 1 1 2 Stationary air pollution source standards 4 1 1 3 Mobile source standards 4 1 1 4 Radiation protection 4 1 2 Water quality 4 1 2 1 Science and regulatory standards 4 1 2 2 Infrastructure financing 4 1 3 Land waste and cleanup 4 1 4 Chemical manufacture and usage 4 1 5 Enforcement 4 2 Additional programs 4 3 Past programs 5 Controversies 5 1 Scope and fulfillment of agency s authority 5 2 Environmental justice 5 3 Freedom of Information Act processing performance 5 4 Pebble Mine 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksHistory EditBackground Edit Stacks emitting smoke from burning discarded automobile batteries photo taken in Houston in 1972 by Marc St Gil official photographer of recently founded EPA Same smokestacks in 1975 after the plant was closed in a push for greater environmental protection Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s Congress reacted to increasing public concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment 7 8 9 Senator James E Murray introduced a bill the Resources and Conservation Act RCA of 1959 in the 86th Congress The bill would have established a Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President declared a national environmental policy and required the preparation of an annual environmental report 10 11 12 13 The 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides 14 In the years following similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment and Congress s potential responses In 1968 a joint House Senate colloquium was convened by the chairmen of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs Senator Henry M Jackson and the House Committee on Science and Astronautics Representative George P Miller to discuss the need for and means of implementing a national environmental policy In the colloquium some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment 10 The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 NEPA 15 was modeled on the 1959 RCA bill 16 President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1 1970 The law created the Council on Environmental Quality CEQ in the Executive Office of the President 7 NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment The detailed statement would ultimately be referred to as an environmental impact statement EIS 7 Establishment Edit Ruckelshaus sworn in as first EPA Administrator On July 9 1970 Nixon proposed an executive reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency a new Environmental Protection Agency 17 This proposal included merging pollution control programs from a number of departments such as the combination of pesticide programs from the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of the Interior 18 5 After conducting hearings during that summer the House and Senate approved the proposal The EPA was created 90 days before it had to operate 18 11 and officially opened its doors on December 2 1970 The agency s first administrator William Ruckelshaus took the oath of office on December 4 1970 9 EPA s primary predecessor was the former Environmental Health Divisions of the U S Public Health Service PHS and its creation caused one of a series of reorganizations of PHS that occurred during 1966 1973 From PHS EPA absorbed the entire National Air Pollution Control Administration as well as the Environmental Control Administration s Bureau of Solid Waste Management Bureau of Water Hygiene and part of its Bureau of Radiological Health It also absorbed the Federal Water Quality Administration which had previously been transferred from PHS to the Department of the Interior in 1966 A few functions from other agencies were also incorporated into EPA the formerly independent Federal Radiation Council was merged into it pesticides programs were transferred from the Department of the Interior Food and Drug Administration and Agricultural Research Service and some functions were transferred from the Council on Environmental Quality and Atomic Energy Commission 19 20 Upon its creation EPA inherited 84 sites spread across 26 states of which 42 sites were laboratories The EPA consolidated these laboratories into 22 sites 21 1970s Edit In its first year the EPA had a budget of 1 4 billion and 5 800 employees 18 5 At its start the EPA was primarily a technical assistance agency that set goals and standards Soon new acts and amendments passed by Congress gave the agency its regulatory authority 18 9 A major expansion of the Clean Air Act was approved in December 1970 22 EPA staff recall that in the early days there was an enormous sense of purpose and excitement and the expectation that there was this agency which was going to do something about a problem that clearly was on the minds of a lot of people in this country leading to tens of thousands of resumes from those eager to participate in the mighty effort to clean up America s environment 23 When EPA first began operation members of the private sector felt strongly that the environmental protection movement was a passing fad Ruckelshaus stated that he felt pressure to show a public which was deeply skeptical about government s effectiveness that EPA could respond effectively to widespread concerns about pollution 24 The burning Cuyahoga River in 1969 had led to a national outcry In December 1970 a federal grand jury investigation led by U S Attorney Robert W Jones began of water pollution allegedly being caused by about 12 companies in northeastern Ohio 25 It was the first grand jury investigation of water pollution in the area The attorney general of the United States John N Mitchell held a press conference on December 18 1970 referencing new pollution control litigation with particular reference to work with the new Environmental Protection Agency and announcing the filing of a lawsuit that morning against the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation for discharging substantial quantities of cyanide into the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland 26 Jones filed the misdemeanor charges in District Court alleging violations of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 27 Partly based on such litigation experience Congress enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 better known as the Clean Water Act CWA 28 The CWA established a national framework for addressing water quality including mandatory pollution control standards to be implemented by the agency in partnership with the states 29 Congress also amended the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act FIFRA in 1972 requiring EPA to measure every pesticide s risks against its potential benefits 30 31 In 1973 President Nixon appointed Ruckelshaus to the position of Deputy Attorney General 32 Russell E Train was appointed to be the next EPA Administrator 33 Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974 requiring EPA to develop mandatory federal standards for all public water systems which serve 90 of the US population The law required EPA to enforce the standards with the cooperation of state agencies 34 35 In October 1976 Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act TSCA which like FIFRA related to the manufacture labeling and usage of commercial products rather than pollution 36 37 This act gave the EPA the authority to gather information on chemicals and require producers to test them gave it the ability to regulate chemical production and use with specific mention of PCBs and required the agency to create the National Inventory listing of chemicals 37 Congress also enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act RCRA in 1976 significantly amending the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 38 It tasked the EPA with setting national goals for waste disposal conserving energy and natural resources reducing waste and ensuring environmentally sound management of waste Accordingly the agency developed regulations for solid and hazardous waste that were to be implemented in collaboration with states 39 President Jimmy Carter appointed Douglas M Costle as EPA Administrator in 1977 33 To manage the agency s expanding legal mandates and workload by the end of 1979 the budget grew to about 5 4 billion and the workforce size increased to about 13 000 1 1980s Edit In 1980 following the discovery of many abandoned or mismanaged hazardous waste sites such as Love Canal Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act nicknamed Superfund The new law authorized EPA to cast a wider net for parties responsible for sites contaminated by previous hazardous waste disposal and established a funding mechanism for assessment and cleanup 40 Anne Gorsuch was appointed EPA Administrator in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan 41 Gorsuch based her administration of EPA on the New Federalism approach of downsizing federal agencies by delegating their functions and services to the individual states 42 She believed that EPA was over regulating business and that the agency was too large and not cost effective During her 22 months as agency head she cut the budget of the EPA by 22 reduced the number of cases filed against polluters relaxed Clean Air Act regulations and facilitated the spraying of restricted use pesticides She cut the total number of agency employees and hired staff from the industries they were supposed to be regulating 43 Environmentalists contended that her policies were designed to placate polluters and accused her of trying to dismantle the agency 44 Following her mismanagement of the Superfund program Assistant Administrator Rita Lavelle was fired by Reagan in February 1983 45 Lavelle was later convicted of perjury 46 Gorsuch had increasing confrontations with Congress over Superfund and other programs including her refusal to submit subpoenaed documents Gorsuch was cited for contempt of Congress and the White House directed EPA to submit the documents to Congress Gorsuch who had recently remarried becoming Anne Gorsuch Burford resigned in March 1983 followed by resignations of her Deputy Administrator and most of her Assistant Administrators 45 47 48 Reagan then appointed William Ruckelshaus as EPA Administrator for a second term Lee M Thomas succeeded Ruckelshaus as Administrator in 1985 41 In April 1986 when the Chernobyl disaster occurred in Ukraine the EPA was tasked with identifying any impacts on the United States and keeping the public informed Administrator Lee Thomas assembled an interagency team including personnel from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Energy to monitor the situation They held press conferences for 10 days 49 9 That same year Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act which authorized the EPA to gather data on toxic chemicals and share this information with the public 37 EPA also researched the implications of stratospheric ozone depletion Under Administrator Thomas EPA joined with several international organizations to perform a risk assessment of stratospheric ozone which helped provide motivation for the Montreal Protocol which was agreed to in August 1987 49 14 In 1988 during his first presidential campaign George H W Bush was vocal about environmental issues Following his election victory he appointed William K Reilly an environmentalist as EPA Administrator in 1989 33 Under Reilly s leadership the EPA implemented voluntary programs and initiated the development of a cluster rule for multimedia regulation of the pulp and paper industry 50 At the time the environment was increasingly being recognized as a regional issue which was reflected in 1990 amendment of the Clean Air Act and new approaches by the agency 51 1990s Edit In 1992 EPA and the Department of Energy launched the Energy Star program a voluntary program that fosters energy efficiency 52 Carol Browner was appointed EPA Administrator by President Bill Clinton and served from 1993 to 2001 53 Major projects during Browner s term included Initiation of the Brownfields pilot program in 1995 54 Initial hazardous air pollution standards for petroleum refineries in 1995 55 Initial lead paint abatement regulations under TSCA in 1996 56 Update of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter and ozone in 1997 57 Since the passage of the Superfund law in 1980 an excise tax had been levied on the chemical and petroleum industries to support the cleanup trust fund Congressional authorization of the tax was due to expire in 1995 Although Browner and the Clinton Administration supported continuation of the tax Congress declined to reauthorize it Subsequently the Superfund program has been supported only by annual appropriations greatly reducing the number of waste sites that are remediated in a given year 58 In 2021 Congress reauthorized an excise tax on chemical manufacturers 59 Major legislative updates during the Clinton Administration were the Food Quality Protection Act 60 and the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act 61 2000s Edit President George W Bush appointed Christine Todd Whitman as EPA Administrator in 2001 Whitman was succeeded by Mike Leavitt in 2003 and Stephen L Johnson in 2005 33 In March 2005 nine states California New York New Jersey New Hampshire Massachusetts Maine Connecticut New Mexico and Vermont sued the EPA The EPA s inspector general had determined that the EPA s regulation of mercury emissions did not follow the Clean Air Act and that the regulations were influenced by top political appointees 62 63 The EPA had suppressed a study it commissioned by Harvard University which contradicted its position on mercury controls 64 The suit alleged that the EPA s rule exempting coal fired power plants from maximum available control technology was illegal and additionally charged that the EPA s system of cap and trade to lower average mercury levels would allow power plants to forego reducing mercury emissions which they objected would lead to dangerous local hotspots of mercury contamination even if average levels declined 65 Several states also began to enact their own mercury emission regulations Illinois s proposed rule would have reduced mercury emissions from power plants by an average of 90 by 2009 66 In 2008 by which point a total of fourteen states had joined the suit the U S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the EPA regulations violated the Clean Air Act 67 In response EPA announced plans to propose such standards to replace the vacated Clean Air Mercury Rule and did so on March 16 2011 68 In July 2005 an EPA report showing that auto companies were using loopholes to produce less fuel efficient cars was delayed The report was supposed to be released the day before a controversial energy bill was passed and would have provided backup for those opposed to it but the EPA delayed its release at the last minute 69 EPA initiated its voluntary WaterSense program in 2006 to encourage water efficiency through the use of a special label on consumer products 70 In 2007 the state of California sued the EPA for its refusal to allow California and 16 other states to raise fuel economy standards for new cars 71 EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson claimed that the EPA was working on its own standards but the move has been widely considered an attempt to shield the auto industry from environmental regulation by setting lower standards at the federal level which would then preempt state laws 72 73 California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger along with governors from 13 other states stated that the EPA s actions ignored federal law and that existing California standards adopted by many states in addition to California were almost twice as effective as the proposed federal standards 74 It was reported that Johnson ignored his own staff in making this decision 75 In 2007 it was reported that EPA research was suppressed by career managers 76 Supervisors at EPA s National Center for Environmental Assessment required several paragraphs to be deleted from a peer reviewed journal article about EPA s integrated risk information system which led two co authors to have their names removed from the publication and the corresponding author Ching Hung Hsu to leave EPA because of the draconian restrictions placed on publishing 77 The 2007 report stated that EPA subjected employees who author scientific papers to prior restraint even if those papers are written on personal time 78 In December 2007 EPA Administrator Johnson approved a draft of a document that declared that climate change imperiled the public welfare a decision that would trigger the first national mandatory global warming regulations Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett e mailed the draft to the White House White House aides who had long resisted mandatory regulations as a way to address climate change knew the gist of what Johnson s finding would be Burnett said They also knew that once they opened the attachment it would become a public record making it controversial and difficult to rescind So they did not open it rather they called Johnson and asked him to take back the draft Johnson rescinded the draft in July 2008 he issued a new version which did not state that global warming was danger to public welfare Burnett resigned in protest 79 Further information Regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act In April 2008 the Union of Concerned Scientists said that more than half of the nearly 1 600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work The survey included chemists toxicologists engineers geologists and experts in other fields of science About 40 of the scientists reported that the interference had been more prevalent in the last five years than in previous years 80 President Barack Obama appointed Lisa P Jackson as EPA Administrator in 2009 33 2010s Edit In 2010 it was reported that a 3 million mapping study on sea level rise was suppressed by EPA management during both the Bush and Obama administrations and managers changed a key interagency report to reflect the removal of the maps 81 Between 2011 and 2012 some EPA employees reported difficulty in conducting and reporting the results of studies on hydraulic fracturing due to industry and governmental pressure and were concerned about the censorship of environmental reports 82 83 84 85 86 President Obama appointed Gina McCarthy as EPA Administrator in 2013 33 In 2014 the EPA published its Tier 3 standards for cars trucks and other motor vehicles which tightened air pollution emission requirements and lowered the sulfur content in gasoline 87 In 2015 the EPA discovered extensive violations by Volkswagen Group in its manufacture of Volkswagen and Audi diesel engine cars for the 2009 through 2016 model years Following notice of violations and potential criminal sanctions Volkswagen later agreed to a legal settlement and paid billions of US dollars in criminal penalties and was required to initiate a vehicle buyback program and modify the engines of the vehicles to reduce illegal air emissions 88 89 In August 2015 the 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill occurred when EPA contractors examined the level of pollutants such as lead and arsenic in a Colorado mine 90 and accidentally released over three million gallons of waste water into Cement Creek and the Animas River 91 In 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer IARC a branch of the World Health Organization cited research linking glyphosate an ingredient of the weed killer Roundup manufactured by the chemical company Monsanto to non Hodgkin s lymphoma In March 2017 the presiding judge in a litigation brought about by people who claim to have developed glyphosate related non Hodgkin s lymphoma opened Monsanto emails and other documents related to the case including email exchanges between the company and federal regulators According to The New York Times the records suggested that Monsanto had ghostwritten research that was later attributed to academics and indicated that a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review of Roundup s main ingredient glyphosate that was to have been conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services The records show that Monsanto was able to prepare a public relations assault on the finding after they were alerted to the determination by Jess Rowland the head of the EPA s cancer assessment review committee at that time months in advance Emails also showed that Rowland had promised to beat back an effort by the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct its own review 92 93 94 On February 17 2017 President Donald Trump appointed Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator 33 The Democratic Party saw the appointment as a controversial move as Pruitt had spent most of his career challenging environmental regulations and policies He did not have previous experience in the environmental protection field and had received financial support from the fossil fuel industry 95 In 2017 the Trump administration proposed a 31 cut to the EPA s budget to 5 7 billion from 8 1 billion and to eliminate a quarter of the agency jobs 96 However this cut was not approved by Congress Pruitt resigned from the position on July 5 2018 citing unrelenting attacks due to ongoing ethics controversies 97 President Trump appointed Andrew R Wheeler as EPA Administrator in 2019 33 On July 17 2019 EPA management prohibited the agency s Scientific Integrity Official Francesca Grifo from testifying at a House committee hearing EPA offered to send a different representative in place of Grifo and accused the committee of dictating to the agency who they believe was qualified to speak The hearing was to discuss the importance of allowing federal scientists and other employees to speak freely when and to whom they want to about their research without having to worry about any political consequences 98 In September 2019 air pollution standards in California were once again under attack as the Trump administration attempted to revoke a waiver issued to the state which allowed more stringent standards for auto and truck emissions than the federal standards 99 2020s Edit President Joe Biden appointed Michael S Regan to be Administrator in 2021 Regan began serving on March 11 2021 100 In October 2021 EPA announced its PFAS Strategic Roadmap PFASs are organofluorine chemical compounds referred to as forever chemicals The roadmap is a whole of EPA strategy and the agency will consider the full life cycle of PFAS including preventing PFAS from entering the environment holding polluters accountable and remediation of contaminated sites It also will include drinking water monitoring and risk assessment for PFOA and PFOS in biosolids processed sewage sludge used as fertilizer 101 In December 2021 EPA issued new greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and light trucks The standards which will reduce climate pollution and improve public health became effective for the 2023 vehicle model year 102 In March 2022 the Biden administration allowed California to again set stricter auto emissions standards 103 In August 2022 the EPA was allotted a listed 53 216 billion in funding pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act IRA The EPA listed 24 total initiatives the most notable among them being greenhouse gas reduction and monitoring a superfund petroleum tax replacing current heavy duty vehicles with zero emission vehicles and a methane incentive program 104 On February 3 2023 more than 100 train cars were derailed in East Palestine and around half of those cars containing chemicals like butyl acrylate vinyl chloride and ethylhexyl acrylate 105 Subsequently the chemicals combusted into a flame being seen from miles around and the fumes filled the air with residents reporting animals falling ill and a burning sensation in their eyes and nose The EPA is monitoring the situation and experts recommend that local residents take part in the EPA s at home air screening 106 107 Organization Edit Headquarters of the EPA at the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building The EPA is led by the administrator appointed following nomination by the president and approval from Congress Offices Edit Office of the Administrator OA As of October 2020 update the office consisted of 12 divisions 108 Office of Administrative and Executive Services Office of Children s Health Protection Children s Health Protection Advisory Committee Office of Civil Rights Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations Office of Continuous Improvement Office of the Executive Secretariat Office of Homeland Security Office of Policy 109 Office of Public Affairs Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization Science Advisory Board Office of Air and Radiation OAR 110 Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention OCSPP 111 Office of the Chief Financial Officer OCFO 112 Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights 113 Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance OECA 114 Office of General Counsel OGC 115 Office of Inspector General OIG 116 Office of International and Tribal Affairs OITA 117 Office of Mission Support OMS 118 Office of Resources and Business Operations ORBO Environmental Appeals Board Office of Federal Sustainability Office of Administrative Law Judges Office of Acquisition Solutions OAS Office of Administration OA Office of Human Resources OHR Office of Grants and Debarment OGD Office of Customer Advocacy Policy and Portfolio Management OCAPPM Office of Digital Services and Technical Architecture ODSTA Office of Information Management OIM Office of Information Security and Privacy OISP Office of Enterprise Information Programs OEIP Office of IT Operations OITO The Andrew W Breidenbach Environmental Research Center in Cincinnati is EPA s second largest R amp D center 119 Office of Research and Development ORD which as of November 2021 update consisted of 120 121 Immediate Office of the Assistant Administrator Office of Science Advisor Policy and Engagement OSAPE Office of Science Information Management OSIM Office of Resource Management Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure CCTE Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling CEMM Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment CPHEA Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response CESER Office of Land and Emergency Management OLEM which as of March 2017 update consisted of 122 Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery Office of Underground Storage Tanks Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization Office of Emergency Management Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office Office of Water OW 123 which as of March 2017 update consisted of 124 Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water OGWDW Office of Science and Technology OST Office of Wastewater Management OWM Office of Wetlands Oceans and Watersheds OWOW Regions Edit The administrative regions of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Creating 10 EPA regions was an initiative that came from President Richard Nixon 125 See Standard Federal Regions Each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the agency s programs except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states Region 1 responsible within the states of Connecticut Maine Massachusetts New Hampshire Rhode Island and Vermont New England Region 2 responsible within the states of New Jersey and New York It is also responsible for the US territories of Puerto Rico and the U S Virgin Islands Region 3 responsible within the states of Delaware Maryland Pennsylvania Virginia West Virginia and the District of Columbia Region 4 responsible within the states of Alabama Florida Georgia Kentucky Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina and Tennessee Region 5 responsible within the states of Illinois Indiana Michigan Minnesota Ohio and Wisconsin Region 6 responsible within the states of Arkansas Louisiana New Mexico Oklahoma and Texas Region 7 responsible within the states of Iowa Kansas Missouri and Nebraska Region 8 responsible within the states of Colorado Montana North Dakota South Dakota Utah and Wyoming Region 9 responsible within the states of Arizona California Hawaii Nevada the territories of Guam and American Samoa and the Navajo Nation 126 Region 10 responsible within the states of Alaska Idaho Oregon and Washington Each regional office also implements programs on Indian Tribal lands except those programs delegated to tribal authorities Legal authority EditThe Environmental Protection Agency can only act pursuant to statutes the laws passed by Congress Appropriations statutes authorize how much money the agency can spend each year to carry out the approved statutes The agency has the power to issue regulations A regulation interprets a statute and EPA applies its regulations to various environmental situations and enforces the requirements The agency must include a rationale of why a regulation is needed See Administrative Procedure Act Regulations can be challenged in federal courts either district court or appellate court depending on the particular statutory provision 127 Related legislation Edit EPA has principal implementation authority for the following federal environmental laws Clean Air Act Clean Water Act Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act Superfund Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Safe Drinking Water Act Toxic Substances Control Act Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century ActThere are additional laws where EPA has a contributing role or provides assistance to other agencies Among these laws are Endangered Species Act Energy Independence and Security Act Energy Policy Act Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act Food Quality Protection Act National Environmental Policy Act Oil Pollution Act Pollution Prevention ActPrograms Edit EPA scientists conducting a stream survey on the Merrimack River in Massachusetts EPA established its major programs pursuant to the primary missions originally articulated in the laws passed by Congress Additional programs have been developed to interpret the primary missions Some of the newer programs have been specifically authorized by Congress 128 Former Administrator William Ruckelshaus observed in 2016 that a danger for EPA was that air water waste and other programs would be unconnected placed in silos a problem that persists more than 50 years later albeit less so than at the start 129 Core programs Edit Air quality and radiation protection Edit The Office of Air and Radiation OAR describes itself as the official authority in charge of developing national programs policies and regulations for controlling air pollution and radiation exposure The OAR is responsible for enforcing the Clean Air Act the Atomic Energy Act the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act and other applicable laws The OAR is in charge of the Offices of Air Quality Planning and Standards Atmospheric Protection Transportation and Air Quality and the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air 110 Ambient standards Edit National Ambient Air Quality Standards NAAQS State Implementation Plans SIPs Stationary air pollution source standards Edit New Source Performance Standards National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants NESHAPs Permits for industrial and commercial sourcesMobile source standards Edit Testing automobile emissions at an EPA laboratory in Ann Arbor Michigan On road vehicles regulation Non road vehicle regulation including aircraft locomotives marine transport stationary engines Transportation fuel controls National Vehicle Fuel and Emissions Laboratory NVFEL Radiation protection Edit The Radiation Protection Program comprises seven project groups 130 Radioactive Waste 131 Emergency Preparedness and Response Programs 132 Protective Action Guides And Planning Guidance for Radiological Incidents EPA developed a manual as guideline for local and state governments to protect the public from a nuclear accident 133 the 2017 version being a 15 year update EPA s Role in Emergency Response Special Teams 134 Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials TENORM Program 135 Radiation Standards for Air and Drinking Water Programs 136 Federal Guidance for Radiation Protection 137 Water quality Edit Science and regulatory standards Edit The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System NPDES permit program addresses water pollution by regulating point sources which discharge to US waters Created in 1972 by the Clean Water Act the NPDES permit program authorizes state governments to perform its many permitting administrative and enforcement aspects 138 As of 2021 update the EPA has approved 47 states to administer all or portions of the permit program 139 EPA regional offices manage the program in the remaining areas of the country 138 The Water Quality Act of 1987 extended NPDES permit coverage to industrial stormwater dischargers and municipal separate storm sewer systems 140 In 2016 there were 6 700 major point source NPDES permits in place and 109 000 municipal and industrial point sources with general or individual permits 29 See also United States regulation of point source water pollution Effluent guidelines technology based standards for industrial point sources 141 and Water quality standards risk based standards for water bodies 142 under Title III of the CWA Nonpoint source pollution programs 143 The CWA Section 404 Program regulates the discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States Permits are issued by the U S Army Corps of Engineers and reviewed by EPA and may be denied if they would cause unacceptable degradation or if an alternative does not exist that does not also have adverse impacts on waters 29 Permit holders are typically required to restore or create wetlands or other waters to offset losses that cannot be avoided EPA ensures safe drinking water for the public by setting standards for more than 148 000 public water systems nationwide 144 EPA oversees states local governments and water suppliers to enforce the standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act 145 The program includes regulation of injection wells in order to protect underground sources of drinking water 146 Infrastructure financing Edit The Clean Water State Revolving Fund provides grants to states which along with matching state funds are loaned to municipalities for wastewater and green infrastructure at below market interest rates 29 These loans are expected to be paid back creating revolving loan funds Cumulative assistance from the revolving fund has surpassed US 153 6 billion As of 2021 update 147 The revolving fund replaced the Construction Grants Program which was phased out in 1990 The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund provides financial assistance to local drinking water utilities 148 Land waste and cleanup Edit Regulation of solid waste non hazardous and hazardous waste under RCRA To implement the 1976 law EPA published standards in 1979 for sanitary landfills that receive municipal solid waste 149 The agency published national hazardous waste regulations and established a nationwide permit and tracking system for managing hazardous waste The system is largely managed by state agencies under EPA authorization Standards were issued for waste treatment storage and disposal facilities TSDFs and ocean dumping of waste was prohibited 150 2 4 In 1984 Congress passed the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments HSWA which expanded several aspects of the RCRA program 151 The Land Disposal Restrictions Program sets treatment requirements for hazardous waste before it may be disposed on land 152 EPA began issuing treatment methods and levels of requirements in 1986 and these are continually adapted to new hazardous wastes and treatment technologies The stringent requirements it sets and its emphasis on waste minimization practices encourage businesses to plan to minimize waste generation and prioritize reuse and recycling From the start of the program in 1984 to 2004 the volume of hazardous waste disposed in landfills had decreased 94 and the volume of hazardous waste disposed of by underground injection had decreased 70 39 The RCRA Corrective Action Program requires TSDFs to investigate and clean up hazardous releases at their own expense 39 In the 1980s EPA estimated that the number of sites needing cleanup was three times more than the number of sites on the national Superfund list 150 6 The program is largely implemented through permits and orders 153 As of 2016 update the program has led to the cleanup of 18 million acres of land of which facilities were primarily responsible for cleanup costs The goal of EPA and states is to complete final remedies by 2020 at 3 779 priority facilities out of 6 000 that need to be cleaned up according to the program 39 Beginning in the mid 1980s EPA developed standards for small quantity generators of hazardous waste pursuant to HSWA 154 EPA was mandated to conduct a review of landfill conditions nationwide The agency reported in 1988 that the effectiveness of environmental controls at landfills varied nationwide which could lead to serious contamination of groundwater and surface waters EPA published a national plan in 1989 calling for state and local governments to better integrate their municipal solid waste management practices with source reduction and recycling programs 150 8 Regulation of Underground Storage Tanks The Underground Storage Tank UST Program was launched in 1985 and covers about 553 000 active USTs containing petroleum and hazardous chemicals Since 1984 1 8 million USTs have been closed in compliance with regulations 39 38 states the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico manage UST programs with EPA authorization 155 When the program began EPA had only 90 staff to develop a system to regulate more than 2 million tanks and work with 750 000 owners and operators The program relies more on local operations and enforcement than other EPA programs 156 Today the program supports the inspection of all federally regulated tanks cleans up old and new leaks minimizes potential leaks and encourages sustainable reuse of abandoned gas stations 157 Hazardous site cleanup In the late 1970s the need to clean up sites such as Love Canal that had been highly contaminated by previous hazardous waste disposal became apparent However the existing regulatory environment depended on owners or operators to perform environmental control While the EPA attempted to use RCRA s section 7003 to perform this cleanup it was clear a new law was needed In 1980 Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act CERCLA commonly known as Superfund 158 This law enabled the EPA to cast a wider net for responsible parties including past or present generators and transporters as well as current and past owners of the site to find funding The act also established some funding and a tax mechanism on certain industries to help fund such cleanup Congress did not renew the Superfund tax in the 1990s and subsequently funding for cleanup actions was supported only by general appropriations Congress restored an excise tax on chemical manufacturers in 2021 which will eventually increase the available budget for site cleanups 59 Today due to restricted funding most cleanup activities are performed by responsible parties under the oversight of the EPA and states As of 2016 update more than 1 700 sites had been put on the cleanup list since the creation of the program Of these 370 sites have been cleaned up and removed from the list cleanup is underway at 535 cleanup facilities have been constructed at 790 but need to be operated in the future and 54 are not yet in cleanup stage 40 EPA s oil spill prevention program includes the Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure SPCC and the Facility Response Plan FRP rules The SPCC Rule applies to all facilities that store handle process gather transfer refine distribute use or consume oil or oil products Oil products includes petroleum and non petroleum oils as well as animal fats oils and greases fish and marine mammal oils and vegetable oils It mandates a written plan for facilities that store more than 1 320 gallons of fuel above ground or more than 42 000 gallons below ground and which might discharge to navigable waters as defined in the Clean Water Act or adjoining shorelines Secondary spill containment is mandated at oil storage facilities and oil release containment is required at oil development sites 159 Chemical manufacture and usage Edit EPA regulates pesticides under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act FIFRA and the Food Quality Protection Act 31 The agency assesses registers regulates and regularly reevaluates all pesticides legally sold in the United States A few challenges this program faces are transforming toxicity testing screening pesticides for endocrine disruptors and regulating biotechnology and nanotechnology 31 TSCA required EPA to create and maintain a national inventory of all existing chemicals in U S commerce When the act was passed in 1976 there were more than 60 000 chemicals on the market that had never been comprehensively cataloged To do so the EPA developed and implemented procedures that have served as a model for Canada Japan and the European Union For the inventory the EPA also established a baseline for new chemicals that the agency should be notified about before being commercially manufactured Today this rule keeps the EPA updated on volumes uses and exposures of around 7 000 of the highest volume chemicals via industry reporting 37 The Toxics Release Inventory TRI is a resource established by the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act specifically for the public to learn about toxic chemical releases and pollution prevention activities reported by industrial and federal facilities 37 TRI data support informed decision making by communities government agencies companies and others 160 Annually the agency collects data from more than 20 000 facilities 37 The EPA has generated a range of tools to support the use of this inventory including interactive maps and online databases such as ChemView 37 Enforcement Edit This section needs expansion with program summaries You can help by adding to it July 2020 Civil enforcement and criminal enforcement programs EPA develops and prosecutes administrative civil and judicial cases and provides legal support for cases and investigations initiated in its regional offices Federal judicial actions formal lawsuits are filed by the U S Department of Justice on behalf of EPA 161 Compliance assistance EPA identifies prevents and reduces noncompliance and environmental risks by establishing enforcement initiatives and ensuring effective monitoring and assessment of compliance 162 Federal facilities enforcement Environmental Justice programIn 2019 the Environmental Data amp Governance Initiative a network of academics developers and non profit professionals published a report which compared EPA enforcement statistics over time 163 The number of civil cases filed by EPA have gradually decreased and in 2018 the criminal and civil penalties from EPA claims dropped over four times their amounts in 2013 2016 and 2017 164 In 2016 EPA issued 6 307 833 117 in penalties due to violations of agency requirements 165 and in 2018 the agency issued 184 768 000 in penalties 166 EPA s inspections and evaluations have steadily decreased from 2015 to 2018 166 Enforcement activity has decreased partially due to budget cuts within the agency 167 Additional programs Edit The EPA Safer Choice label previously known as the Design for the Environment DfE label helps consumers and commercial buyers identify and select products with safer chemical ingredients without sacrificing quality or performance When a product has the Safer Choice label it means that every intentionally added ingredient in the product has been evaluated by EPA scientists Only the safest possible functional ingredients are allowed in products with the Safer Choice label Through the Safer Detergents Stewardship Initiative SDSI 168 EPA s Design for the Environment DfE recognizes environmental leaders who voluntarily commit to the use of safer surfactants Safer surfactants are the ones that break down quickly to non polluting compounds and help protect aquatic life in both fresh and salt water Nonylphenol ethoxylates commonly referred to as NPEs are an example of a surfactant class that does not meet the definition of a safer surfactant The Safer Choice program identified safer alternative surfactants through partnerships with industry and environmental advocates These alternatives are comparable in cost and are readily available The CleanGredients website 169 is an information source about safer surfactants The Energy Star program initiated in 1992 motivated major companies to retrofit millions of square feet of building space with more efficient lighting 170 As of 2006 update more than 40 000 Energy Star products were available including major appliances office equipment lighting home electronics and more In addition the label can also be found on new homes and commercial and industrial buildings In 2006 about 12 percent of new housing in the US displayed an Energy Star label 171 EPA estimates that the program saved about 14 billion in energy costs in 2006 alone The program has helped spread the use of LED traffic lights efficient fluorescent lighting power management systems for office equipment and low standby energy use 172 EPA s Smart Growth Program began in 1998 and was created to help communities improve their land development practices and get the type of development they want Together with local state and national experts EPA encourages development strategies that protect human health and the environment create economic opportunities and provide attractive and affordable neighborhoods for people of all income levels 173 The Brownfields Program started as a pilot program in the 1990s and was authorized by law in 2002 The program provides grants and tools to local governments for the assessment cleanup and revitalization of brownfields As of September 2015 update the EPA estimates that program grants have resulted in 56 442 acres of land readied for reuse and leveraged 116 963 jobs and 24 2 billion to do so Agency studies also found that property values around assessed or cleaned up brownfields have increased 5 1 to 12 8 percent 40 EPA s Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Program helps schools to maintain a healthy environment and reduce exposures to indoor environmental contaminants It helps school personnel identify solve and prevent indoor air quality problems in the school environment Through the use of a multi step management plan and checklists for the entire building schools can lower their students and staff s risk of exposure to asthma triggers 174 The National Environmental Education Act of 1990 requires EPA to provide national leadership to increase environmental literacy EPA established the Office of Environmental Education to implement this program 175 Clean School Bus USA is a national partnership to reduce children s exposure to diesel exhaust by eliminating unnecessary school bus idling installing effective emission control systems on newer buses and replacing the oldest buses in the fleet with newer ones Its goal is to reduce both children s exposure to diesel exhaust and the amount of air pollution created by diesel school buses 176 The Green Chemistry Program encourages the development of products and processes that follow green chemistry principles 37 It has recognized more than 100 winning technologies 177 These reduce the use or creation of hazardous chemicals save water and reduce greenhouse gas release 37 The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health BEACH Act was authorized in a 2000 amendment to the Clean Water Act The program focus is on coastal recreational waters and requires EPA to develop criteria to test and monitor waters and notify public users of any concerns 178 The program involves states local beach resource managers and the agency in assessing risks of stormwater and wastewater overflows and enables better sampling analytical methods and communication with the public 29 The EPA has also established specific geographic programs for particular water resources such as the Chesapeake Bay Program the National Estuary Program and the Gulf of Mexico Program 29 Advance identification or ADID is a planning process used by the EPA to identify wetlands and other bodies of water and their respective suitability for the discharge of dredged and fill material The EPA conducts the process in cooperation with the U S Army Corps of Engineers and local states or Native American Tribes As of February 1993 update 38 ADID projects had been completed and 33 were ongoing 179 EPA s One Cleanup Program initiative was designed to improve coordination across different agency programs that have a role in cleanup at a particular site The coordination efforts apply to the brownfields federal facilities USTs RCRA and Superfund programs 180 EPA reviews environmental impact statements prepared by other agencies and maintains a national EIS filing system 109 Past programs Edit The former Construction Grants Program distributed federal grants for the construction of municipal wastewater treatment works from 1972 to 1990 While such grants existed before the 1972 the 1972 CWA expanded these grants dramatically They were distributed through 1990 when the program and funding were replaced with the State Revolving Loan Fund Program 29 In 1991 under Administrator William Reilly the EPA implemented its voluntary 33 50 program 181 This was designed to encourage recognize and celebrate companies that voluntarily found ways to prevent and reduce pollution in their operations 182 Specifically it challenged industry to reduce Toxic Release Inventory emissions of 17 priority chemicals by 33 in one year and 50 in four years 37 These results were achieved before the commitment deadlines 37 Launched in 2006 the voluntary 2010 2015 PFOA Stewardship Program worked with eight major companies to voluntarily reduce their global emissions of certain types of perfluorinated chemicals by 95 by 2010 and eliminate these emissions by 2015 37 183 OSV Bold docked at Port Canaveral Florida In March 2004 the U S Navy transferred USNS Bold T AGOS 12 a Stalwart class ocean surveillance ship to the EPA The ship had been used in anti submarine operations during the Cold War was equipped with sidescan sonar underwater video water and sediment sampling instruments used in study of ocean and coastline One of the major missions of the Bold was to monitor for ecological impact sites where materials were dumped from dredging operations in U S ports 184 In 2013 the General Services Administration sold the Bold to Seattle Central Community College SCCC which demonstrated in a competition that they would put it to the highest and best purpose at a nominal cost of 5 000 185 Controversies EditScope and fulfillment of agency s authority Edit Congress enacted laws such as the Clean Air Act the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and CERCLA with the intent of preventing and reconciling environmental damages Beginning in 2018 under Administrator Andrew Wheeler EPA revised some pollution standards that resulted in less overall regulation 186 Furthermore the CAA s discretionary application 187 188 has caused a varied application of the law among states In 1970 Louisiana deployed its Comprehensive Toxic Air Pollutant Emission Control Program to comply with federal law 189 This program does not require pollution monitoring that is equivalent to programs in other states 190 Environmental justice Edit The EPA has been criticized for its lack of progress towards environmental justice Administrator Christine Todd Whitman was criticized for her changes to President Bill Clinton s Executive Order 12898 during 2001 removing the requirements for government agencies to take the poor and minority populations into special consideration when making changes to environmental legislation and therefore defeating the spirit of the Executive Order 191 In a March 2004 report the inspector general of the agency concluded that the EPA has not developed a clear vision or a comprehensive strategic plan and has not established values goals expectations and performance measurements for environmental justice in its daily operations Another report in September 2006 found the agency still had failed to review the success of its programs policies and activities toward environmental justice 192 Studies have also found that poor and minority populations were underserved by the EPA s Superfund program and that this situation was worsening 191 In August 2022 the EPA was allotted a listed 42 8 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act IRA towards what the EPA classifies as Advancing Environmental Justice and published the statement Through the Inflation Reduction Act EPA will improve the lives of millions of Americans by reducing pollution in neighborhoods where people live work play and go to school accelerating environmental justice efforts in communities overburdened by pollution for far too long and tackling our biggest climate challenges while creating jobs and delivering energy security 193 In September 2022 EPA announced the creation of a new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights that reports directly to the EPA administrator 194 The new office has an expanded budget and staff with broader responsibilities than under the previous organizational arrangement 113 Freedom of Information Act processing performance Edit In the latest Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act FOIA requests published in 2015 using 2012 and 2013 data the most recent years available the EPA earned a D by scoring 67 out of a possible 100 points i e did not earn a satisfactory overall grade 195 Pebble Mine Edit Pebble Mine is a copper and gold mining project located in the southwest region of Alaska in the Bristol Bay region organized by Northern Dynasty Minerals 196 In 2014 the EPA released its statement on the impacts that mining would have on Bristol Bay and its tributaries Among many things the statement assesses geological topographic ecological hydrological and economic data and determined that mining could negatively impact the salmon population 197 Seeing as Bristol Bay and its watershed provides around 46 of the world s sockeye salmon the EPA did not want to risk an ecological disaster 198 In July 2014 before Northern Dynasty Minerals had submitted its EIS EPA s Region 10 office proposed restrictions pursuant to section 404 c of the Clean Water Act restrictions that would effectively prohibit the project 199 200 Northern Dynasty Minerals protested this decision and on July 18 2014 in a published statement Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier said that the project would continue its litigation against EPA noted that the EPA s action was under investigation by the EPA inspector general and by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and noted that two bills were pending in Congress seeking to clarify that EPA did not have the authority to preemptively veto or otherwise restrict development projects prior to the onset of federal and state permitting Collier s statement also said that EPA s proposal was based on outdated mining scenarios that were not part of the project s approach 200 Multiple journalists and organizations have reported on the controversy including the Natural Resources Defense Council in support of the cancelation of the project and John Stossel in support of the development of the mine As of 2023 update the mine remains a controversial topic 201 See also EditEarth Day Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration MyEnvironment EPA Environmental indicator search by neighborhoodReferences Edit a b c EPA s Budget and Spending Washington D C U S Environmental Protection Agency EPA May 16 2022 Our Mission and What We Do EPA January 21 2017 Archived from the original on March 28 2017 Retrieved March 28 2017 a b Reorganization Plan No 3 of 1970 EPA Archived from the original on February 12 2018 Retrieved July 21 2020 EPA Regional Laboratories Unique Analytical Capabilities and Services by Region EPA September 12 2017 Archived from the original on April 4 2018 Retrieved April 3 2018 FY 2023 EPA Budget in Brief PDF EPA March 1 2022 Vig Norman J 2018 Environmental Policy New Directions for the Twenty First Century Sage pp 167 170 ISBN 978 1 5063 8346 0 a b c Rinde Meir 2017 Richard Nixon and the Rise of American Environmentalism Distillations Vol 3 no 1 pp 16 29 Archived from the original on April 5 2018 EPA History Clean Air Act of 1970 1977 EPA October 18 2016 a b The Guardian Origins of the EPA EPA Historical Publication EPA Spring 1992 Archived from the original on March 29 2017 Retrieved March 28 2017 a b Luther Linda November 16 2005 The National Environmental Policy Act Background and Implementation PDF Report Washington D C Congressional Research Service p CRS 3 Archived PDF from the original on August 1 2017 Senate Report 91 296 91st Congress 1st session July 9 1969 pp 11 12 Caldwell Lynton Keith 1998 The National Environmental Policy Act An agenda for the future Bloomington IN Indiana University Press pp 26 27 ISBN 0253334446 Legislative Accomplishments Henry M Jackson Foundation Archived from the original on July 13 2014 Griswold Eliza September 21 2012 How Silent Spring Ignited the Environmental Movement The New York Times Magazine Archived from the original on September 14 2017 Retrieved September 17 2017 United States National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 Pub L 91 290 Approved January 1 1970 42 U S C 4321 et seq Weiland Paul S Spring 1997 Amending the National Environmental Policy Act Federal Environmental Protection in the Twenty First Century PDF Journal of Land Use amp Environmental Law 275 301 Archived from the original PDF on July 12 2007 Reorganization Plans Nos 3 and 4 of 1970 Message from the President of the United States to the House of Representatives PDF Report House of Representatives 91st Congress 2d Session July 9 1970 Document no 91 366 Archived PDF from the original on April 26 2017 Retrieved March 28 2017 a b c d Behind the Scenes at the Creation of EPA An interview with Chuck Elkins PDF Oral History Program EPA Alumni Association October 2013 Archived PDF from the original on August 21 2018 Records of the Environmental Protection Agency EPA National Archives August 15 2016 Section 412 2 Retrieved April 23 2021 Reorganization Plan No 3 of 1970 U S Environmental Protection Agency Retrieved April 23 2021 Williams Dennis C March 1 1993 Why Are Our Regional Offices and Labs Located Where They Are A Historical Perspective on Siting EPA Retrieved April 23 2021 United States Clean Air Amendments of 1970 Pub L 91 604 Approved December 31 1970 EPA Alumni Association EPA Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus and some of his closest aides recall the opening months of the new agency in 1970 16 Video 16 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine 2 Transcript 2 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine see p 2 EPA Alumni Association EPA Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus and some of his closest aides recall the opening months of the new agency in 1970 16 Video 16 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine 4 Transcript 4 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine see p 4 REF 51 U S Opens Probe Here on Pollution The Plain Dealer Cleveland Ohio December 1970 Robert Walter Jones J D Library and Archive June 24 2018 Archived from the original on February 25 2019 Retrieved February 24 2019 Press Conference Attorney General John Mitchell 12 18 1970 PDF Archived PDF from the original on April 12 2019 REF 53 Charges J amp L With Pollution AP The Plain Dealer Cleveland Ohio December 31st 1970 Robert Walter Jones J D Library and Archive June 24 2018 Archived from the original on February 25 2019 Retrieved February 24 2019 United States Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 Pub L 92 500 Approved 1972 10 18 a b c d e f g Jim Hanlon Mike Cook Mike Quigley Bob Wayland Water Quality A Half Century of Progress Archived April 12 2019 at the Wayback Machine EPA Alumni Association March 2016 United States Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act Pub L 92 516 Approved 1972 10 21 a b c Susan Wayland and Penelope Fenner Crisp Reducing Pesticide Risks A Half Century of Progress Archived April 12 2019 at the Wayback Machine EPA Alumni Association March 2016 McFadden Robert D June 12 2020 2019 11 27 William Ruckelshaus Who Quit in Saturday Night Massacre Dies at 87 The New York Times a b c d e f g h EPA s Administrators EPA March 23 2022 United States Safe Drinking Water Act Pub L 93 523 Approved 1974 12 16 Information about Public Water Systems Drinking Water Requirements for States and Public Water Systems EPA March 8 2017 United States Toxic Substances Control Act Pub L 94 469 Approved 1976 10 11 a b c d e f g h i j k l Auer Charles Frank Kover James Aidala Marks Greenwood Toxic Substances A Half Century of Progress Archived April 12 2019 at the Wayback Machine EPA Alumni Association March 2016 United States Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Pub L 94 580 Approved 1976 10 21 a b c d e Horinko Marianne Cathryn Courtin Waste Management A Half Century of Progress Archived October 22 2016 at the Wayback Machine EPA Alumni Association March 2016 a b c Thomas Voltaggio and John Adams Superfund A Half Century of Progress Archived April 12 2019 at the Wayback Machine EPA Alumni Association March 2016 a b EPA History 1970 1985 EPA September 6 2016 Views from the Former Administrators EPA November 1985 Archived from the original on September 25 2015 Sullivan Patricia July 22 2004 Anne Gorsuch Burford 62 Dies Reagan EPA Director The Washington Post Archived from the original on August 12 2017 Martin Douglas July 22 2004 Anne Gorsuch Burford 62 Reagan E P A Chief Dies The New York Times Archived from the original on November 14 2013 Retrieved December 2 2013 a b Chronology of Events in the E P A Dispute The New York Times March 10 1983 Shabecoff Philip January 10 1984 Rita Lavelle gets 6 month term and is fined 10 000 for perjury The New York Times Hoffman David Peterson Cass March 10 1983 Burford Quits as EPA Administrator The Washington Post Former EPA Aide Faces New Inquiry The New York Times April 20 1983 a b Interview with Lee Thomas PDF EPA Alumni Association April 19 2012 EPA 1993 12 17 Effluent Limitations Guidelines Pretreatment Standards and New Source Performance Standards Pulp Paper and Paperboard Category National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Source Category Pulp and Paper Production Proposed rules Federal Register 58 FR 66078 Former Deputy Administrator Hank Habicht talks about management at EPA An Interview with Hank Habicht 17 Video 7 Transcript 7 Archived April 12 2019 at the Wayback Machine see p7 10 December 21 2012 What is Energy Star EPA and U S Department of Energy Retrieved June 12 2021 Chronology of EPA Administrators EPA March 11 2021 Overview of EPA s Brownfields Program EPA July 26 2021 EPA 1995 08 18 National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants Petroleum Refineries Final rule Federal Register 60 FR 43244 EPA 1996 08 29 Lead Requirements for Lead Based Paint Activities in Target Housing and Child Occupied Facilities Final rule Federal Register 61 FR 45778 EPA 1997 07 18 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter Final rule Federal Register 62 FR 38652 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone Final rule 62 FR 38856 Superfund Trends in Federal Funding and Cleanup of EPA s Nonfederal National Priorities List Sites PDF Report Washington D C U S Government Accountability Office September 2015 GAO 15 812 a b United States Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Pub L 117 58 text PDF Section 80201 Approved November 15 2021 United States Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 Pub L 104 170 text PDF 1996 08 03 United States Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 Pub L 104 182 text PDF 1996 08 06 Pianin Eric January 31 2004 Proposed Mercury Rules Bear Industry Mark The Washington Post Archived from the original on December 29 2019 Retrieved July 21 2020 Vedantam Shankar February 4 2005 EPA Inspector Finds Mercury Proposal Tainted The Washington Post Archived from the original on May 27 2020 Retrieved July 21 2020 New EPA Mercury Rule Omits Conflicting Data Archived January 6 2017 at the Wayback Machine The Washington Post March 22 2005 Bustillo Miguel States Sue EPA Over Mercury Emissions Archived December 28 2015 at the Wayback Machine Los Angeles Times March 30 2005 Governor Blagojevich and Illinois EPA Propose Aggressive Mercury Controls For Illinois Power Plants Archived July 10 2007 at the Wayback Machine Environmental Progress Spring 2006 page 12 Baltimore Chris February 8 2008 EPA must rewrite utility mercury rule U S court Reuters Archived from the original on March 22 2018 Retrieved February 1 2017 History of the MATS Regulation EPA November 11 2015 Archived from the original on February 2 2017 Retrieved February 1 2017 Danny Hakim July 28 2005 E P A Holds Back Report on Car Fuel Efficiency New York Times Archived from the original on May 9 2015 Retrieved February 20 2017 Accomplishments and History WaterSense EPA June 14 2022 Keim Brandon Governor Arnie to EPA Hasta La Vista Bureaucratic Delay Monkeys Wired Science Wired Archived from the original on March 7 2008 Retrieved January 28 2017 Maynard Micheline December 19 2007 E P A Denies California Emission s Waiver The New York Times Absurdity at the EPA Denying California emissions plan a new low Editorials The Dallas Morning News January 1 2008 Archived from the original on October 25 2008 Retrieved November 21 2009 Text of Letter from Gov Schwarzenegger and 13 other Governors Regarding U S EPA s Denial of California s Tailpipe Emissions Waiver Request State of California Office of the Governor Archived from the original on November 24 2009 Retrieved November 21 2009 Wilson Janet December 21 2007 EPA chief is said to have ignored staff Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on April 7 2022 Stedeford Todd 2007 Prior restraint and censorship acknowledged occupational hazards for government scientists William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review 31 3 725 745 Archived from the original on May 19 2015 Retrieved May 17 2015 Stedeford 2007 p 738 note 95 Stedeford 2007 pp 736 740 Shiffman John Sullivan John December 2 2008 An Eroding Mission at EPA The Philadelphia Inquirer Archived from the original on December 25 2022 The Scientific Integrity Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists April 2008 Interference at the EPA PDF Report UCS Publications Josh Harkinson and Kate Sheppard April 27 2010 Coastal Collapse Slate Archived from the original on June 6 2010 Retrieved June 1 2010 Urbina Ian March 3 2011 Pressure Limits Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas The New York Times Archived from the original on January 8 2012 Retrieved February 23 2012 More than a quarter century of efforts by some lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to police the industry better have been thwarted as E P A studies have been repeatedly narrowed in scope and important findings have been removed DiCosmo Bridget May 15 2012 SAB Pushes To Advise EPA To Conduct Toxicity Tests In Fracking Study Inside EPA Inside Washington Publishers subscription required Retrieved May 19 2012 But some members of the chartered SAB are suggesting that the fracking panel revise its recommendation that the agency scale back its planned toxicity testing of chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing or fracking process because of the limited resources and time frame Chesapeake Energy supported the draft recommendation saying that an in depth study of toxicity the development of new analytical methods and tracers are not practical given the budget and schedule limitation of the study The Debate Over the Hydrofracking Study s Scope The New York Times March 3 2011 Archived from the original on May 2 2012 Retrieved May 1 2012 While environmentalists have aggressively lobbied the agency to broaden the scope of the study industry has lobbied the agency to narrow this focus Natural Gas Documents The New York Times February 27 2011 Archived from the original on May 2 2012 Retrieved May 5 2012 The Times reviewed more than 30 000 pages of documents obtained through open records requests of state and federal agencies and by visiting various regional offices that oversee drilling in Pennsylvania Some of the documents were leaked by state or federal officials Satterfield John June 30 2011 Letter from Chesapeake Energy to EPA PDF Inside EPA Retrieved May 19 2012 Flowback and Produced water Chesapeake agrees that an in depth study of toxicity the development of new analytic methods and tracers are not practical given the budget and schedule limitations of the study Wastewater Treatment and Waste Disposal Chesapeake believes there was unjustified emphasis on the surface disposal of produced water to treatment plants in the SAB s Review Chesapeake disagrees with the inclusion of water distribution network corrosion and burden of analyzing for contaminants by POTW s into the study EPA 2014 04 18 Control of Air Pollution From Motor Vehicles Tier 3 Motor Vehicle Emission and Fuel Standards Final rule Federal Register 79 FR 23414 Bomey Nathan October 25 2016 Judge approves 15B Volkswagen settlement USA Today Learn About Volkswagen Violations EPA October 18 2021 Schlanger Zoe August 7 2015 EPA Causes Massive Spill of Mining Waste Water in Colorado Turns Animas River Bright Orange Archived from the original on August 9 2015 Retrieved August 10 2015 Kolb Joseph J August 10 2015 They re not going to get away with this Anger mounts at EPA over mining spill Archived from the original on August 10 2015 Retrieved August 10 2015 Hakim Danny March 15 2017 Monsanto Weed Killer Roundup Faces New Doubts on Safety in Unsealed Documents The New York Times Archived from the original on August 9 2018 Yan Holly May 15 2017 Patients Roundup gave us cancer as EPA official helped the company CNN Archived from the original on August 18 2018 Nelson Arthur May 24 2017 EU declared Monsanto weedkiller safe after intervention from controversial US official The Guardian Archived from the original on August 17 2018 Retrieved August 17 2018 EPA s Scott Pruitt haunted by corruption allegations old and new MSNBC Archived from the original on April 25 2018 Retrieved April 25 2018 Tabuchi Hiroko April 10 2017 What s at Stake in Trump s Proposed E P A Cuts The New York Times Archived from the original on April 17 2017 Jeremy Diamond Eli Watkins Juana Summers EPA chief Scott Pruitt resigns amid ethics scandals CNN Archived from the original on July 5 2018 Retrieved July 6 2018 Top EPA Scientific Integrity Official Not Allowed To Testify At House Hearing NPR Archived from the original on July 18 2019 Retrieved July 18 2019 Liptak Kevin September 18 2019 Trump revokes waiver for California to set higher auto emissions standards CNN Michael S Regan Sworn in as 16th EPA Administrator EPA March 11 2021 News Release PFAS Strategic Roadmap EPA s Commitments to Action 2021 2024 EPA October 14 2021 EPA Finalizes Greenhouse Gas Standards for Passenger Vehicles Paving Way for a Zero Emissions Future December 20 2021 News Release Davenport Coral March 9 2022 Biden Restores California s Power to Set Stringent Tailpipe Rules The New York Times Inflation Reduction Act EPA December 7 2022 TRAIN 32N EAST PALESTINE PDF EPA February 13 2023 Health concerns grow in East Palestine Ohio after train derailment NPR February 14 2023 Residents not yet allowed to return to homes near site of fiery train derailment in Ohio CNN February 7 2023 About the Office of the Administrator EPA October 26 2017 Archived from the original on January 5 2011 Retrieved February 18 2017 a b About the Office of Policy EPA February 7 2023 a b About the Office of Air and Radiation EPA July 13 2022 About the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention EPA May 13 2014 Archived from the original on June 3 2014 Retrieved May 19 2014 About the Office of the Chief Financial Officer EPA January 20 2017 Archived from the original on October 13 2016 Retrieved November 6 2016 a b About the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights EPA October 6 2022 About the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance EPA November 17 2010 Archived from the original on March 29 2017 Retrieved March 20 2017 About the Office of General Counsel EPA November 17 2010 Archived from the original on May 1 2012 Retrieved April 22 2012 About EPA EPA January 18 2013 Archived from the original on May 10 2012 About the Office of International and Tribal Affairs EPA November 17 2010 Archived from the original on March 29 2017 Retrieved March 20 2017 EPA Organization Chart EPA January 29 2013 Archived from the original on July 10 2019 Retrieved July 8 2019 Andrew W Breidenbach Environmental Research Center AWBERC EPA September 18 2015 Archived from the original on May 29 2019 Retrieved May 29 2019 EPA s Office of Research and Development Reorganizes to Better Support EPA s Mission EPA April 8 2019 Organization Chart for the Office of Research and Development EPA January 29 2013 Retrieved November 6 2021 About the Office of Land and Emergency Management EPA November 17 2010 Archived from the original on January 27 2016 Retrieved January 27 2016 About the Office of Water EPA November 17 2010 Archived from the original on May 1 2012 Retrieved April 22 2012 About the Office of Water EPA January 29 2013 Archived from the original on March 20 2017 Retrieved March 20 2017 EPA Alumni Association Former EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus and his senior assistants discuss integrating 10 regional offices into the fledgling agency 16 Video 16 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine 6 Transcript 6 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine see pp 6 9 Memorandum Of Agreement between The Navajo Nation and The U S Environmental Protection Agency Regions 6 8 and 9 regarding the Implementation of Environmental Standards and Regulations on the Navajo Nation October 9 1991 Garvey Todd March 27 2017 A Brief Overview of Rulemaking and Judicial Review PDF Report Washington D C U S Congressional Research Service R41546 FY 2013 Annual Performance Plan and President s Budget Report EPA 2012 EPA 190 R 12 005 EPA Alumni Association EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus comments on the silos problem that has dogged EPA from the start 16 Video 16 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine 11 Transcript 11 Archived October 11 2016 at the Wayback Machine see p 11 Radiation Protection EPA March 29 2022 Radioactive Waste EPA July 11 2022 Radiological Emergency Response EPA July 27 2016 Archived from the original on March 15 2017 Retrieved March 13 2017 EPA Protective Action Guide PDF EPA January 11 2017 p 86 Archived PDF from the original on March 15 2017 Retrieved March 13 2017 Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Consequence Management Emergency Response EPA December 19 2022 Naturally Occurring Radiation Program EPA July 5 2022 Radiation Regulations and Laws Standards for Air and Drinking Water EPA January 19 2017 Archived from the original on September 7 2015 Retrieved March 13 2017 Federal Guidance for Radiation Protection EPAaccess date March 13 2017 September 1 2016 Archived from the original on March 15 2017 a b NPDES Permit Basics EPA August 3 2020 NPDES State Program Authority EPA August 9 2021 Clean Water Act section 402 p 33 U S C 1342 p Industrial Effluent Guidelines EPA July 13 2021 What are Water Quality Standards EPA February 26 2021 Polluted Runoff Nonpoint Source NPS Pollution EPA May 31 2022 Information about Public Water Systems EPA March 18 2021 Primacy Enforcement Responsibility for Public Water Systems EPA October 9 2020 Protecting Underground Sources of Drinking Water from Underground Injection EPA June 30 2022 CWSRF Infographic 2021 Clean Water State Revolving Fund EPA 2022 Drinking Water State Revolving Fund EPA May 12 2022 EPA 1979 09 13 Criteria for Classification of Solid Waste Disposal Facilities and Practices Final rule Federal Register 44 FR 53438 a b c 10000MAO txt 25 Years of RCRA Building on Our Past To Protect Our Future Report EPA April 2002 EPA 530 K 02 027 a href Template Cite report html title Template Cite report cite report a Check url value help United States Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 Pub L 98 616 Approved November 8 1984 Land Disposal Restrictions for Hazardous Waste EPA January 19 2021 Learn about Corrective Action EPA January 22 2016 Archived from the original on December 23 2018 Retrieved December 22 2018 Categories of Hazardous Waste Generators EPA April 14 2020 UST Program Facts EPA May 2018 Archived 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Closet The Erosion of Enforcement at the EPA PDF Environmental Data amp Governance Initiative EDGI May 2019 Update of Sheep in the Closet Report EPA Enforcement Record in the Trump Administration through Fiscal Year 2018 EDGI June 11 2019 Enforcement Annual Results for Fiscal Year 2016 EPA February 8 2018 Retrieved April 6 2021 a b Fiscal Year 2018 EPA Enforcement and Compliance Annual Results PDF February 8 2019 Historical Planning Budget and Results Reports EPA February 8 2013 Retrieved April 6 2021 Safer Detergents Stewardship Initiative EPA December 22 2008 Archived from the original on September 3 2011 Retrieved July 16 2011 CleanGredients Home Page Cleangredients org Archived from the original on July 25 2011 Retrieved July 16 2011 Former Deputy Administrator Hank Habicht talks about management at EPA An Interview with Hank Habicht 17 Video 10 Transcript 10 Archived April 12 2019 at the Wayback Machine see p 7 10 December 21 2012 EPA 2006 Annual Report Energy Star and Other 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Environmental Data and Governance Initiative June 11 2019 Retrieved April 6 2021 Kapp Robert 2005 Clean Air Act Encyclopedia of Toxicology Elsevier pp 616 618 doi 10 1016 b0 12 369400 0 00242 8 ISBN 978 0 12 369400 3 retrieved March 30 2021 S Carruth Russelyn Environmental Health Law An Introduction ISBN 978 1 118 41944 1 OCLC 1058564715 87125 RS 30 2060 Toxic air pollutant emission control program Louisiana State Laws Baton Rouge LA Louisiana State Legislature Retrieved April 6 2021 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a Check url value help Flatt Victor Byers 2006 Gasping for Breath The Administrative Flaws of the Federal Hazardous Air Pollutant Program SSRN Electronic Journal doi 10 2139 ssrn 929211 ISSN 1556 5068 S2CID 111813069 a b O Neil S G 2007 Superfund Evaluating the Impact of Executive Order 12898 Archived March 26 2009 at the Wayback Machine Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 115 Number 7 pp 1087 93 Bullard Robert July 25 2007 Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Regarding Environmental Justice Advancing Environmental Justice EPA December 19 2022 Dennis Brady September 24 2022 EPA unveils new office to place environmental justice at agency s core The Washington Post Making the Grade Access to Information Scorecard 2015 Archived August 11 2019 at the Wayback Machine March 2015 80 pages Center for Effective Government retrieved March 21 2016 History and Location Pebble Project Vancouver BC Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd Retrieved January 7 2023 Bristol Bay Assessment Final Report Report EPA 2014 EPA 910 R 14 001ES About Bristol Bay EPA September 8 2022 Proposed Determination of the U S Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 Pursuant to Section 404 c of the Clean Water Act Pebble Deposit Area Southwest Alaska PDF Seattle WA EPA July 2014 p 14 Retrieved November 25 2014 a b EPA Continues to Deny Pebble Due Process Alaska Business Monthly Anchorage AK Alaska Business July 18 2014 Retrieved July 28 2014 Bristol Bay Seattle WA EPA December 22 2022 Further reading EditBosso Christopher Environment Inc From Grassroots to Beltway Lawrence KS University of Kansas Press 2005 Bosso Christopher and Deborah Guber Maintaining Presence Environmental Advocacy and the Permanent Campaign pp 78 99 in Environmental Policy New Directions for the Twenty First Century 6th ed eds Norman Vig and Michael Kraft Washington DC CQ Press 2006 Brooks Karl Boyd ed The Environmental Legacy of Harry S Truman Truman State University Press 2009 Carter Neil The Politics of the Environment Ideas Activism Policy 2nd ed Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press 2007 Davies Kate The Rise of the U S Environmental Health Movement 2013 Lanham MD Rowman amp Littlefield Demortain David The Science of Bureaucracy Risk Decision Making and the US Environmental Protection Agency The MIT Press 2020 Gottlieb Robert August 1 1993 Forcing the spring the transformation of the American environmental movement Island Press ISBN 1 55963 123 6 Hays Samuel P A history of environmental politics since 1945 2000 Hays Samuel P Beauty Health and Permanence Environmental Politics in the United States 1955 1985 1989 Richardson Elmo Dams Parks and Politics Resource Development and Preservation the Truman Eisenhower Era 1973 Strong Douglas Hillman 1988 Dreamers amp Defenders American Conservationists University of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0 8032 9156 0 EPA Alumni Association Protecting the Environment A Half Century of Progress an overview of EPA s environmental protection efforts over 50 years EPA Alumni Association individual Half Century of Progress reports for air water pesticides drinking water waste management Superfund and toxic substancesExternal links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to United States Environmental Protection Agency Official website Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Register Environmental Protection Agency on USAspending gov Portals Environment Politics United States Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title United States Environmental Protection Agency amp oldid 1141730876, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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