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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)


Self Description

June 2005: "The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect human health and the environment. Since 1970, EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people. View the Agency's complete strategic plan, annual report, and policy resources.

Who We Are
EPA employs 18,000 people across the country, including our headquarters offices in Washington, DC, 10 regional offices, and more than a dozen labs. Our staff are highly educated and technically trained; more than half are engineers, scientists, and policy analysts. In addition, a large number of employees are legal, public affairs, financial, information management and computer specialists. EPA is led by the Administrator, who is appointed by the President of the United States."

http://www.epa.gov/epahome/aboutepa.htm#mission

April 2004: "EPA's mission is to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment -- air, water, and land -- upon which life depends. For 30 years, EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people. View the Agency's complete Mission Statement, Strategic Plan, annual report, and policy resources.

Who We Are

EPA employs 18,000 people across the country, including our headquarters offices in Washington, DC, 10 regional offices, and more than a dozen labs. Our staff are highly educated and technically trained; more than half are engineers, scientists, and policy analysts. In addition, a large number of employees are legal, public affairs, financial, information management and computer specialists. EPA is led by the Administrator, who is appointed by the President of the United States."

http://www.epa.gov/epahome/aboutepa.htm

Third-Party Descriptions

October 2012: "EPEAT is the most popular environmental rating for green electronics. Instead of legislating that manufacturers produce environmentally friendly products, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tackles the problem indirectly. As the world’s largest purchaser of electronics, the federal government requires at least 95 percent of the products each agency purchases comply with the EPEAT standard. Used by procurement officials in large organizations, EPEAT is designed to encourage manufacturers to create environmentally preferable products."

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/10/apple-and-epeat-greenwashing/

September 2011: "The president rejected a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency that would have significantly reduced emissions of smog-causing chemicals, saying that it would impose too severe a burden on industry and local governments at a time of economic distress."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/science/earth/03air.html

August 2011: "The F.D.A. was to announce the results of its review several months ago, but now says the timing is uncertain and unlikely until next year. The Environmental Protection Agency is also looking into the safety of triclosan."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/business/triclosan-an-antibacterial-chemical-in-consumer-products-raises-safety-issues.html

April 2011: "Analysts say the discontent appears to be partly inspired by highly publicized concerns in Pennsylvania, a state unaccustomed to drilling and where fracking has recently increased. The federal government is also raising concerns: the Environmental Protection Agency is beginning a study about the method’s effect on groundwater, and a report for Congressional Democrats released last week detailed the quantity of chemicals that gas companies are putting into the ground."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/us/24ttnaturalgas.html

December 2010: "The Environmental Protection Agency announced a timetable on Thursday for issuing rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries, signaling a resolve to press ahead on such regulation even as it faces stiffening opposition in Congress."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/science/earth/24epa.html

June 2010: "The Environmental Protection Agency tried this kind of approach during the Clinton administration, back when Carol Browner, now the White House energy and climate adviser, was the administrator. Companies that found innovative ways of going above and beyond baseline air and water pollution limits got rewarded with faster permitting. The program, called Project XL, was largely viewed as a success, but it ended in 2002."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/opinion/01freeman.html

May 2010: "The Environmental Protection Agency had set a Sunday night deadline for BP to stop using two dispersants from the Corexit line of products. The oil company has defended its use of Corexit and taken issue with the methods the agency used to estimate its toxicity."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25disperse.html

January 2009: "The Environmental Protection Agency's ability to assess toxic chemicals is as broken as the nation's financial markets and needs a total overhaul, a congressional audit has found."

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/38260974.html

July 2009: "For some environmental groups and individuals, the bill’s perceived shortcomings — like generous pollution allowances to coal utilities and the usurping of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory authority over carbon emissions — were more than mere setbacks."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/politics/11protest.html

July 2009: "The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/us/04scotus.html

May 2009: "Where's the Logic? First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA's own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA)."

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/may2009/bw20090514_058678.htm

May 2009: 'Under the Clean Air Act of 1977, the Environmental Protection Agency was supposed to prevent significant deterioration of air quality in national parks. But it’s complex, says Tipton, since the two main causes are cars and coal plants. The EPA says it has responded to the problem with its Regional Haze Program, which calls for state and federal government to work together in improving visibility conditions in the parks—by 2064.'

http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/travel/10-things-national-parks-won-t-tell

May 2009: "BAN also suggests that Mr. Nixon’s shipments might have run afoul of local and international guidelines binding the recipient nations, as well as rules, adopted two years ago by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, governing the international movement of cathode-ray tubes — found in many old monitors and television sets."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/energy-environment/01iht-green01.html

November 2008: "Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency refused to regulate the greenhouse gas CO2 as a pollutant, even after the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 is a pollutant and the EPA can regulate it. So while California has passed a law regulating tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases, the state still needs a waiver under the EPA to put those regulations in place. It hasn’t gotten it."

http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2008/11/08/bush_environmental_sins/index.html

September 2008: "The Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure from the White House and the Pentagon, is poised to rule as early as today that it will not set a drinking-water safety standard for perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and young children across the nation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/21/AR2008092102352.html

September 2008: "The Environmental Protection Agency has done little to curb the export of discarded electronic products containing hazardous waste, much of which ends up in poorly regulated countries and harms the environment and public health, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a report being released today."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091603225.html

July 2008: "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Environmental Protection Agency advised employees last month not to answer questions from journalists, the Government Accountability Office or the agency's inspector general, according to an EPA e-mail made public Monday."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/28/epa.gag.order/index.html

July 2008: 'Last week, it was revealed that an Environmental Protection Agency office had lowered its official estimate of life's value, from about $8.04 million to about $7.22 million. That decision has put a spotlight on the concept of the "Value of a Statistical Life," in which the Washington bureaucracy takes on a question usually left to preachers and poets.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/18/AR2008071803235.html

July 2008: "WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday a first draft of a rule that will govern injecting carbon dioxide into underground storage."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/washington/16carbon.html

July 2008: "Any major steps by the Bush administration to control air pollution or reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases came to a dead end on Friday, the combined result of a federal court ruling and a decision by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/washington/12enviro.html

July 2008: "The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare -- a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR2008071003087.html

June 2008: 'The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose "imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the environment.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901977.html

June 2008: "The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/washington/25epa.html

June 2008: "In more than 30 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has required additional studies for about 200 chemicals, a fraction of the 80,000 chemicals that are part of the U.S. market. The government has had little or no information about the health hazards or risks of most of those chemicals."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/11/AR2008061103569.html

May 2008: "A more recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans generate roughly 30 million tons of food waste each year, which is about 12 percent of the total waste stream. All but about 2 percent of that food waste ends up in landfills; by comparison, 62 percent of yard waste is composted."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/weekinreview/18martin.html

December 2007: "The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday denied California and 16 other states the right to set their own standards for carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/washington/20epa.html

November 2007: The Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency often lack the authority and resources to monitor and control tobacco smoke, asbestos, tanning salons and the cancer-causing agents in food, water and the everyday products we use on our bodies and in our homes. Under antiquated laws, chemical and radiation hazards are examined one at a time, if at all. Of the nearly 80,000 chemicals regularly bought and sold today, according to the National Academy of Sciences, fewer than 10 percent have been tested for their capacity to cause cancer or do other damage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201648.html

October 2007: The Environmental Protection Agency does not require chemical manufacturers to conduct human toxicity studies before approving their chemicals for use in the market. A manufacturer simply has to submit paperwork on a chemical, all the data that exists on that chemical to date, and wait 90 days for approval.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/22/body.burden/index.html

October 2007: Soon the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Indian Affairs were moving to shut down the dump, while federal officials also zeroed in on the trailer park in the dump’s smoky shadows. Mr. Duro promised in 2004 to make improvements. Life in the valley continued.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/us/21land.html

October 2007: Congressional investigators will hammer the Environmental Protection Agency in a soon-to-be-released report for its flawed examination and cleanup of hundreds of factories that once processed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite into insulation.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/334357_asbestos05.html

June 2007: Rocky Flats opened in 1952 and ultimately produced more than 60,000 nuclear weapons parts. It was closed in 1989 after a raid by federal agents investigating accusations of environmental crimes on the part of its operator, Rockwell International, an Energy Department contractor. The plant was designated a Superfund hazardous waste site by the Environmental Protection Agency, and a cleanup took place from 1992 to 2005. It is now a wildlife sanctuary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/washington/13rockyflats.html

November 2006: Section 202 of the Clean Air Act empowers the federal government to regulate 'any air pollutant' that may 'reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.' In 1998, during Clinton's presidency, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that the CAA gave it the authority to regulate carbon dioxide. In 1999, environmentalist groups petitioned the agency to regulate CO2 emissions from new cars and trucks, because they contribute to global warming. But in 2003, now under the Bush administration, the EPA denied this request

http://www.slate.com/id/2154622/

June 2006: Yesterday's settlement between Teck Cominco Ltd. and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency marks the first time a foreign company has voluntarily agreed to compensate for contamination it has created in the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR2006060201047.html

December 2005: The Environmental Protection Agency reached a $16.5 million settlement with the DuPont Co. yesterday over the company's failure to report possible health risks associated with perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical compound used to make Teflon. The fine, the largest civil administrative penalty the agency has ever obtained...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402275.html

December 2005: The Environmental Protection Agency's Oct. 27 analysis of its plan -- along with those of Sens. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) and James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) -- exaggerated the costs and underestimated the benefits of imposing more stringent pollution curbs, the independent, nonpartisan congressional researchers wrote in a Nov. 23 report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201767.html

March 2005: The Environmental Protection Agency distorted the analysis of its controversial proposal to regulate mercury pollution from power plants, making it appear that the Bush administration's market-based approach was superior to a competing scheme supported by environmentalists, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15244-2005Mar7.html

February 2005: The Environmental Protection Agency ignored scientific evidence and agency protocols in order to set limits on mercury pollution that would line up with the Bush administration's free-market approaches to power plant pollution, according to a report released yesterday by the agency's inspector general.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61762-2005Feb3.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Opponent (past or present) Bayer CropScience Organization Aug 13, 2006
Cooperation (past or present) EPEAT, Inc. (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) Organization Oct 18, 2012
Opponent (past or present) Smithfield Packing Organization Aug 14, 2006
Owned by (partial or full, past or present) US Federal Government - Independent Agencies Organization May 4, 2005
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Carol M. Browner Person
Research/Analysis Subject Prof. David Burnham Person Aug 7, 2006
Organization Executive (past or present) Dr. Lynn Goldman Person Jul 11, 2003
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Lisa P. Jackson MS Person Oct 24, 2009
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Stephen L. Johnson Person Oct 20, 2005
Organization Executive (past or present) Governor Michael O. Leavitt Person Mar 17, 2006
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Heather MacDonald Esq. Person May 7, 2008
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) William K. Reilly Person May 23, 2010
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) William D. Ruckelshaus Person Mar 23, 2010
Organization Executive (past or present) Jeremy Symons Person Mar 25, 2008
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Ms. Christine "Christie" Todd Whitman Person

Articles and Resources

183 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Oct 16, 2012 Greenwashing the Retina MacBook Pro

QUOTE: Apple’s Retina MacBook Pro – the least repairable, least recyclable computer I have encountered in more than a decade of disassembling electronics – was just verified Gold, along with four other ultrabooks. This decision demonstrates that the EPEAT standard has been watered down to an alarming degree.

 Wired
Sep 02, 2011 Obama Administration Abandons Stricter Air-Quality Rules

QUOTE: President Obama abandoned a contentious new air pollution rule on Friday, buoying business interests that had lobbied heavily against it, angering environmentalists who called the move a betrayal and unnerving his own top environmental regulators.

 New York Times
Aug 19, 2011 Antibacterial Chemical Raises Safety Issues

QUOTE: a battle over the active ingredient in Dial Complete and many other antibacterial soaps, a chemical known as triclosan...Several studies have shown that triclosan may alter hormone regulation in laboratory animals or cause antibiotic resistance...F.D.A. has already said that soap with triclosan is no more effective than washing with ordinary soap and water, a finding that manufacturers dispute.

 New York Times
Apr 23, 2011 Resistance to Gas Drilling Rises on Unlikely Soil

QUOTE: “It’s our health that’s at stake…” A report for Congressional Democrats released last week detailed the quantity of chemicals that gas companies are putting into the ground.

 New York Times
Mar 11, 2011 Give Up Familiar Light Bulb? Not Without Fight, Some Say

QUOTE: To Representative Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who has sponsored a bill to reverse the new guidelines, that nevertheless means Congress is dictating what types of light Americans can use in their homes.

 New York Times
Mar 10, 2011 House Panel Votes to Strip E.P.A. of Power to Regulate Greenhouse Gases

QUOTE: A House subcommittee voted on Thursday to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to regulate greenhouse gases, chipping away at a central pillar of the Obama administration’s evolving climate and energy strategy... Republicans and their industry allies accuse the administration of levying taxes on traditional energy sources through costly environmental regulations, threatening the economic recovery and driving jobs overseas.

 New York Times
Mar 03, 2011 Pressure Limits Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas

QUOTE: Natural gas drilling companies have major exemptions from parts of at least 7 of the 15 sweeping federal environmental laws that regulate most other heavy industries and were written to protect air and drinking water from radioactive and hazardous chemicals. Coal mine operators that want to inject toxic wastewater into the ground must get permission from the federal authorities. But when natural gas companies want to inject chemical-laced water and sand into the ground during hydrofracking, they do not have to follow the same rules.

 New York Times
Dec 23, 2010 E.P.A. Says It Will Press on With Greenhouse Gas Regulation

QUOTE: ...Ms. McCarthy emphasized that the E.P.A. was not imposing a “cap-and-trade” system, a system that sets a ceiling on greenhouse gas pollution while allowing companies to trade permits, at a price that the market determines. Approved last year in a House bill, cap-and-trade legislation died in the Senate this year. Later, opponents called it “cap and tax,” and it became a rallying cry for some midterm election candidates who were opposed to the expansion of government authority over industry and the economy.

 New York Times
Dec 10, 2010 When Wrinkle-Free Clothing Also Means Formaldehyde Fumes

QUOTE: some critics said more studies on a wider array of textiles and clothing chemicals were needed, including a closer look at the effects of cumulative exposure [to formaldehyde-Ed.]. At the very least, they said, better labeling would help.

 New York Times
Jun 30, 2010 The Good Driller Award

QUOTE: as long as we continue to drill for oil and mine for coal, we must do everything we can to make those industries safer. That includes not just tough, well-enforced regulations, economic liabilities and criminal penalties for companies that prove too dangerous, but also positive incentives and public rewards for those that put safety first.

 New York Times
May 24, 2010 In Standoff With Environmental Officials, BP Stays With an Oil Spill Dispersant

QUOTE: While the Corexit products, made by the Nalco company of Naperville, Ill., are the time-tested old faithfuls of oil spill treatment, they were developed in the 1980s and ’90s, and critics say that less toxic and more effective products are now available....Complicating the standoff between the company and regulators, there are many methods for estimating the toxicity of chemical oil dispersants and no single standard prevails.

 New York Times
May 22, 2010 Obama Gives a Bipartisan Commission Six Months to Revise Drilling Rules

QUOTE: Mr. Obama tapped two prominent former officials to lead the commission — Bob Graham, the former senator from Florida, and William K. Reilly, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency — and gave them six months to come up with a plan to revamp federal regulation of offshore oil drilling.

 New York Times
Dec 07, 2009 Millions in U.S. Drinking Dirty Water, Records Show

QUOTE: More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.

 New York Times
Oct 22, 2009 Editing Scientists: Science and Policy at the White House: How much do policymakers shape the science that comes out of government agencies?

QUOTE: the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that significant editing of science documents had occurred during [Jim] Connaughton's tenure [of the Council on Environmental Quality] and the issue remains fraught with controversy: Just how much editing of government-funded science was done, and will it continue in future?

 Scientific American
Oct 18, 2009 Energy Star Appliances May Not All Be Efficient, Audit Finds

QUOTE: The Energy Department has concluded in an internal audit that it does not properly track whether manufacturers that give their appliances an Energy Star label have met the required specifications for energy efficiency. Some manufacturers could therefore be putting the stickers on unqualified products...

 New York Times
Oct 12, 2009 Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways (Toxic Waters)

QUOTE: Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution.

 New York Times
Sep 17, 2009 Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells (Toxic Waters)

QUOTE: runoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources.

 New York Times
Sep 13, 2009 Welcome to Our Town. Wish We Weren’t Here. (Treece Journal)

QUOTE: Officials in Kansas have been practically begging the federal government to move Treece’s impoverished people, mostly the children and grandchildren of old miners [due to mining contaminates in the soil] but to no avail.

 New York Times
Sep 12, 2009 Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering (Toxic Waters)

QUOTE: in recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation...

 New York Times
Sep 05, 2009 In Toys and More, Are Chemicals Safe or Harmful? New law tightens use of phthalates, but industry says hazard isn't proven

QUOTE: Over the past few years, researchers have uncovered multiple health hazards, either in animal or human studies, linked to phthalates [chemical that is in many consumer products].

 HealthDay

183 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]