29 Facts About EPA

The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.

EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D C, regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions and 27 laboratories.

The EPA was created 90 days before it had to operate, and officially opened its doors on December 2, 1970.

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.

At its start, the EPA was primarily a technical assistance agency that set goals and standards.

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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.

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.

EPA's believed that EPA was over-regulating business and that the agency was too large and not cost-effective.

EPA's cut the total number of agency employees, and hired staff from the industries they were supposed to be regulating.

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.

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.

The EPA had suppressed a study it commissioned by Harvard University which contradicted its position on mercury controls.

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.

In July 2005 an EPA report showing that auto companies were using loopholes to produce less fuel-efficient cars was delayed.

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 were almost twice as effective as the proposed federal standards.

The 2007 report stated that EPA subjected employees who author scientific papers to prior restraint, even if those papers are written on personal time.

In 2014 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.

In 2015 EPA discovered extensive violations by Volkswagen Group in its manufacture of Volkswagen and Audi diesel engine cars, for the 2009 through 2016 model years.

EPA did not have previous experience in the environmental protection field and had received financial support from the fossil fuel industry.

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.

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

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

EPA established its major programs pursuant to the primary missions originally articulated in the laws passed by Congress.

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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.

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.

In 2016 EPA issued $6, 307, 833, 117 in penalties due to violations of agency requirements, and in 2018 the agency issued $184, 768, 000 in penalties.

EPA has been criticized for its lack of progress towards environmental justice.