Buck In Brief

The Environmental Protection Agency

In Brief: This agency has enforced environmetal laws since 1970 and much progress has been made cleaning up air and water. Now those very laws are under attack.

07/15/03

In the 1970s, public demand for a cleaner environment reached a crescendo, and elected officials responded. Eight major environmental laws were passed, including the National Environmental Policy Act (1970), the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (1973), and the Safe Water Drinking Act (1976).

The Environmental Protection Agency was also established in 1970, and, according to the EPA's website, "was assigned the daunting task of repairing the damage already done to the natural environment and...making a cleaner environment a reality." In short, the EPA was given the task of enforcing certain environmental laws.

The Clean Air Act, for example, identifies classes of pollutants harmful to people and to the environment and sets schedules by which the EPA must issue regulations to bring various activities into compliance with its standards. The Clean Water Act controls pollution of lakes, streams, and estuaries. The agencies (generally they are state agencies) charged with enforcing the water act are overseen by the EPA. And the Safe Drinking Water Act requires the EPA to protect drinking water, particularly groundwater, by setting maximum levels for health-threatening contaminants supplied by public water systems.

The EPA's work is usually done in collaboration with other federal agencies, state and local governments, and Indian tribes. However, the EPA is empowered to issue sanctions and take other steps necessary to ensure that the national standards set by existing environmental laws are met.

These truly are daunting tasks, and the scope and complexity of the EPA's mission is reflected in its organizational structure. The EPA employs more than 18,000 people, and over half of them are engineers, scientists and "environmental protection specialists." It has 10 regional offices and 17 labs across the country.

In spite of this large workforce and technical expertise, the EPA often does a poor job, or does not do the job at all. The EPA administrator is appointed by the president, whose environmental agenda strongly affects the agency. Often, special interests pressure it to bend or break the rules so they can continue to profit from mining, logging, and lax pollution controls. Under the Bush administration, whose view of the environment is that of industry, EPA enforcement has been severely curtailed, and its actions have often been directed towards gutting the environmental laws it is supposed to enforce. Outgoing administrator Christine Todd Whitman has spent a large portion of her time trying to justify the administration's attempts to water down our environmental laws.

One infamous example of this was the Bush administration's (and therefore the EPA's) decision to withdraw a stricter standard for arsenic in drinking water at the beginning of his term, an obvious sop to mining interests. (Ultimately, the EPA did reaffirm the more stringent standard under intense public pressure.) Other examples, culled almost at random as there are too many to list here, include the deceptively named "Clear Skies Initiative," which would allow more sulfur, mercury, and nitrogen oxide emissions than current standards permit. A proposed re-definition of the Clean Water Act's "waters of the U.S." would eliminate protection for up to 20% of wetlands and 60% of rivers and streams.

In these cases, and in hundreds more, Earthjustice steps in, usually to sue the EPA (or another requisite agency) for failing to protect our nation's environmental laws.

When Whitman issued the EPA's first national evaluation of the environment last month, it was clear that things are better now than 30 years ago. The EPA's press release notes that: "Air pollution has declined 25% over the past 30 years, and it declined while we experienced large increases in the U.S. population, gross domestic product and vehicle miles traveled. In 2002, 94% of Americans were served by drinking water systems that meet our health-based standards -- an increase of 15% in the last decade. Releases of toxic chemicals have declined by 48% since 1988, and we have significantly improved the way we manage our wastes. People are living longer than ever before. Infant mortality has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded in the United States."

It is ironic, as a June 26, 2003, New York Times article noted, that credit for these real advances should go to the very environmental laws that this administration has been trying so hard to gut. A track record of success would argue for at least maintaining -- and at best strengthening -- these laws. Currently, the United States has some of the most effective and most stringent environmental laws in the world. I can assure you that the core of Earthjustice's work will be to defend and extend them.

Vawter "Buck" Parker, Executive Director
buckparker@earthjustice.org