Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Introduction

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an agency of the U.S. government that employs over 17,000 people, more than half of whom are engineers, scientists, and policy analysts. The agency is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and maintains 10 regional offices and over a dozen laboratories. Established in 1970 by President Richard Nixon (1913–1994) with the approval of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, it was charged with reducing pollution and protecting the environment. In recent years it has been embroiled in controversy as the presidential administration of George W. Bush (1946–), which has opposed both domestic and international legal limits on the emission of greenhouse gases, has used its authority to weaken the EPA's official position on global climate change.

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

The EPA was established by President Richard Nixon's Reorganization Plan Number 3 (July 9, 1970) in response

to the rapidly growing environmental movement. The first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, drew some 20 million participants and has been credited with influencing the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and Nixon's decision to create the EPA. Nixon's Reorganization Plan required the new agency to establish and enforce environmental protection standards, conduct research on pollution and on methods for controlling it, and provide grants and technical assistance to help others control pollution of the environment. The EPA was officially created on December 2, 1970, after Nixon's Reorganization Plan was cleared by hearings in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

Since that time, the EPA has defined numerous regulations, funded research, and given grants to university groups to study pollution and other aspects of the environment. As of 2007, its administrator was Stephen L. Johnson (1951–), appointed by President George W. Bush on January 26, 2005.

In 2003 and 2007, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) produced reports analyzing the costs and benefits of federal environmental regulations. Both reports found that the benefits, measured in dollars, exceeded the costs. In its 2007 report, the OMB found that the costs of the previous 10 years of EPA regulation had been $39–$46 billion while the benefits had been $98–$480 billion. Costs include more expensive cars and other machinery including pollution-reduction features, costs of waste containment and proper disposal, and other pollution-reducing measures. Benefits include reduced medical costs, reduced damage to buildings and forests from acid rain, and more.

The EPA has funded research on climate change, has collected basic data on greenhouse-gas emissions (published, for example, in its Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990–2002), and places information about global climate change on its Web site, which refers the reader to the latest (2007) report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is, therefore, officially aligned with the mainstream scientific view of present-day climate change. However, the EPA is subject to political control from the White House, whose Office of Management and Budget must approve all new federal regulations and standards. Under the Bush administration, the EPA has been accused of foot-dragging on the regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions and altering official documents to downplay the dangers of global climate change.

Impacts and Issues

Weakening of Climate Change Reports

In 2001, the Bush White House appointed Philip A. Cooney as its chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the group that defines White House policies on environmental issues. Before receiving the appointment, Cooney held the position of “climate team leader” at the American Petroleum Institute, an oil-industry group opposing caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Cooney was also a lobbyist for the group.

In his new position, Cooney had authority to edit reports written by EPA scientists before they were released to the public. Cooney made hundreds of changes to EPA documents, nearly all introducing doubt about the reality and danger of human-caused climate change. He began by adding phrases like “the weakest links in our knowledge,” “a lack of understanding,” “uncertainties,” “considerable uncertainty,” and “perhaps even greater uncertainty” to the Administration's 2002 Climate Action Report to the United Nations. An investigation by the House Oversight Committee later found that Cooney—a lawyer with no scientific training—was given veto power over the statements of working scientists such as the head of the federal Climate Change Science Program Office.

IN CONTEXT: ENERGY STAR

In 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced the Energy Star program to promote energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Energy Star encourages companies to produce more efficient home appliances, from dishwashers to lighting. The Energy Star program asserts that households that use less energy help avoid greenhouse-gas emissions associated with electrical power generation. The voluntary labeling program awards an Energy Star designation to products with energy-saving features. To further aid consumers in choosing the most efficient and cost-effective appliances, new appliances are labeled with information on energy use and the average annual cost of operation.

Energy Star has promoted the use of many common energy-saving features such as stand-by settings on computers and better insulation on water heaters and refrigerators. Energy Star also promotes community-wide action, advocating the use of energy-efficient technologies like LED traffic lights and compact fluorescent light bulbs.

In 2001, the European Union adopted the Energy Star program. Proponents of Energy Star assert that better consumer labeling has raised awareness of home energy use and prompted manufacturers to develop and market more energy-efficient products. Critics claim that the qualifications to receive an Energy Star rating should be stricter and better inform consumers of low-energy alternatives. In 2006, Energy Star helped consumers save over $14 billion dollars in utility bills and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through energy conservation.

Cooney made more than 100 edits to the EPA document “Our Changing Planet,” all directed toward downplaying the threat of climate change. In April 2003, he edited the EPA's Draft Report on the Environment, deleting and adding claims. He deleted the sentences “Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment” and “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere as the result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.” He replaced the latter sentence with: “Some activities emit greenhouse gases and other substances that directly or indirectly may affect the balance of incoming and outgoing radiation, thereby potentially affecting climate on regional and global scales.” In an internal memo, senior EPA scientists complained that the Draft Report on the Environment as altered by Cooney “no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change.”

In 2005, the New York Times reported on the changes Cooney had been making to EPA and other documents. A senior EPA scientist told the New York Times that such manipulation of EPA science “has somewhat of a chilling effect and has created a sense of frustration.” Two days after the New York Times report, Cooney resigned. The following week, he was hired by the public affairs department of the oil company ExxonMobil.

Automobile Emissions

In 2005, a coalition of state governments, environmental groups, and the territory of American Samoa brought a case to federal court in the United States, Massachusetts, et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, et al.. They claimed that the EPA was refusing to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases known to be changing Earth's climate. The EPA, the plaintiffs argued, was required to act to regulate air pollution and was breaking the law by refusing to regulate greenhouse gases.

The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In April 2007, the court ruled against the EPA. “Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act,” Justice John Stevens wrote in the majority opinion, “EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do.” The decision means that the EPA must now evaluate the danger posed by greenhouse gases. If it finds that these gases are a form of air pollution that “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare” (in the words of the federal Clean Air Act), it must regulate them.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court did not set any timeline for the EPA to evaluate or regulate greenhouse gases. Therefore, the EPA could remain inactive for an indefinite time without suffering any penalty. Some observers, such as Emma Marris writing in the journal Nature (in April 2007), predicted that no action will be taken until a new presidential administration is inaugurated in January 2009.

WORDS TO KNOW

ACID RAIN: A form of precipitation that is significantly more acidic than neutral water, often produced as the result of industrial processes.

CLEAN AIR ACT OF 1970: Extension of the 1963 U.S. Clean Air Act that tasked the newly established Environmental Protection Agency with developing and enforcing regulations to reduce air pollution.

GREENHOUSE GASES: Gases that cause Earth to retain more thermal energy by absorbing infrared light emitted by Earth's surface. The most important greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and various artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons. All but the latter are naturally occurring, but human activity over the last several centuries has significantly increased the amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide in Earth's atmosphere, causing global warming and global climate change.

In October 2007, the EPA announced that it began developing regulations concerning the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Geologic sequestration involves capturing the carbon dioxide that results from energy production or industrial activity and isolating it from the atmosphere by permanently storing it deep underground in rock layers. The captured CO₂ is injected more than 2,625 ft (800 m) underground, where it becomes super-critical and behaves like a liquid, taking up less space and over time, dissolving in water present in the pore spaces of the rock. The final regulations, to be released in late 2008, are designed to promote and standardize geologic sequestration, and protect underground drinking water reservoirs.

See Also United States: Climate Policy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Collin, Robert W. The Environmental Protection Agency: Cleaning Up America's Act. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005.

Periodicals

Greenhouse, Linda. “Justices Say E.P.A. Has Power to Act on Harmful Gases.” New York Times (April 3, 2007).

Hakim, Danny. “E.P.A. Holds Back Report on Car Fuel Efficiency.” New York Times (July 28, 2005).

Marris, Emma. “Car Emissions Are EPA's Problem.” Nature 446 (April 5, 2007): 589.

Revkin, Andrew C. “Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming.” New York Times (June 8, 2005).

Revkin, Andrew C., and Matthew L. Wald. “Material Shows Weakening of Climate Change Reports.” New York Times (March 20, 2007).

Web Sites

“Climate Change.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. < http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html> (accessed October 2, 2007). “EPA History.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

< http://www.epa.gov/history/index.htm> (accessed October 2, 2007).

Larry Gilman