The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be doing more to fight the environmental injustice spreading throughout our country. Right now with all of the budget cuts that are forced to happen due to the recession and need for jobs, it probably won’t happen for awhile. The injustice due to toxic dumping and other pollutants are not being handled as swiftly as they should be handled. The reason for that is because the area that is affected is not a big campaign contributor to a state or government politician. There has always been and always will be institutionalized racism or classism, because only certain classes of people are affected by corporate waste.
Yes, they should do more First thing we need to understand is who is the EPA and what powers do they actually have to do more. The EPA was officially formed on December 2, 1970 by then president Richard Nixon. The agency is led by its administrator, who is appointed by the President and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Lisa P. Jackson. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The agency has approximately 18,000 full-time employees. The EPA has fourteen offices and has 10 regions that …show more content…
Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites. It is also the name of the fund established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, as amended (CERCLA statute). This law was enacted in the wake of the discovery of toxic waste dumps such as Love Canal and Times Beach in the 1970s. It allows the EPA to clean up such sites and to compel responsible parties to perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-lead