EPA Environmental Regulation

Born after seeing the need of government intervention to regulate and enforce federal environmental laws, Richard Nixon signed the National environmental policy act on January 1, 1970. By the summer of 1970 Nixon submitted Reorganization Plan Number Three to Congress; this plan called for a single entity to govern the NEPA and thus the EPA came to be. The EPA inherited environmental charges that had been given to other agencies like the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The charges included monitoring air pollution, water hygiene, waste management, federal water quality, and pesticide research. This meant that all environmental programs were underneath one agency. The US was finally on a path towards effective environmental policy.

Today the EPA deals with all aspects of preserving and protecting the land and air around us. Their programs can be broken down into six categories: air, pollution prevention, wastes and recycling, toxics and chemicals, water, and pesticides. In the air category the EPA has programs like Energy Star and the acid
Asbestos was used in building construction as a fire retardant, but was found to be harmful if inhaled. Thus the government outlawed the use of it and came up with plans on how to deal with the asbestos already in buildings. The EPA has trained professionals to detect, repair and remove materials containing asbestos. Along with asbestos, mercury is another toxic substance that was used in the construction of materials used for various things. Mercury is often found in small gold mining operations; this is the leading global source of mercury release. The EPA has partnered with the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory to pilot locally built, inexpensive mercury vapor recovery systems in gold processing shops in the