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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. [2] President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. [3]
In Reorganization Plan No. 3, President Nixon outlined the following as the roles and functions of the EPA: establishing and enforcing environmental protection standards consistent with national environmental goals; conducting research on the adverse effects of pollution and on methods and equipment for controlling it, the gathering of ...
Environmental law is the collection of laws, regulations, agreements and common law that governs how humans interact with their environment. [2] This includes environmental regulations; laws governing management of natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries; and related topics such as environmental impact assessments.
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Most legal analysts have concluded that the 1899 law did not address environmental impacts from pollution, such as sewage or industrial discharges. However, there were several pollution enforcement cases in the 1960s and 1970s where the law was cited for broader pollution control objectives, prior to passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act. [13]
State-level environmental policy, especially in clean air regulation, plays a key role in enforcement, air quality monitoring, and setting pollution standards that sometimes go beyond federal requirements set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, environmental programs at the state level vary widely.
The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set US National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for the six CAPs. [6] The NAAQS are health based and the EPA sets two types of standards: primary and secondary. The primary standards are designed to protect the health of 'sensitive' populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly.
New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) are pollution control standards issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The term is used in the Clean Air Act Extension of 1970 (CAA) to refer to air pollution emission standards, and in the Clean Water Act (CWA) referring to standards for water pollution discharges of industrial wastewater to surface waters.