The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the major federal agency responsible for protection of the natural environment. The Environmental Protection Agency’s mission is “to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment—air, water, and land—upon which life depends. For 30 years, Environmental Protection Agency has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people.”
The Environmental Protection Agency employs over 18,000 people in 10 regional offices and 17 laboratories around the country. As stated on their website, “The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for researching and setting national standards for a variety of environmental programs and delegates to states and tribes responsibility of issuing permits, and monitoring and enforcing compliance. Where national standards are not met, Environmental Protection Agency can issue sanction and take other steps to assist the states and tribes in reaching the desired levels of environmental quality. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts.”
The Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 in response to public outcries for better management of air, water, and land. A major contributing factor to this pressure was the publication of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s 1962 classic about the indiscriminate use of pesticides and their impact on bird reproduction. Though skeptics accused Carson of “shallow science,” her passionate concern and “literary genius” lead to calls for environmental protection. At the time, environmental management was spread among a wide array of federal agencies. In response to the public pressure, in 1969 Congress passed the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), calling for the creation of a Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and

• “To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment.”
  
• “To promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man.”
  
• “To enrich our understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation.”

President Richard Nixon, not known for environmental leadership, signed the NEPA on January 1, 1970, beginning what became known as the “environmental decade.” The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, brought out 20 million citizens demonstrating for environmental reforms, and by the end of the year the Environmental Protection Agency was formed.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was initially cobbled together from personnel and programs at other federal departments. Responsibility for air and water pollution came from Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and the Department of the Interior. Pesticide management came from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Agriculture. Environmental Protection Agency website history notes the National Air Pollution Control Administration (NAPCA) and the Federal Water Quality Administration (FWCA) “represented the core of the federal government’s pollution-control apparatus prior to the birth of Environmental Protection Agency.” Both the NAPCA and the FWCA “gained enforcement and standard-setting powers in the 1960s, but the actual exercise of these powers fell far short of expectations.”
On December 1, 1970, William Ruckelshaus was confirmed as the first Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, and by the end of that month the first major piece of environmental legislation, the Clean Air Act of 1970 was signed. This act required the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national air-quality standards as well as standards for significant new sources and for all facilities emitting hazardous substances. The act focused on automobile emissions.
The 1970s are sometimes considered the heyday of environmentalism, yet Ruckelshaus blames the idealism of the time for subsequent problems. In an interview he said,
“We thought we had technologies that could control pollutants, keeping them below threshold levels at a reasonable cost, and that the only things missing in the equation were national standards and a strong enforcement effort. All of the nation’s early environmental laws reflected these assumptions, and every one of these assumptions is wrong ... the errors in our assumptions were not readily apparent in Environmental Protection Agency’s early days because the agency was tackling pollution in its most blatant form.”
Since then the Clean Air Act has been amended twice, in 1977 and 1990. In addition, other major environmental acts enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency include the

• Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (1996)
  
• Food Quality Protection Act (1996)
  
• Toxic Substances Control Act (1976)
  
• National Environmental Policy Act (1969)
  
• Pollution Prevention Act (1990)
  
• Environmental Research, Development and Demonstration Authorization Act (1976)
  
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1970)
  
• Clean Water Act
  
• Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act
  
• Rivers and Harbors Act (1899)
  
• Safe Drinking Water Act

The Environmental Protection Agency is involved in all major international environmental negotiations, including global warming and ozonedepletion efforts. It has also been involved in cleanup after major environmental disasters, including Love Canal, Exxon Valdez, Times Beach, and Three Mile Island. Love Canal was a small ditch dug in the early 1900s to create electrical power using water from Niagara Falls. When the project failed, it became a municipal and industrial chemical dump. In 1953 Hooker Chemical Company filled in the canal and sold it to the city for $1, and in the late 1950s houses were built on the land. In the late 1970s Lois Gibbs and other area home owners began documenting and questioning the exceptionally high rate of birth defects among Love Canal residents. Eventually, using Superfund monies, the Environmental Protection Agency relocated 1,000 residents. The Superfund was created by its federal government in 1980 to clean up abandoned and accidentally spilled hazardous waste.
The Exxon Valdez was the infamous oil tanker that had a disastrous spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1989. The Environmental Protection Agency oversaw bioremediation efforts, while Exxon paid over $1 billion in fines. Less well known than the Exxon Valdez was Times Beach, a small community south of St. Louis, Missouri. Dioxin-contaminated oil had been sprayed on area roads in the 1970s in efforts to control dust. The Environmental Protection Agency managed permanent relocation of Times Beach residents and brought a portable thermal incinerator to the area to burn dioxin-laced soil.
The Environmental Protection Agency was actively involved in the aftermath of the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Mechanical failure at the nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, created the potential for nuclear meltdown, which fortunately did not occur. No nuclear power plant has been built since then. The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for long-term monitoring of the impact of radioactive releases from Three Mile Island.
Environmental critics of the Environmental Protection Agency often complain the agency does not conduct “good science” research, leading to lax environmental regulations. Social critics complain about the lack of enforcement of environmental laws. Business and industry groups complain about the cost of reporting and compliance with Environmental Protection Agency regulations.
See also green marketing.