Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Building Science for Environmental
Protection in the 21st Century
Since its formation in 1970, the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has had a leadership role in developing the many fields of environmental
science and engineering. From ecology to health sciences, environmental engi-
neering to analytic chemistry, EPA has stimulated and supported academic re-
search, developed environmental education programs, supported regional sci-
ence initiatives, supported and promoted the development of safer and more
cost-effective technologies, and provided a firm scientific basis of regulatory
decisions and prepared the agency to address emerging environmental problems.
The broad reach of EPA science has also influenced international policies and
guided state and local actions. The nation has made great progress in addressing
environmental challenges and improving environmental quality in the 40 years
since the first Earth Day.
As a regulatory agency, EPA applies many of its resources to implement-
ing complex regulatory statutes, including substantial commitments of scientific
and technical resources to environmental monitoring, applied health and envi-
ronmental science and engineering, risk assessment, benefit-cost analysis, and
other activities that form the foundation of regulatory actions. The primary focus
on its regulatory mission can engender controversy and place strains on the con-
duct of EPA's scientific work in ways that do not affect most other government
science agencies (such as the National Institute of Environmental Health Sci-
ences and the National Science Foundation). Amid this inherent tension, re-
search in EPA generally, and in the Office of Research and Development (ORD)
in particular, strives to meet the following objectives:
Support the needs of the agency's present regulatory mandates and
timetables.
Identify and lay the intellectual foundations that will allow the agency
to meet environmental challenges that it faces and will face over the course of
the next several decades.
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