Findings and Recommendations - Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead - page 173

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Findings and Recommendations
Since its formation in 1970, the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has played a leadership role in developing the broad fields of environ-
mental science and engineering. It has stimulated and supported basic and ap-
plied research, developed environmental-education programs, supported re-
gional science initiatives, supported and promoted the development of safer and
more cost-effective technologies, provided a firm scientific basis of regulatory
decisions, and prepared the agency to address emerging environmental prob-
lems. The broad reach of EPA science has also influenced international policies
and guided state and local actions. As a result of EPA's scientific leadership,
both the nation and the world have made great progress in addressing environ-
mental challenges and improving environmental quality over the last 40 years.
As a regulatory agency, EPA applies much of its resources to implement-
ing complex regulatory statutes that have been established by Congress. That
regulatory mission can engender controversy and place strains on the conduct of
EPA's scientific work in ways that do not affect most other government science
agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science
Foundation (NSF). Amid this inherent tension, EPA generally, and the Office of
Research and Development (ORD) specifically, strive to meet the following
objectives in their research:
 Support the needs of the agency's present regulatory mandates and
timetables.
 Identify and lay the intellectual foundations that will allow the agency
to address current environmental challenges and challenges that it will face over
the course of the next several decades.
 Determine the main environmental problems on the US environmental-
research landscape.
 Sustain and continually rejuvenate a diverse inhouse scientific research
staff—with the necessary laboratories and field capabilities—to support the
agency in its present and future missions and in its active collaboration with
other agencies.
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