EPA Health Promoting Health Through

EPA Health

Promoting Health Through Environmental Protection:

The EPA as a Public Health Organization

Promoting and protecting the health of its citizens is, quite obviously, one of the major concerns of any effective society and government. To that end, various offices, agencies, and organizations have been created to combat and prevent the unnecessary spread of disease and unhealthy situations and conditions on both the international and national scale. The World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control are two of the most obvious modern examples; both of these agencies are specifically concerned with analyzing health trends and factors that cause or promote disease, and combating medical conditions whenever possible. The identity of the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, as a public health-minded organization is somewhat less obvious, but the role that the EPA plays in protecting and promoting the health of the public in the United States is, in actuality, quite large and very necessary.

The main purpose of the Environmental Protection Agency is fairly evident in the organization's name, but the implications and interactions of its efforts to regulate and protect the environment are far more complex and extensive than the name at first suggests. Established in 1970 with the primary task of repairing environmental damage where it had already occurred and preventing undue damage from industry and other sources -- with a debatable level of success -- the EPA is an independent office of the federal government (EPA 2009). Though it has regional offices across the nation, it does not have dedicated state or local branches, nor is it officially connected through organizational structures to other federal or state offices, which allows the EPA to retain its independence of purpose and decision making (EPA 2009).

That being said, the Environmental Protection Agency does work closely with many other organizations and offices, both directly and indirectly, in promoting public well being (HHS 2009). In addition, most states have their own Environmental Protection Agencies, and though these are not run by or affiliated with the federal EPA, efforts between and amongst the agencies are often highly coordinated (EPA 2009; HHS 2009). This does not mean that the federal EPA leaves situations to the various state and local agencies either, but rather it provides its own system of regulations and remedies in addition to whatever the various state and local agencies and organizations implement. The majority of the direct actions taken by the EPA in the area of public health are limited to preventative measures, mandating certain guidelines for clean air and water and enforcing these guidelines through rewards and penalties as needed (EPA 2009). Certain findings of the EPA can also lead to action by various health organizations when evidence of adverse effects on public health from environmental factors are observed and causality is legally determined (EPA 2009; HHS 2009).

Primarily, however, the function of the Environmental Protection Agency is to regulate the effects of people and companies on the environment. This includes the monitoring of pollution levels from various industries and individual operations, and determining minimum safety levels of certain pollutants in regards to public health (EPA 2009). In order to maintain these guidelines, the EPA has also been given latitude in imposing penalties and even ordering cessation of activities that result in unsafe levels of pollutants, though usually such actions must be enforced through the court system (Peterson 2009).

The essential functions of the EPA, namely the determination of minimum safety levels for environmental contaminants and the monitoring and enforcement of these minimum safety levels, must be carried out in close tandem with the scientific community. Information -- and often conjecture -- on what is and what is not healthy or how much of an environmental contaminant can be allowed while maintaining public health is in constant flux, and is often a matter of great debate (UCS 2009). Though the EPA employs a large number of scientists on its own, of course, it is also in constant dialogue (and many times in argument) with the larger scientific community (UCS 2009). As a governmental agency, independent though it is, the EPA's primary function is limited by economic and sometimes political expediency, which often puts it at odds with various other forces at work in society (UCS 2009).

This can lead to different views regarding the actual constituency served by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, depending on the level of cynicism of one's perspective. Ostensibly, the federal EPA serves the citizens of the United States of America in entirety, developing and enforcing certain guidelines meant to protect the environment for the purpose of maintaining and promoting public health (EPA 2009). There are many instances however, including several ongoing issues, that suggest the EPA serves certain political, economic, and even corporate interests receive disproportionate attention and perhaps concessions form the EPA (Peterson 2009; UCS 2009). In general, though, the EPA is concerned with large-scale environmental public health concerns for all (EPA 2009).

The EPA's structure is relatively simple, especially compared with many other governmental agencies. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has ten regional offices throughout the United States (EPA 2009). In addition, the EPA has over a dozen independent laboratories used to analyze environmental pollutants and their spread and effect, providing many sources of ultimately highly centralized information (EPA 2009). The internal organization of the EPA is slightly more complex, with several administrative, scientific, and practical offices working as discrete units within the cohesive whole of the federal EPA (EPA 2009). Each of these separate offices and departments work under the auspices of the Office of the Administrator, which sets policy and coordinates the various disparate activities of the individual sections of the EPA (EPA 209). Other important offices include the Off ice of Air and Radiation, the Office of Environmental Information, the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, and of course the essential Chief Financial Officer and their staff (EPA 2009).

Adequate funding of the EPA is essential to its effective performance of its duties. Without enough money to carry out proper and extensive environmental testing, there is very little that the EPA can do to determine proper minimum safety standards, let alone detect, correct, and punish violations of established guidelines. This is a possible explanation for the apparent discrepancies in the EPA's carrying out of its stated duties -- funding for the EPA comes solely form the federal budget, incorporated into the rest of the budget requests for the Executive Branch of the federal government and sent to Congress annually for approval (EPA 2009). This can make planning difficult, as the budget can change drastically from year to year, and also explains the politicization of the EPA's actions as many of its enforcement abilities would severely limit the activities of industries with heavy lobbying campaigns at work in Congress.