Environmental Protection Agency

During the late 1990s, the EPA under the administration of President WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON pursued diverse goals with mixed results. One of its most noted efforts involved ambitious enforcement of the Clean Air Act through the New Source Review (NSR) program, which saw the EPA requiring industries to install new anti-pollution equipment. The administration also sued about fifty power companies for violations. But frequently the agency's plans met with resistance and litigation from industry. Plaintiffs successfully challenged EPA regulatory authority over such matters as setting drinking water targets for chloroform, requiring ethanol minimums in reformulated gasoline, and mandating certain regional electric car sales.

Under President GEORGE W. BUSH, the EPA shifted its approach on some issues. The agency proposed to roll back its predecessor's air pollution regulations. But the agency backed down after public criticism over its apparent readiness to scuttle standards for arsenic levels in drinking water, and in 2000 it also released data critical of the administration's laissez-faire policy toward global warming. Moreover, in 2001, the EPA continued to pursue the agency's decades-old Superfund case against General Electric Co., seeking to have the company pay for a $360 million project to dredge contaminated sediment from the Hudson River.

The Environmental Protection Agency is available online at <www.epa.gov> (accessed July 18, 2003).