“environmental!”

independent agency in the executive branch charged with controlling and abating environmental pollution. The EPA maintains separate programs dealing with air and radiation, water, solid waste, and pesticides and toxic substances. Among the agency's principal tasks are establishing pollution control standards, regulating the discharge of certain materials, issuing permits for the treatment or disposal of hazardous waste, monitoring air and water quality, administering the so-called "Superfund" for the cleanup of toxic waste sites, tracking the transport of hazardous compounds, registering insecticides and similar chemical treatments, and generally providing regulatory guidance to industry and other federal agencies. Although the EPA encourages voluntary compliance with federal environmental laws, it has authority to enforce regulations where violations occur. It maintains regional offices in 10 major U.S. cities in an effort to cooperate with state and local authorities in carrying out its mission.

popularly Superfund created a trust fund ($1.6 billion) to be used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the cleanup of toxic waste sites. Any party responsible for creating or contributing to a dangerous toxic dump site was made subject to government suit and liable for damages, the compensation to be used to replenish the fund. Within two years the EPA was itself the target of congressional investigation, as various “sweetheart” deals (financially beneficial arrangements) between the EPA and polluters were discovered and many hazardous waste sites remained untouched. In 1986 the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) (codified throughout 42 U.S.C § 9601 et seq.) was signed, substantially increasing the size of the fund ($8.5 billion), establishing a new tax on corporations (particularly those in the chemical industry), and adding more controls to the EPA's management of the fund and the government's cleanup efforts.

established a national Council on Environmental Quality to oversee government activities that could affect the environment and required federal agencies to file environmental impact statements before taking any major action. The law was intended to help “maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony” and, as such, has been labeled by the courts an “environmental full disclosure law.” It has often been left to the courts to rule on the accuracy of impact statements that have been contested by environmental or neighborhood groups.

: an act that is destructive to the environment and that has been criminalized by statute

: a technical report that details the effect proposed legislation or action will have on the natural and human environment and that is sometimes required to be furnished especially by a governmental body (as an administrative agency or a municipality) for official and public review in the regulatory and decision-making process