Browner gives glimpse of new EPA approach
The Environmental Protection Agency needs to replace its piecemeal approach to regulation with a holistic one, integrating the various environmental laws into a comprehensive plan, says new EPA chief Carol Browner. You can't ignore water when you're talking about the air, she says. The agency needs the flexibility to incorporate new scientific knowledge into programs and avoid the bizarre, unintended consequences of ridigly focusing on environmental laws written 10 or 15 years ago, when our knowledge was X but is now X + Y she says. Acknowledging the need to fix the Superfund program, Browner says, it is not inappropriate to reach a point in a program where new knowledge is brought to the table to be updated. With an emphasis on a cross-media and cross-agency approach, Browner plans to confer monthly with the heads of the Department of Energy, Agriculture, and the Interior. In an interview with reports, Browner repeated her emphasis on pollution prevention. After 21 years of environmental laws, now numbering 13, she says no one would say we've done all we can to protect the environment. The way of doing that is by going upstream through pollution prevention. The author hopes we can really change how we think about environmental protection and prevent pollution from happening in the first instance.
- OSTI ID:
- 6898201
- Journal Information:
- Chemical Week; (United States), Journal Name: Chemical Week; (United States) Vol. 152:7; ISSN CHWKA9; ISSN 0009-272X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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293000* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Policy
Legislation
& Regulation
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
LAWS
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
POLLUTION ABATEMENT
POLLUTION LAWS
RESOURCE RECOVERY ACTS
US DOE
US EPA
US ORGANIZATIONS
US SUPERFUND