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This article deals with issues relating to priority setting at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). When EPA was established in 1970, the most pressing environmental problems in the U.S. were soot and smoke from cards and smokestacks, and raw sewage and chemicals from municipal and industrial waste water. Since 1970, the nation has done much to abate the most visible form of pollution, but there is still much unfinished business. Moreover, problems have been discovered or have risen in importance, such as indoor radon, global climatic change from the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, acid precipitation, and hazardous waste. The complexity and scope of these issues make it particularly significant that EPA apply its finite resources where they will have the greatest effect. Choosing which environmental programs to emphasize should be viewed as an attempt to maximize the health and ecological benefits from the public and private resources that EPA can command. In principle, the environmental agency should analyze its set of investment opportunities in terms of their relative impacts on public health and the environment. A variety of factors combine to make such priority setting difficult. One major difficulty stems from the multiple statutory goals governing the agency. EPA administers nine major statutes, which contain a multitude of goals and prescriptions. INSET: Highlights of How EPA Experts Rank Environmental Risks.

Offers news briefs related to the environment. Formation of the National Institute for the Environment; Handling of criminal environmental cases by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice; Recycling program instituted by Goodwiill; Others.

Questions how clean is clean when speaking of the clean up of Superfund sites. Congressional efforts to define clean; A new definition by the EPA which has some concerned that the cleanups may not be thorough; The two major questions about cleaning up wast sites, one of which is who is paying for it; Pressure on the EPA from industry to relax standards; Argument of industries that tough cleanup standards have been obstacles to cleanup; Lack of federal funding to help; Second strategy of industry to avoid the costs of cleanup; Details of the law.

Reports on the growing environmental enforcement power of the United States' Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as of 1987. Practice of some U.S. companies to pollute and face a fine rather than clean up an effluent or emission, while others even devised elaborate schemes to get rid of wastes illegally; With expanded criminal enforcement powers the EPA is no longer limited to penalizing faceless corporations, now deputized EPA agents can bring individuals such as company presidents to justice; Criminal enforcement of environmental offenses.

Presents an overview of government efforts in the United States to resolve environmental problems in the country in 1982. Enactment of laws on environmental protection; Establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970; Budget allocation for pollution control in 1981.