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The article reports on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) adjustment of a smog standard to White House preference. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review the standards for six major pollutants including soot and ozone. Stephen Johnson, the Administrator of the EPA tightened the secondary standard which is intended to protect "human welfare," a broadly defined phrase in the Clean Air Act that includes effects on soil, vegetation, visibility and property. The measurement of the secondary and primary standard for ozone is described.

This article reports on environmentalism in the U.S. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed such a cap-and-trade system last year, it argued that it was the most effective way to cut back the 48 tons of mercury, a known neurotoxin, emitted nationwide each year. Coal-fired power plants are responsible for about 40% of all mercury emissions in the U.S., making them the largest single source. No federal rules on mercury from power plants are in place yet, although EPA determined in 2000 that regulation was appropriate and necessary.

The article focuses on the regulatory controversy heading toward Susan Dudley's inbox concerning the toxic legacy of lead pollution in the U.S. The controversy highlights on the cost versus benefits in the proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientific advisers to tighten the implementation of air-quality standard for lead, lowering the permissible level from 1.5 µg/m3 to 0.2 µg/m3. The standard of lowering lead amount is proposed to cope up with the lowered intelligence quotient (IQ) among children exposed with lead. Various methods to reduce lead content in the air were considered, depicting the initiative to eliminate contaminated soil from along the road or renovate old house

The article presents information related to the change in process of reviewing health standards for six of the most widespread and dangerous air pollutants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The decision was announced by officials of EPA in the first week of December 2006. According to the officials the decision is designed to speed the notoriously slow process of revising these standards. National Ambient Air Quality Standards of EPA have enormous consequences, influencing the regulation of vehicles, industry, and agriculture in many ways. Barbara Boxer, Democratic Senator from California and new chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said that the changed review process is a dangerous turn.

The article focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which is planning to loosen reporting rules for chemicals on its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) list. Under EPA regulations, companies must tell the agency every year how much of 666 chemicals on the TRI they release to the environment. Under a revised rule, EPA will increase the reporting thresholds and only require reports every 2 years. Those changes will make it harder for the public to track dangerous chemicals, argues the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in Washington, D.C., including five chemicals EWG says, by EPA's own rules, should be subject to even stricter reporting thresholds.

This article focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency accepts data from controversial studies that deliberately dose human volunteers with pesticides. EPA stopped considering such data in December 2001, after the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group challenged them as unethical. A review by the National Academy of Sciences recommended that EPA accept the results of certain human tests if they met strict scientific and ethical criteria. Meanwhile, CropLife America, a Washington D.C.-based industry trade group, had sued EPA arguing that the moratorium was illegal, and in 2003 a judge agreed.

This article reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has asked experts to help it assess the health dangers of a common chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). PFOA and related chemicals are used to make nonstick and stain-resistant coatings, including Teflon. EPA officials trying to assess PFOA's risks also face a host of technical issues, says Charles Auer, director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, including how to compare blood levels in humans and animals.