Aztec Level 3 Unit 1

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Recommended: Industrial pollution and its effects

1. The overall mission of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is “to protect human health and environment” (EPA, 2017). One of the main jobs of the EPA is to implement environmental laws written by congress by writing regulations. The EPA sets nationwide standards that states and their regulations and the enforcement of them. In order to successfully regulate environmental laws, the EPA helps educate companies of the requirements. The EPA overviews the enforcement of The Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is a comprehensive federal law which regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources (EPA, 2017). The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQSs) in order to protect …show more content…

The EPA also monitors numerous other toxic pollutants in order to improve the health of United States citizens and ensure them that they live in a safe country. After the establishment of The EPA and Clean Air Act in 1990, the EPA has greatly helped in the amendment of The Clean Air Act in 1977. The 1977 amendment was created to further enforce NAAQSs and make them more easily attainable. (EPA, 2017) The act was amended again in 1990 once the EPA began to understand the dangers related to industrial pollution. The amendment set a goal of protecting the ozone layer, reducing acid rain as well as other related toxic pollutants, and improving air quality and visibility. In order to enforce the regulations created by congress, the EPA commonly becomes involved in law cases stating the regulations and punishments for businesses and individuals not following rules set forth by the Clean Air Act. (EPA, …show more content…

Trump has already started cutting programs aimed at slowing climate change and improving water and air quality. Trump’s budget cuts for the EPA will ultimately eliminated 3,000 U.S. jobs and eliminating an estimated 19% of the EPA’s total staff (Letzter, 2017). With the recent change in presidential administration, Trump has recently appointed the new head of the EPA Scott Pruitt. Pruitt is a former state attorney general for Oklahoma, and has actually gone against EPA emission regulations in the past. Pruitt’s beliefs change the overall perception of the EPA. Although the EPA has been very focused on anthropogenic climate change studies in the past, Pruitt does not believe in anthropogenic climate change. His beliefs are already reshaping the importance of climate change to the EPA. Overall, Trump will cut the EPA’s annual budget from about 8.2 billion dollars to 6.1 billion dollars. These cuts will lead to a lack of funding for many projects currently in place in the Great Lakes, San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, and the Gulf of Mexico (Letzter, 2017). All of these projects are related to the study of air and water quality around the country. Ultimately, Trump’s EPA budget cut will also lead to less power for the EPA to monitor and enforcement compliance with environmental laws and will

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