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Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act (RCA) of 1959, in the 86th Congress. Same smokestacks in 1975 after the plant was closed in a push for greater environmental protectionīeginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing public concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. Other critics believe that the agency commits government overreach by adding unnecessary regulations on business and property owners. Many public health and environmental groups advocate for the agency and believe that it is creating a better world. More than half of EPA's employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. The agency's budgeted employee level in 2022 is 14,581. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts.
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EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. states and the federally recognized tribes. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U.S.
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It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D.C., regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions and 27 laboratories. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The agency is led by its administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on Jit began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters.
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