Does the EPA have a list of the nation's major environmental issues?

Question

I went to their site and read each of the topics in the "Learn the Issues" tab but, is there a list that the EPA deems to be the most important issues that need to be dealt with?

Answer 1

The US EPA mandate is quite broad as are the range of environmental issues. The issues aren't really amenable to such a list because it is subjective to decide what is 'major' except in very broad terms. Major could mean greatest risk or it could mean of greatest importance to address soon. Those could be different things, for example, carbon dioxide emissions are high risk but difficult to address whereas an industrial site with leaky chemical drums might have only a local risk but need dealing with right away to contain the problem.

The 'Learn the issues' tab gives the important areas in a general sense; you could look at the EPA organisation chart to see where they are putting their resources.

For the specific case of pollution from old industries, The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund) maintains the National Priorities List (NPL) for sites needing cleanup.

Answer 2

I worked at the U.S. EPA for 27 years. The EPA is primarily organized along statutory programs (legislation passed by Congress that EPA must implement) such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, etc. The EPA's budget is generally organized along those same lines. I am unaware of any statutory requirements for the EPA to identify national multimedia programs/problems in any type of ranked list. The closest you'll get to identifying important issues is to look at the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) which generally has responsibility for ensuring compliance with all of the statutory requirements, but even within OECA, most compliance and enforcement is organized along statutory lines with some multimedia integration. OECA, working with the states, review compliance issues (that the states might be missing or unwilling to address) and identifies National Enforcement and Compliance Issues. See: https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/national-enforcement-and-compliance-initiatives. You can find current initiatives and past initiatives and the results of those initiatives. Most of EPA's budget goes to the states to implement their programs and to go to revolving funds for infrastructure programs. EPA doesn't have a sufficient budget to meet statutorily mandated requirements (such as reviewing CAA NSPS regulations every 8 years to determine if the standards need to be revised to be more stringent based on technological advances) much less identify or rank issues in a manner not required by any statute. EPA does try to provide oversight of state programs but its ability to impact the states programs to ensure they properly enforce the laws is limited.

Answer 3

You may want to check out things like the EPA Superfund site, the EPA Current and Past Emergency site, or the EPA Milestones site. I think if you identified a certain type of environmental discipline (e.g. air, water, hazardous waste, etc.), you could find more specific materials.