CRS Issue Statement on Environmental Management and Policy

Robert Esworthy, Coordinator
Specialist in Environmental Policy


Without an organic statute, an enduring issue for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been to find consistent policies and managerial approaches to the disparate programs established by the media-specific and other statutes it administers. Key common elements of these statutes vary (e.g., in their standards for protection, provisions for enforcement, and federal-state relationships).


These statutory variations, and EPA's administrative efforts to implement environmental policies and programs, have consequences not only for the individual environmental protection programs, but also for broader public policy issues—including overarching environmental concerns, as well as energy, transportation, climate change, public lands, and natural resources. Congress has addressed tensions arising from statutory variability and EPA's policies and management approaches, as well as their implications for broader or related issues, through appropriations language; in specific provisions of energy, transportation, and other statutes; and through congressional oversight.


Date of Report: January 6, 2010
Number of Pages: 3
Order Number: IS40276
Price: $7.95

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