The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploration, and managing fishing and protection of marine mammals and endangered species in the US exclusive economic zone. The agency is part of the United States Department of Commerce and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.
Chemical waste is any excess, unused, or unwanted chemical. Chemical waste may be classified as hazardous waste, non-hazardous waste, universal waste, or household hazardous waste, each of which is regulated separately by national governments and the United Nations. Hazardous waste is material that displays one or more of the following four characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity. This information, along with chemical disposal requirements, is typically available on a chemical's Safety Data Sheet (SDS). Radioactive and biohazardous wastes require additional or different methods of handling and disposal, and are often regulated differently than standard hazardous wastes.
The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is the head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and is thus responsible for enforcing the nation's Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, as well as numerous other environmental statutes. The administrator is nominated by the president of the United States and must be confirmed by a vote of the Senate.
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing dams, dikes, and other controls for streams and shorelines; and recovering valuable mineral deposits or marine life having commercial value. In all but a few situations the excavation is undertaken by a specialist floating plant, known as a dredger.
The U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards are limits on atmospheric concentration of six pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, and other health hazards. Established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under authority of the Clean Air Act, NAAQS is applied for outdoor air throughout the country.
Atrazine is a chlorinated herbicide of the triazine class. It is used to prevent pre-emergence broadleaf weeds in crops such as maize (corn), soybean and sugarcane and on turf, such as golf courses and residential lawns. Atrazine's primary manufacturer is Syngenta and it is one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States, Canadian, and Australian agriculture. Its use was banned in the European Union in 2004, when the EU found groundwater levels exceeding the limits set by regulators, and Syngenta could not show that this could be prevented nor that these levels were safe.
The Principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) establish rules and criteria for a quality system that oversees the organizational processes and conditions in which non-clinical health and environmental safety studies are planned, conducted, monitored, recorded, reported, and archived. These principles apply to the non-clinical safety testing of substances found in various products to ensure the quality and integrity of the safety data submitted to regulatory authorities globally.
NOAAS Rude was an American Rude-class hydrographic survey ship that was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1970 to 2008. Prior to her NOAA career, she was in commission in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1967 to 1970 as USC&GS Rude. She was named for Gilbert T. Rude, former Chief of the Division of Coastal Surveys of the Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Lisa Perez Jackson is an American chemical engineer who served as the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2009 to 2013. She was the first African American to hold that position.
The Ocean Survey Vessel (OSV) Bold was operated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Originally commissioned as the USNS Vigorous, it was renamed USNS Bold (T-AGOS-12) and was a Stalwart-class Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance ship of the Military Sealift Command of the United States Navy, as designated by the "T" preface to her AGOS classification. Stalwart-class ships were originally designed to collect underwater acoustical data in support of Cold War anti-submarine warfare operations in the 1980s.
The United States produced 5.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020, the second largest in the world after greenhouse gas emissions by China and among the countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person. In 2019 China is estimated to have emitted 27% of world GHG, followed by the United States with 11%, then India with 6.6%. In total the United States has emitted a quarter of world GHG, more than any other country. Annual emissions are over 15 tons per person and, amongst the top eight emitters, is the highest country by greenhouse gas emissions per person.
Reorganization Plan No. 3 was a United States presidential directive establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), effective December 2, 1970. The order, published in the Federal Register on October 6, 1970, consolidated components from different federal agencies to form the EPA, "a strong, independent agency" that would establish and enforce federal environmental protection laws.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) is a national laboratory that conducts research and development to find improved methods, measurements, and models to assess and predict exposures of humans and ecosystems to pollutants and other conditions in air, water, soil, and food. It is one of three national laboratories that conduct research for EPA's Office of Research and Development. NERL is also responsible for testing and establishing new Federal Reference Methods (FRM) and Federal Equivalent Methods (FEM). NERL is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC, and has locations in North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia and Nevada.
Ballast water discharge typically contains a variety of biological materials, including plants, animals, viruses, and bacteria. These materials often include non-native, nuisance, exotic species that can cause extensive ecological and economic damage to aquatic ecosystems. Ballast water discharges are believed to be the leading source of invasive species in U.S. marine waters, thus posing public health and environmental risks, as well as significant economic cost to industries such as water and power utilities, commercial and recreational fisheries, agriculture, and tourism. Studies suggest that the economic cost just from introduction of pest mollusks to U.S. aquatic ecosystems is more than $6 billion per year.
The second USS Crockett (PGM-88/PG-88) was a Asheville-class gunboat in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.
The Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) is Victoria’s environmental regulator. EPA is an independent statutory authority, established in 1971 under the Environment Protection Act 1970. EPA's role is to prevent and reduce the harmful effects of pollution and waste on Victorians and their environment.
Since its establishment in 1958, NASA has conducted research on a range of topics. Because of its unique structure, work happens at various field centers and different research areas are concentrated in those centers. Depending on the technology, hardware and expertise needed, research may be conducted across a range of centers.
This timeline of events related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) includes events related to the discovery, development, manufacture, marketing, uses, concerns, litigation, regulation, and legislation, involving the human-made PFASs. The timeline focuses on some perfluorinated compounds, particularly perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and on the companies that manufactured and marketed them, mainly DuPont and 3M. An example of PFAS is the fluorinated polymer polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which has been produced and marketed by DuPont under its trademark Teflon. GenX chemicals and perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS) are organofluorine chemicals used as a replacement for PFOA and PFOS.
Roxanne L. Johnson is an American chemist specialized in developing and applying quantitative methods to determine nutrients, organic and inorganic carbon and total suspended solids in estuarine seawater systems. She works for the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
