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.
Koch,Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita,Kansas,and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States,after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacturing,refining,and distribution of petroleum,chemicals,energy,fiber,intermediates and polymers,minerals,fertilizer,pulp and paper,chemical technology equipment,cloud computing,finance,raw materials trading,and investments. Koch owns Flint Hills Resources,Georgia-Pacific,Guardian Industries,Infor,Invista,KBX,Koch Ag &Energy Solutions,Koch Engineered Solutions,Koch Investments Group,Koch Minerals &Trading,and Molex. The firm employs 122,000 people in 60 countries,with about half of its business in the United States.
The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland,Michigan,United States. The company was among the three largest chemical producers in the world in 2021. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc.,a publicly traded holding company incorporated under Delaware law.
William Doyle Ruckelshaus was an American attorney and government official.
Carol Martha Browner is an American lawyer,environmentalist,and businesswoman,who served as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011. Browner previously served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. She currently works as a Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group,a global business strategy firm.
Perfluorooctanoic acid is a perfluorinated carboxylic acid produced and used worldwide as an industrial surfactant in chemical processes and as a material feedstock. PFOA is considered a surfactant,or fluorosurfactant,due to its chemical structure,which consists of a perfluorinated,n-heptyl "tail group" and a carboxylic acid "head group". The head group can be described as hydrophilic while the fluorocarbon tail is both hydrophobic and lipophobic.
Environmental Defense Fund or EDF is a United States-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group. The group is known for its work on issues including global warming,ecosystem restoration,oceans,and human health,and advocates using sound science,economics and law to find environmental solutions that work. It is nonpartisan,and its work often advocates market-based solutions to environmental problems.
Thomas Coleman du Pont was an American engineer and politician,from Greenville,Delaware. He was President of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company,and a member of the Republican Party who served parts of two terms as United States Senator from Delaware.
William Kane Reilly was Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H. W. Bush. He has served as president of World Wildlife Fund,as a founder or advisor to several business ventures,and on many boards of directors. In 2010,he was appointed by President Barack Obama co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling to investigate the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Dow AgroSciences LLC was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company specializing in not only agricultural chemicals such as pesticides,but also seeds and biotechnology solutions. The company was based in Indianapolis,Indiana,in the United States. On 31 January 2006,Dow AgroSciences announced that it had received regulatory approval for the world's first plant-cell-produced vaccine against Newcastle disease virus from USDA Center for Veterinary Biologics. Dow AgroSciences operates brand names such as Sentricon,Vikane,Mycogen®,SmartStax®,Enlist™,Pfister Seed®,PhytoGen®,Prairie Brand Seed®,Alforex Seeds®,Profume,Dairyland Seed®,and Brodbeck Seed®.
Within seconds of the collapse of the World Trade Center in the September 11 attacks,building materials,electronic equipment,and furniture were pulverized and spread over the area of the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. In the five months following the attacks,dust from the pulverized buildings continued to fill the air of the World Trade Center site. Many New York residents have reported symptoms of Ground Zero respiratory illnesses.
Uma Chowdhry was an American chemist whose career was spent in research and management positions with E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. She specialized in the science of ceramic materials,including catalysts,proton conductors,superconductors and ceramic packaging for microelectronics.
Thomas M. Connelly Jr. is an American business executive with a focus on chemical engineering. In February 2015,he succeeded Madeleine Jacobs as chief executive officer and executive director of the American Chemical Society.
Linda Jane Fisher was a Vice President Safety,Health and Environment and Chief Sustainability Officer of DuPont.
Ellen J. Kullman is a United States business executive. Since November 2019,she has been the chief executive officer of Carbon (company). She was formerly Chair and Chief Executive Officer of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company ("DuPont") in Wilmington and is a former director of General Motors. Forbes ranked her 31st of the 100 Most Powerful Women in 2014. Kullman retired from DuPont on October 16,2015.
Jessie Ball duPont was an American teacher,philanthropist and designated a Great Floridian by the Florida Department of State.
James L. Gallogly is a former American university administrator and retired business executive who was the 14th President of the University of Oklahoma. He has held executive positions with ConocoPhillips,ChevronPhillips and Phillips Petroleum,and is a former Chief Executive Officer of LyondellBasell. Gallogly joined the DuPont board of directors in February 2015. He became the 14th president of the University of Oklahoma,on July 1,2018 serving for nine months and two weeks before he retired May 12,2019.
DuPont de Nemours,Inc.,commonly shortened to DuPont,is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in the development of the U.S. state of Delaware and first arose as a major supplier of gunpowder. DuPont developed many polymers such as Vespel,neoprene,nylon,Corian,Teflon,Mylar,Kapton,Kevlar,Zemdrain,M5 fiber,Nomex,Tyvek,Sorona,Corfam and Lycra in the 20th century,and its scientists developed many chemicals,most notably Freon (chlorofluorocarbons),for the refrigerant industry. It also developed synthetic pigments and paints including ChromaFlair.
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.
Robert Bilott is an American environmental attorney from Cincinnati,Ohio. Bilott is known for the lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs injured by chemical waste dumped in rural communities in West Virginia. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). They were unregulated as industry had never publicly identified them as having known hazardous effects,despite internal studies showing these results.
