The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal 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. The agency is led by its administrator,who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. The current administrator is Michael S. Regan. The EPA is not a Cabinet department,but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington,D.C.,regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions,and 27 laboratories. The agency conducts environmental assessment,research,and education. It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws,in consultation with state,tribal,and local governments. It delegates some permitting,monitoring,and enforcement responsibility to U.S. states and the federally recognized tribes. EPA enforcement powers include fines,sanctions,and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts. The agency's budgeted employee level in 2023 is 16,204.1 full-time equivalent (FTE). More than half of EPA's employees are engineers,scientists,and environmental protection specialists;other employees include legal,public affairs,financial,and information technologists. Many public health and environmental groups advocate for the agency and believe that it is creating a better world. Other critics believe that the agency commits government overreach by adding unnecessary regulations on business and property owners.
The Dow Chemical Company,officially Dow Inc.,is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland,Michigan,United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world.
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-octyl "tail group" and a carboxylate "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.
Stephen Lee Johnson is an American politician who served as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President George W. Bush during the second term of his administration. He has received the Presidential Rank Award,the highest award that can be given to a civilian federal employee.
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.
W. Michael McCabe is an American policy advisor specializing in environmental and energy policy. He had previously served as a Regional Administrator,and later Deputy Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),being the only person in the Agency's history to serve as both. Between 2003 and 2006,McCabe consulted for DuPont and led DuPont’s defense against an EPA lawsuit of the toxic PFAS chemical PFOA. In November 2020 he was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team.
The health effects arising from the September 11 attacks refers to the illnesses and negative health effects experienced by survivors of the terrorist attacks. Within seconds of the collapse of the World Trade Center,building materials,electronic equipment,and furniture were pulverized and spread over the area of the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.
Thomas M. Connelly Jr.,born in Toledo,Ohio in June 1952,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.
Archie W. Dunham is the former chairman emeritus and former independent non-executive chairman of Chesapeake Energy in Oklahoma City. He served as president and chief executive officer of Conoco Inc. from January 1996 to August 2002,then as chairman of ConocoPhillips,following the merger of Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum Company,until his retirement on September 30,2004.
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 ten months 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 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.
James Ray Fitterling is an American business executive. He is the Chairman and CEO of Dow Inc.,Fitterling serves as vice chair of the National Association of Manufacturers, and on the boards of the American Chemistry Council and the U.S.-China Business Council. The first board-appointed out CEO of a Fortune 100 company;he was ranked the world's top LGBT executive by the Financial Times in 2018.
Dark Waters is a 2019 American legal thriller film directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The story dramatizes Robert Bilott's case against the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont after they contaminated a town with unregulated chemicals. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott,along with Anne Hathaway,Tim Robbins,Bill Camp,Victor Garber,Mare Winningham,William Jackson Harper,and Bill Pullman.
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.
