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Four days before leaving office, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman released EPA's "Draft Report on the Environment" on June 23, 2003. Whitman said, "Using the most sophisticated science ever, we have developed a comprehensive roadmap to ensure that all Americans have cleaner air, purer water and better protected land. This report is an important tool that will be useful for generations to come."
The report utilizes scientific data collected by more than 30 federal agencies, departments, states, tribes and non-governmental organizations to benchmark the state of the nation's environment. The report was commissioned by Whitman in November 2001 and represents the first time that the EPA has presented a national evaluation of U.S. environmental quality and human health. The EPA evaluated U.S. environmental quality using five categories: air, water, land protection, human health and ecological condition.
According to the report:
- Air - Emissions of six principal air pollutants have decreased by nearly 25 percent over the last 30 years. Despite this progress, challenges remain in attaining health based-standards for ozone and particulate matter, in improving visibility, and in understanding the nature and magnitude of indoor air pollution.
- Water - Discharges of pollutants to surface water have been reduced and the quality of drinking water has improved. Polluted runoff, landscape modification, and the aging of both wastewater and drinking water infrastructures present challenges that need to be addressed further.
- Land Protection - The release of certain toxic chemicals declined by 48 percent between 1988 and 2000 and waste management practices have improved. However, the rate of land development increased by 150 percent since the 1980s.
- Human Health - The health of the American public is generally good and improving. However, further research is required to evaluate links between some environmental pollution and health problems.
- Ecological Condition - There is a need to develop indicators that describe ecological condition at the national level.
"In presenting this Report, we are providing a picture of what we know - and equally important what we don't know - about the condition of our nation's environmental and human health. We have made much progress over the past 30 years, but there is still more to be done. This draft report is a stepping stone toward helping EPA identify future data and research needs, and we are already putting that knowledge to work," said Whitman.
Prior to release of the report, an editorial in The New York Times elicited controversy by claiming that the climate change section of the draft was subject to "heavy handed censorship" by the White House. "By the time the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget finished with it and hammered the EPA into submission, a long section on the risks posed by rising global temperatures was reduced to a noncommittal paragraph," according to a June 20 editorial in The New York Times.
The administration defended the report and the process by which it was developed. Whitman said that she was "perfectly comfortable" with the edited version. The document is a draft and remains subject to further review and revision.
The report is part of EPA's Environmental Indicators Initiative, which improves the agency's capacity to identify priority areas of national concern. EPA's "Draft Report on the Environment" and information about the Environmental Indicators Initiative is available online at www.epa.gov/indicators.
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