U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created on December 2, 1970, during the presidency of Richard Nixon. The EPA was created in response to increased concern over environmental pollution. Its mission is “to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment — air, water, and land — upon which life depends. For more than thirty years, the EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people.”
Question
Besides providing environmental protection, what does the EPA do?
The EPA is involved in everything from regulating auto emissions to cleaning up toxic waste, banning the use of potentially dangerous pesticides, protecting the ozone layer, and increasing recycling efforts. The EPA leads the nation's environmental science, research, education, and assessment efforts.
Federal employment benefits in the EPA are among the best available. The EPA is committed to paying people well and providing progressive incentives and excellent benefits. They are more or less the same as others mentioned in this chapter. For instance, you may carry forward 240 hours (six weeks) of annual leave to the next year. The EPA's method of accumulating vacation and sick leave is a little different. It works as follows:
Four hours of annual leave (vacation time) per pay period for the first three years of service
Six hours of annual leave per pay period for three to fifteen years of service
Eight hours of annual leave per pay period for more than fifteen years of service
You will earn sick leave at a constant rate regardless of the length of service
Four hours of sick leave per pay period (regardless of length of service), with all hours carrying forward
There are more than 18,000 employees of the EPA. These men and women protect the nation's natural environment in order to protect people's health and conserve our country's natural wonders for future generations to enjoy. The EPA protects America's resources through regulations, research, and education.
The EPA works with private-sector industries, nonprofit organizations, and state, local, and tribal governments to fulfill its mandate. More than 50 percent of its employees are engineers, scientists, and policy analysts. Others specialize in legal and public affairs or finance and information technology.
There are ten regional offices, each with responsibility for several states and territories. These regional EPA labs focus on research and testing involving environmental impacts, enforcement, and more.
