Drinking Water Unreliable State Data Limit Epa S Ability To Target Enforcement Priorities And Communicate Water Systems Performance

The nation's drinking water is among the safest in the world, but contamination has occurred, causing illnesses and even deaths. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the EPA has authorized most states, territories, and tribes to take primary responsibility for ensuring that community water systems provide safe water. This report assessed the: (1) quality of the state data EPA uses to measure compliance with health and monitoring requirements of the act and the status of enforcement efforts; (2) ways in which data quality could affect EPA's management of the drinking water program; and (3) actions EPA and the states have been taking to improve data quality. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find publication.

"The nation's drinking water is among the safest in the world, but contamination has occurred, causing illnesses and even deaths. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has authorized most states, territories, and tribes to take primary responsibility for ensuring that community water systems provide safe water. EPA needs complete and accurate data on systems' compliance with SDWA to conduct oversight. GAO was asked to assess the (1) quality of the state data EPA uses to measure compliance with health and monitoring requirements of the act and the status of enforcement efforts, (2) ways in which data quality could affect EPA's management of the drinking water program, and (3) actions EPA and the states have been taking to improve data quality. GAO analyzed EPA audits of state data done in 2007, 2008, and 2009, and surveyed EPA and state officials to obtain their views on factors that have affected data quality and steps that could improve it."

Drinking Water: Unreliable State Data Limit EPA's Ability to Target Enforcement Priorities and Communicate Water Systems' Performance

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.

Nearly everyone accepts as gospel two assumptions: compliance with environmental rules is high, and enforcement is responsible for making compliance happen. Both are wrong. In fact, serious violations of environmental regulations are widespread, and by far the most important driver of compliance results is not enforcement but the structure of the rule itself. In Next Generation Compliance, Cynthia Giles shows that well-designed regulations deploying creative strategies to make compliance the default can achieve excellent implementation outcomes. Poorly designed rules that create many opportunities to evade, obfuscate, or ignore will have dismal performance that no amount of enforcement will ever fix. Rampant violations have real consequences: unhealthy air, polluted water, contaminated drinking water, exposure to dangerous chemicals, and unrestrained climate-forcing pollution. They also land hardest on already overburdened communities - that's why Next Gen and environmental justice are tightly linked. The good news is there are tools to build much better compliance into regulations, including many tested strategies that can be the building blocks of programs that withstand the inevitable pressures of real life. Next Generation Compliance shows how regulators can avoid the compliance calamities that plague far too many environmental rules today, a lesson that is particularly urgent for regulations tackling climate change. It has an optimistic message: there are ways to ensure reliable results, if regulators jettison incorrect assumptions and design rules that are resilient to the mess and complexity of the real world.

"Hey, Doc--Got a Minute?" No matter where Dr. Richard Besser goes, a day doesn't go by without someone stopping him to ask that question. Often, that person is one of the millions who have come to rely on the vital information he shares on Good Morning America, World News with Diane Sawyer, and Nightline. Now, in response to thousands of inquiries from viewers, Dr. Besser has written his first book -- a comprehensive health guide that will both inform and surprise as he deciphers fact from fiction for nearly seventy confusing medical questions, including: "Should I take a daily aspirin to prevent a heart attack, stroke, or cancer?" "If my doctors order a lot of tests, does that mean they're more thorough?" "Do I need thirty minutes of exercise a day to stay healthy?" Recognizing the astonishing amount of misinformation that many important health decisions are based upon, Dr. Besser's commitment to delivering the truth is critical. He isn't afraid to challenge the status quo -- or the interests within the health care industry -- to provide the knowledge you need to take control of your health. Eager to help you make the choices that are right for YOU, he organizes his easy-to-understand answers into six lifestyle categories, including diet and nutrition; exercise and fitness; vitamins, supplements, and medicines; beating illness and injury; and navigating the perplexing world of health care, as well as a chapter dedicated to the questions you wished you asked before your doctor walks out the door. Throughout the book, Dr. Besser smashes myths while translating invaluable information into problem-solving advice you can use, including a "Dr. B's Bottom Line" at the end of each topic. As accessible as it is empowering, Dr. Besser's Tell Me the Truth, Doctor is a necessary addition to every home, office, and dorm room. "Besser . . . ably analyzes popular myths (the "Freshman Fifteen"), considers pros and cons (HRT and statins), and mostly takes unequivocal stands on the issues. . . . Quite often, his comments and suggestions surprise . . . Particularly helpful are his guidelines for avoiding the harmful effects of health care and hospitalization." -- Publishers Weekly Richard Besser, MD, ABC News' Chief Health and Medical Editor, provides medical analysis and commentary for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms, including World News with Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America, and Nightline, as well as many other news/entertainment programs. Since joining ABC News in 2009, Dr. Besser has been at the forefront of news coverage for every major medical story, including the earthquake in Haiti and the Japanese radiation release. He was the leading correspondent on ABC's global health series, Be the Change, Save a Life, and received a 2011 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his World News story on cord blood banking. Besser came to ABC News from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he worked for thirteen years, including as acting director from January to June 2009, during which time he led the CDC's response to the H1N1 influenza outbreak. He has taught and trained doctors at the University of California, San Diego and is a visiting fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. Most important, for more than twenty-five years he has practiced medicine, giving his patients and their families straightforward, commonsense advice.

An updated and passionate second edition of a foundational book. How did environmental law first emerge in the United States? Why has it evolved in the ways that it has? And what are the unique challenges inherent to environmental lawmaking in general and in the United States in particular? Since its first edition, The Making of Environmental Law has been foundational to our understanding of these questions. For the second edition, Richard J. Lazarus returns to his landmark book and takes stock of developments over the last two decades. Drawing on many years of experience on the frontlines of legal and policy battles, Lazarus provides a theoretical overview of the challenges that environmental protection poses for lawmaking, related to both the distinctive features of US lawmaking institutions and the spatial and temporal dimensions of ecological change. The book explains why environmental law emerged in the manner and form that it did in the 1970s and traces how it developed over sequent decades through key laws and controversies. New chapters, composing more than half of the second edition, examine a host of recent developments. These include how Congress dropped out of environmental lawmaking in the early twenty-first century; the shifting role of the judiciary; long-overdue efforts to provide environmental justice to disadvantaged communities; and the destabilization of environmental law that has resulted from the election of Presidents with dramatically clashing environmental policies. As the nation’s partisan divide has grown deeper and the challenge of climate change has dramatically raised the perceived stakes for opposing interests, environmental law is facing its greatest challenges yet. This book is essential reading for understanding where we have been and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead.