Two MHC Students React to EPA Head Carol Browner

MHC students Deirdre Lyons '02 (left) and Laurel Moulton '01 ( right) with EPA Administrator Carol Browner following her public address at Chapin Auditorium September 13.

The Environmental Protection Agency will celebrate its thirtieth birthday April 22, 2000. For its head administrator, Carol Browner, there are many reasons to look back with pride, as well as reasons to work even harder in the next millennium.

During Browner's address at MHC on September 13, she discussed the agency's progress in making the American environment safer. She also brought to the audience's attention the ways in which the EPA's efforts are under siege. For example, Browner spoke at length about the EPA's complicated scientific and public review of the country's clean-air standards. Despite what Browner termed "the incredible process" involved in the EPA's pursuit to toughen these standards, a court ruling has prevented the agency from moving forward with its recommendations to the fifty states. If the EPA's recommendations had been adopted, the agency estimates that 15,000 premature deaths a year would be prevented in the United States.

According to Browner, the court's ruling did not fault the EPA's science or methods (the agency reviewed more than 5,000 scientific studies and papers, and a subsequent critique of the EPA's appraisal of these materials was conducted by top-tier experts) or its public review, which included twenty-four congressional hearings. Instead, the judges agreed with the suing party that the EPA had overstepped its boundaries as a regulatory agency, arguing that the U.S. Congress should be responsible for legislation in this area. The ruling could be a major setback for the EPA, as well as many other governmental agencies like it. "The real danger will be if the decision is left to stand," noted Browner, who does not believe that it will. She pledged to move forward with the improvement of air quality through the agency's upcoming work surrounding sports utility vehicles' tailpipe emissions.

Although the most recent battle over particulate matter (soot) and ozone pollution levels has been temporarily lost, Browner has gained ground in other areas. Children's health is one example. Browner has paid significant and long-overdue attention to the effects environmental pollutants have on children's developing bodies. Browner established the Office for Children's Health Protection, a clearinghouse for research on children's health. She is also initiating studies that include children, pregnant women, and the elderly as subjects--going beyond the usual research pool of middle-aged males--in her agency's assessment of acceptable pollution levels.

In an interview before her speech, Browner expressed her interest in developing longitudinal studies tracing children's reactions to pollutants, beginning with effects experienced as a fetus and continuing until age twenty. The studies would be the first of their kind for children. In addition to working to protect America's children, in her address, Browner also noted her efforts to ensure that members of the public be informed about environmental issues affecting local communities. Her "right to know" laws have required industries to report the number and type of toxins that may be in their air and water emissions.

Browner is a proponent of community knowledge and involvement in environmental issues, saying, "if you give people the information and let them digest it, they will make much better decisions than we could make for them." Is the American public interested in the state of their environment? Since Browner came to the EPA, the office's Web site has seen a jump from 600,000 hits a year to 48 million hits in one recent month.

In her conclusion, Carol Browner urged students to consider careers in public service. Stating that each of us should "give something back to the country that gave us everything," Browner follows her own advice.

With so many campus opportunities--such as those offered by the Weissman Center for Leadership, the Center for Environmental Literacy, and the many student environmental organizations--Mount Holyoke students have ample means to become involved.

Deirdre Lyons '02 and Laurel Moulton '01, who serve on the Steering Committee of the Center for Environmental Literacy, prepared this report.

Photograph by Nancy Palmieri