November 16, 2007

EPA Delivers Performance and Accountability Report

EPA yesterday released the Agency’s Performance and Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2007. Among the report’s FY 2007 performance highlights:

-Through EPA’s Energy Star program, consumers saved more than $14 billion on their energy bills by purchasing more than 300 million energy-saving labeled products, constructing almost 200,000 Energy Star new homes, tracking and improving the energy use of over 30,000 commercial buildings, and reducing energy use at hundreds of industrial facilities.
-The twelve most significant enforcement actions EPA took in FY 2007 will result in an estimated 507 million pounds of reduced, treated, or eliminated sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and particulate matter (PM). An estimated $3.8 billion human health benefits from emissions reductions will result in fewer premature deaths, non-fatal heart attacks, and reduced incidence of bronchitis and asthma attacks.

-EPA exceeded its Superfund targets by controlling unacceptable human exposures from site contamination for current land and/or groundwater use conditions at an additional 13 sites and by controlling the spread of contaminated groundwater at 19 additional sites.

-Under EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, permits implementing standards for industrial sources, municipal treatment plants, and storm water prevented discharge of 37 billion pounds of pollutants into waterways.

-To support homeland security, EPA increased the number of guidelines for acute chemical exposure to 218, providing valuable short-term exposure limits applicable to a wide range of extremely hazardous substances. This information is important for local first responders in dealing with accidental and deliberate releases of hazardous chemicals and represents an additional 33 chemicals for which exposure guidelines have been developed.

-Working through its Federal Electronics Challenge Program– a voluntary partnership of 18 federal agencies committed to the environmentally sound acquisition, use, and disposal of electronic products - in FY 2006, EPA encouraged the decrease in federal use of hazardous materials by at least 2.8 million pounds, the conservation of 452 billion BTUs of energy, and the savings of $11.4 million (data substantially finalized in FY 2007).

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