United States Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. federal government agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was sent to the House and Senate in accordance with the Reorganization Act of 1949, in which they had 60 days to pass a disapproval resolution or the order would take effect. Congress did not pass a disapproval resolution, and the order establishing the EPA went into effect.
The agency is led by its administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. Since January 29, 2025, the administrator is Lee Zeldin. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. There are regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions, as well as 27 laboratories around the country.
The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education. It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of U.S. environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “United States Environmental Protection Agency” as u.S. federal government agency. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as u.S. federal government agency. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q460173. VIAF identifies the subject as 64152502749410800007. The Library of Congress control number is n79079597. Authority coordinates are 38.896, -77.031. 6 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1970, 1949 and 2025.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “United States Environmental Protection Agency”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow United States Environmental Protection Agency primary sources, United States Environmental Protection Agency archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “United States Environmental Protection Agency”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “United States Environmental Protection Agency” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.