Overview

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passes the half century mark, the public is largely apathetic towards the need for environmental protections. Today’s problems are largely invisible, and to many people’s eyes, the environment looks like it’s doing just fine. The crippling smog and burning rivers of yesteryear are just a memory. In addition, Americans are repeatedly told that the EPA is hurting the economy, destroying jobs, and intruding into people’s private lives. The truth is far more complicated. The War on the EPA: America’s Endangered Environmental Protections examines the daunting hurdles facing the EPA in its critical roles in drinking water, air and water pollution, climate change, and toxic chemicals. This book takes the reader on a journey into some of today’s most pressing environmental problems: toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, pervasive agricultural pollution, dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, and widespread air and water pollution from use of fossil fuels. Delving into the science, politics, and human dimension of these and other problems, the book illustrates the challenges of regulation through the EPA's first fifty years, how today’s war on science is undermining the scientific foundation upon which the agency’s legitimacy rests, and why a strong U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is more important than ever before.

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9781538190951

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Reviews

"In TheWar on the EPA, William M. Alley and Rosemarie Alley present an engaging and complex narrative to explain some of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s greatest struggles in regulating air, water, and ground contamination, tracing especially the most recent challenges stemming from the war on science. * H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online * Highly Recommended . . . Readers should underscore every sentence in this book . . . [Alley and Alley] unfold in chapter after chapter the ways in which regulations, negative attitudes about science, incompetence, and the public’s general unawareness of what is in their tap water are all problematic. * Choice Reviews * . . . the Alleys provide another smartly written text full of fact-based fervor . . . [whipping] through events in American history that will make readers cringe with horror . . . A fully sourced, clarion call for action that many will respond to. * Booklist * The Alleys have written a well-re­searched, articulate, and wide-rang­ingsurvey of environmental issues spanning the entire history of the agency. They combine William’s sci­entific expertise (he was chief of the Office of Groundwater for the U.S. Geological Survey) with Rosemarie’s professional writing skills to offer the reader a very fine and fluid narrative through technically and legally dense subject matter. It would be great sup­plemental material for an environ­mental policy or law course. Lawyers looking for a broader perspective, beyond their specialty, and a brief history of environmental regulations and the battles over same, would also benefit. * The Environmental Forum: Journal of the Environmental Law Institute * The War on the EPA is a war on science, the environment, and public health -- as William and Rosemarie Alley’s engaging new book carefully documents. It’s a must-read for scientists, advocates, policymakers, and citizens committed to safeguarding the integrity of our nation’s premier environmental protection institution. -- Senator Tom Udall If you care about the health of American families and the future of your children, then read this book. It will make you stand up, shout out, and take action to defend science and the EPA at a time when we are losing the battle against life-threatening pollution. -- Gina McCarthy, former U.S. EPA Administrator (2013-2017) The terms the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act have become firmly entangled into the modern (post World War II) American lexicon. For some they represent government doing the right thing in the face of, very often overwhelming odds. For others they evoke feelings of the Federal government overreaching and overregulating. Nevertheless, the history of how the EPA and those two sentinel acts came into being, and how the interpretation of those acts has been influenced by one president after another is not well understood by the average American. The War on the EPA puts those histories under the microscope and into sharp focus. It is at the same time an easy read and a profound historical resource, and has earned a place on my bookshelf. Highly recommended! -- Alan S. Kolok, Director, Idaho Water Resources Research Institute, Author of ""Modern Poisons"" (2016) and ""Twist"" (2019) Accessible yet detailed, science-based yet politically-savvy, factual yet gripping, The War on the EPA assembles the government agency's history, the toxic tragedies that prompted its creation, the people who made it work, and, sadly, the people who try to undermine and dismantle this protector of our air, land, and water. It presents a vital account beneath profit and material prosperity. What use are they if our skin breaks out in rashes, our water brings cancer, and our children are born malformed with lower IQs? This book is a timely resource to remedy our situation, more valuable now than ever. -- Joshua Spodek, PhD MBA, host of the Leadership and the Environment podcast and author of ""Initiative"" A well-researched chronicle of environmental and human health threats we have overcome, and face given the current administration’s simplistic environmental policy of “reverse everything the Obama EPA did.” We have only one environment. EPA as the agency created to protect and restore our environment must be driven by accurate science, not politics or corporate profits. Science matters. Truth matters. Persistence matters. This book provides the proof. -- Jon Mueller, Vice President for Litigation, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc."

Author Information

William (Bill) M. Alley, PhD, is an internationally-recognized authority on groundwater and an environmental science writer. He was chief, Office of Groundwater for the U.S. Geological Survey for almost two decades. Alley has interacted with the EPA in numerous ways for more than 40 years and his experiences allow for an objective, critical look at the agency. Rosemarie Alley is a freelance writer with extensive writing and public speaking experience. Bill and Rosemarie previously collaborated on Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste (2013) and High and Dry: Meeting the Challenges of the World’s Growing Dependence on Groundwater (2017). The Alley’s currently live in Leesburg, VA.

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