EPA
The national site for EPA provides a gateway to all levels of public information from the EPA. EPA also has a climate change policy web site of great current interest.
The US Congress maintains an excellent site called Thomas in which copies of the bills under discussion in the House and Senate appear.
An experimental Search the U.S. EPA Internet Site is available with references to many other EPA sources for example a full text search of the Federal Register Environmental Documents. Each of the regional EPA sites has a home page with information relevant to their region.
For Washington the EPA's Region 10 Homepage provides a starting point for their local news and appears to be an active site for the public.
A Browse of EPA Topics provides quick entry points into their organization of enviromental issues.
Indoor Air
Lots of public informational material, technical reports, and educational resources are available from the EPA's Indoor Air Quality Program. You can also get the full text of the book Indoor Air Quality: the Inside Story.
A good source of recent research news, especially energy conservation and its impacts on indoor air is the Indoor Environment Program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has a monthly on-line newsletter describing research on residential indoor aiq quality. For school air quality, the University of Minnesota has an excellent site, including many useful links.
Environmental Health/Occupational Safety
The US Deparment of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provides information on workplace environmental standards, as does Health and Human Service's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a part of the Center for Disease Control, maintains a wealth of information on various diseases, carcinogens, mutagens, and other substances of concern to those with an interest in environmental health.This is the agency primarily responsible for the animal toxicity testing program. A similar international organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies carcinogenicity of substances (and exposure situations) based on expert scientific review of human and animal data. Their site contains classification of all substances reviewed by IARC as well as a description of their classification procedure.
A private professional organization, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), annually publishes a list of Threshold Limit Values (TLVs). The largest industrial hygiene professional association, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), publishes a journal and holds annual conferences. The International Occupational Hygiene Association gives a global perspective to the issue.
Department of Energy
Department of Energy provides a OEPA Website from their Office of Environmental Policy and Assistance. In their words: "We develop DOE-wide environmental protection policies and strategies for protecting the public and the environment and for achieving environmental compliance with internal and external environmental requirements" This site offers browsing and download capabilities of orginal regulatory text and supporting Federal Register documents as well as analysis and comments. The navigation buttons at the bottom of the page are essential. Try the "Policy&Guidance" Button.
White House
on Energy Policy
US Department of Energy, Energy
Information Administration
Edison Electric Institute
MIT Center for Energy and Environmental
Policy Research
SF Gates (San Francisco Chronicle)
on the California Energy Crisis
NW Power Planning Council
US Fish and Wildlife Service,
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA)
Treaties and International Agreements
International treaties and agreements can be found at the Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators Service (ENTRI) site and is sponsored by the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) All treaty text is on-line. You can ask about parties, start date, enforcement and other details. For example you can ask when the Convention on the Continental Shelf was adopted (29th-APR-58) and when was it entered into force (10-JUN-64).
There are many active think tanks, non-profits and other groups monitoring, summarizing and influencing environmental policy.
PoE's list of local and regional NGOs
The Committee for the National Institute for the Environment is the home of the online National Library for the Environment, which houses the largest collection of Congressional Research Service reports on the web (550 and counting).
The National Center for Policy Analysis maintains a site with a section on environmental issues with their positions, opinions and research.
Resources for the Future, a DC think tank provides analysis and debate on many current environmental issues including at present global climate policy.
The Society for Risk Analysis and the International Society of Exposure Analysis provide information about environmental risk/exposure analysis job opportunities, events and conferences.
The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis focuses on the reasoned exploration of all sources of human health risk and management of risks.
Harvard's Burden of Disease Unit seeks to design, test, and implement methodologies that will aid in the effective allocation of health resources by collaboration with the World Bank, World Health Organization and other groups around the world.
Environmental Damage Valuation and Cost-Benefit News brings you the latest information about valuation of environmental assets from the courts, government agencies, academic publications and unpublished reports.
There is a wealth of information about environmental estrogens and their impact on human and ecosystem health at the following sites: World Wildlife Fund of Canada, and Tulane.
The Committee for the National Institute for the Environment is a national non-profit focusing on improving the basis for environmental decision making.
The New
York Times maintains a global
warming site.
Vanderbuilt Center for Environmental Management Studies - Publications and Research
Comments, Feedback and Suggestions for other sites contact: Alison Cullen
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