Role of EPA Regions in Community Environmental Health Collaborations

As part of the panel on New Support for Community-Based Environmental Health Initiatives, this presentation will discuss the vital role EPA Regional offices can play in enabling collaborations to succeed. Following a brief introduction of how EPA Regional offices are structured and their role within EPA, the presentation will discuss how Regional offices can bring critical resources to the table, including technical expertise, information on environmental conditions and standards, relationships with State regulators, skills as convenors and facilitators, and in some cases limited “seed money”. Regional offices can help mediate the tension that exists between the imperatives of sensitivity to local conditions and the need to adhere to nationally consistent standards—a tension which has been described as “the paradox of environmental protection”. Regional offices can work with other Federal, State and local government agencies and with private sector and nongovernmental partners to pool resources and address community concerns which are beyond the scope of EPA's authorities. Similarly, the collaboration with other organizations such as CDC and associations of State and local environmental and public health officials is essential to EPA Regions in determining how to achieve progress toward environmental goals in particular communities and measuring whether progress is actually being achieved. Finally, EPA Regions can in appropriate situations deploy the regulatory tools of permitting and enforcement available to EPA.