Epa Begins Identifying Key Issues For Transition To Next Administration

摘要

An EPA official says the agency is ramping up efforts to assist the incoming administration by identifying key issues at the agency, including climate change, wetlands jurisdiction, air quality standards and reform of the new source review emission control rules. One issue the transition team will likely engage even before the next President takes office is an already controversial EPA effort to revise its air quality standards for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which the agency is expected to release before the Jan. 21 inauguration, Lesley Schaaff, director of policy and regulatory analysis in EPA's Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, told the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) in Washington Oct. 22. The office is also developing information and data for the post-election, pre-inauguration "parachute team," which will report back to the president-elect as it works with agency officials during the transition, according to an EPA official at the meeting. Efforts include a database that compiles input from program offices on "hot topics" at the agency, as well as a transition team, which is headed up by senior career officials and is working with deputies at the regional offices and in agency offices, to "make it a smooth transition," the official said. Schaaff, who is familiar with the agency transition team, said offices at the agency - including major programs like the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Office of Water, Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances and the Office of Air and Radiation - are providing different perspectives on high-profile issues.