Environmental Health: Opportunities for Greater Focus, Direction, and Top-Level Commitment to Children's Health at EPA Page: 3 of 12

                                
in the 10 years since the Executive Order was signed. The committee cited
successes, such as increased margins of safety for pesticides mandated
under the Food Quality Protection Act and the creation of the National
Children's Study. However, the Advisory Committee also expressed
serious concerns about EPA's continued lack of focus on children's
environmental health issues and the lack of progress in addressing the
committee's many recommendations. In the intervening years, children's
environmental health has become no less pressing. In fact, 66 percent of
children lived in counties where air exceeded one or more of the six
principal pollutants. Two of them-ozone and particulate matter-are
known to cause or aggravate respiratory diseases such as asthma.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
asthma is the third most common cause of hospitalizations for children,
resulting in $3.2 billion for treatment and 14 million days of school lost
annually.
In light of concerns about EPA's focus on children, you asked that we
assess the agency's consideration of children's environmental health. This
statement summarizes highlights from our report being released today that
addresses the extent to which EPA has institutionalized the protection of
children's health from environmental risks through (1) agency priorities,
strategies, and rulemakings, including implementation of Executive Order
13045; (2) the use of key offices and other child-focused resources, such as
the Office of Children's Health and the Advisory Committee; and (3)
involvement in federal interagency efforts to protect children from current
and emerging environmental threats.2 To perform this work we, among
other things, interviewed officials from multiple EPA program offices most
directly involved with children's health issues; reviewed key EPA
children's health-related policies, strategic and performance plans, and
guidance documents; analyzed regulations subject to the regulatory
requirements of the Executive Order; and identified the accomplishments
of the Task Force.
In preparing this testimony, we relied on our work supporting the
accompanying report. That report contains a detailed overview of our
scope and methodology. All of our work for this report was performed in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
2GAO, Environmental Health: High-level Strategy and Leadership Needed to Continue
Progress toward Protecting Children from Environmental Threats, GAO-10-205
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 28, 2010).

GAO-10-545T

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