Around the same time, President Nixon also created a council in part to consider how to organize federal government programs designed to reduce pollution, so that those programs could efficiently address the goals laid out in his message on the environment.
Following the council’s recommendations, the president sent to Congress a plan to consolidate many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency, a new Environmental Protection Agency. This reorganization would permit response to environmental problems in a manner beyond the previous capability of government pollution control programs:
The EPA would have the capacity to do research on important pollutants irrespective of the media in which they appear, and on the impact of these pollutants on the total environment.
Both by itself and together with other agencies, the EPA would monitor the condition of the environment--biological as well as physical.
With these data, the EPA would be able to establish quantitative "environmental baselines"--critical for efforts to measure adequately the success or failure of pollution abatement efforts.
The EPA would be able--in concert with the states--to set and enforce standards for air and water quality and for individual pollutants.
Industries seeking to minimize the adverse impact of their activities on the environment would be assured of consistent standards covering the full range of their waste disposal problems.
As states developed and expanded their own pollution control programs, they would be able to look to one agency to support their efforts with financial and technical assistance and training.
环保局将有能力对重要污染物进行研究，无论它们出现在何种介质中，以及这些污染物对整个环境的影响。
环境保护局将自己和其他机构一起监测环境状况——生物和物理环境。
有了这些数据，环保局将能够建立定量的“环境基线”——这对于充分衡量污染减排工作的成败至关重要。
美国环保局将能够与各州合作，制定和执行空气和水质以及个人污染物的标准。
寻求将其活动对环境的不利影响降至最低的行业将确保其废物处理问题的所有方面都有一致的标准。
随着各州制定和扩大自己的污染控制计划，他们将能够指望一个机构通过财政、技术援助和培训来支持他们的努力。
