Don’t know if anyone saw this testimony from John B. Stephenson, Director Natural Resources and Development before the Committee on Environment and Public Works back on March 17th, but it makes for interesting reading.  Here is a short excerpt -

“EPA’s Advisory Committee has raised concerns about whether the agency has continued to maintain its earlier focus on protecting children or capitalized on opportunities to tackle some significant and emerging environmental health challenges. For example, the Advisory Committee wrote to the Administrator in April 2007 to reflect on EPA’s achievements 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.”

The questions is what can we do to help?  Answer – Get involved.  The EPA has embraced the idea of social media and Web 2.0 as they tout on their website…so give them some feedback.  Tell them what they can do to protection our children.

Click here for the full text of this testimony

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