Ten years of addressing children's health through regulatory policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
BACKGROUND
Executive Order (EO) 13045, Protection of Children From Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks, directs each federal agency to ensure that its policies, programs, activities, and standards address disproportionate environmental health and safety risks to children.


OBJECTIVE
We reviewed regulatory actions published by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Federal Register from April 1998 through December 2006 to evaluate applicability of EO 13045 to U.S. EPA actions and consideration of children's health issues in U.S. EPA rulemakings.


CONCLUSIONS
Although virtually all actions discussed EO 13045, fewer than two regulations per year, on average, were subject to the EO requirement to evaluate children's environmental health risks. Nonetheless, U.S. EPA considered children's environmental health in all actions addressing health or safety risks that may disproportionately affect children.


CONCLUSIONS
The EO does not apply to a broad enough set of regulatory actions to ensure protection of children's health and safety risks, largely because of the small number of rules that are economically significant. However, given the large number of regulations that consider children's health issues despite not being subject to the EO, other statutory requirements and agency policies reach a larger set of regulations to ensure protection of children's environmental health.
Payne-Sturges
Devon
D
Office of Children's Health Protection and Environmental Education, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20460, USA. payne-sturges.devon@epa.gov
Kemp
Debra
D
D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States; D014484:United States Environmental Protection Agency