The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was introduced on December 2, 1970 by President Richard Nixon. The agency is charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. The EPA's struggle to protect health and the environment is seen through each of its official publications. These publications outline new policies, detail problems with enforcing laws, document the need for new legislation, and describe new tactics to use to solve these issues. This collection of publications ranges from historic documents to reports released in the new millennium, and features works like: Bicycle for a Better Environment, Health Effects of Increasing Sulfur Oxides Emissions Draft, and Women and Environmental Health.

In this study, discharge and loadings are empirically related to surveyed direct dollar and energy expenses. An energy I/O national model is coupled with a comprehensive Willamette River dissolved oxygen model. Costs estimated for discharges resulting from different pollution control strategies are then transformed by I/O to total energy costs. Three approaches to environmental control for the Willamette were examined. One was that of current enforcement coupled with present levels of augmentation. Another consisted of less augmentation and increased wastewater treatment. Appropriate tactics involved advanced secondary methods of treatment, regionalization of treatment plants, and yet more stringent effluent requirements for industry. The third approach consisted of increased flow augmentation for water quality control. Corresponding treatment was somewhat relaxed.