The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is celebrating 40 years on December 2, 2010. To commemorate their anniversary, Green For All, a national organization dedicated to building a green economy, launched ThankYouEPA.com. The site lists several of EPA’s more important accomplishments and encourages Americans to share those successes through social media tools like Facebook and Twitter.

EPA’s actions have….

• • Reduced 60% of dangerous air pollutants in the air we breathe.
• • Prevented 205,000 premature American deaths in 1990 alone by providing cleaner air, and prevented hundreds of thousands more in subsequent years.
• • Saved Americans more than $55 million in water and sewer bills in 2008.
• • Cleaned more than 2,000 American rivers and lakes that were identified as impaired in 2002.
• • Prevented 18 million American child respiratory illnesses in 1990 alone by providing cleaner air, and prevented millions more in following years.
• • Increased recycling in American families and businesses that went from recycling about 10% of trash in 1980 to more than 33% in 2008.
• • Increased the number of Americans receiving water that met health standards from 79% in 1993 to 92% in 2008.

Several accomplishments important to the biofuels industry include the implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) that set the goal of using 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022. The EPA also announced a historic ruling last month in which they approved the use of E15 in conventional vehicles manufactured after 2007.