In 1996, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report entitled "Environmental Health Threats to Children," which acknowledged that children are at particular risk from pollution because their systems are still developing, their organs and tissues are immature and more vulnerable, and their immune systems are weaker. In addition, children eat and drink more than adults do in proportion to their body size, breathe more air per pound of body weight, and play outside more. Children are also the least able to recognize environmental hazards and protect themselves from them. Some of the common environmental risks to children's health are lead-based paint in older homes; air pollution, which along with other health problems is thought to be causing an increasing incidence of asthma in children; hazardous microbes in drinking water; and chemicals that represent a cancer risk or interfere with the development of children's bodies.

The EPA report established the National Agenda to Protect Children's Health from Environmental Threats (Children's Health Agenda), which outlines the EPA's role in protecting the health of children. The Children's Health Agenda instructs the EPA to:

- ensure that EPA standards provide heightened protection for children when necessary;

- develop a strategy for conducting scientific research that will provide information on the susceptibility of children to pollutant exposure;

- develop policies that address children's cumulative and simultaneous pollutant exposures;

- provide public information that allows families to make informed decisions regarding the exposure of their children to pollutants and to protect them from pollutant exposures;

- educate healthcare providers and environmental professionals about ways to identify, prevent, and reduce environmental health threats to children; and

- provide funding necessary to make children's environmental health a top priority among other health risks.

In 1997, President Clinton signed the Executive Order on the Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks. The order directed all federal agencies to make children's health and safety a top priority in agency research, regulation, and decisionmaking. The order also created the Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children, which is co-chaired by the Administrator of the EPA and the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The work of the task force was continued for an additional 18 months by an executive order of President Bush in 2001.

Also in 1997, the EPA established the Office of Children's Health Protection to support and facilitate the EPA's activities in carrying out the Children's Health Agenda. EPA activities to fulfill the Executive Order and the Children's Health Agenda also include the establishment of new air quality standards for fine particulate matter, which can be inhaled deeply into the lungs and cause lung damage and reduced lung function in adulthood; new drinking water standards; and new standards for pesticides used on food.

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