United States background

The FDA is headed by the Commissioner of Food and Dmgs. This position is not a Cabiaet-level office but falls within the PubHc Health Service (PHS), a division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The post of FDA Commissioner is subject to HHS pohtical clearance and Senate confirmation, and the Commissioner is ultimately accountable to HHS, Congress, and the President of the United States. The Commissioner has a staff to assist ia poHcy making and several deputy commissioners to oversee operation of ah. the subordinate units. FDA has six regional offices within the country, each responsible for a section of the country, and 21 district offices. Persons with technical background typicahy work ia one of FDA s chemistry laboratories or as investigators or consumer safety officers. 

Treatment Technology Background Document, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 1989. 

Background Converting coal to combustible gas has been practiced commercially since the early nineteenth century. The first gas-producing companies were chartered in 1812 in England and in 1816 in the United States to produce gas for illumination oy the heating or pyrolysis of coal. This method of producing gas is still in use the gas is a by-product of the carbonization of coal to manufacture coke for metallurgical purposes. 

For administrative purposes, it is desirable that the boundaries of an air quality control region be the same as those of major political jurisdictions. Therefore, when the first air quality control regions were officially designated in the United States by publication of their boundaries in the Federal Register, the boundaries given were those of the counties all or part of which were within the background concentration isopleth. 

Atmospheric fluxes of lead in the United States rose steadily from the first decades of this century, reaching a maximum in the early 1970s (see Eisenrich et al., 1986 and references therein). Passage of the Clean Air Act of 1972 and its subsequent amendments resulted in dramatic reductions in atmospheric lead concentrations, although lead fluxes worldwide still remain 10-1000 times background levels (Settle et al, 1982 Settle and Patterson, 1982). 

BACKGROUND AND ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURES TO METHYL PARATHION IN THE UNITED STATES... 

This volume benefits from the contributions of 22 outstanding scientists from the United States, Brazil, and five European countries who are well known for then-competence, sound backgrounds, and personal research experience in food science and technology and related fields such as biophysics, biochemistry, biotechnology, analytical chemistry, quality management, and food safety. 

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI 1981) conducted a survey of transuranic radionuclides in the terrestrial environs of nuclear power plants in the United States in 1978-1979. The plants included two pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and two BWRs that were of modem design and had been in operation at least 3 years. The 241 Am air concentrations around all of the power plants were extremely low and indistinguishable from fallout background... 

Information is available on the levels of241 Am in soil and sediment in areas affected only by global fallout, at DOE installations and other nuclear facilities, as well as sites of nuclear explosions and accidents (Alberts et al. 1989 Bennett 1979 Cooper et al. 1994 DOE 1980 Pattenden and McKay 1994 Robison et al. 1997a, 1997b Sanchez et al. 1996). 241Am levels in soil around nuclear power plants in the United States were indistinguishable from fallout background (EPRI 1981). 

NCRP, Exposure of the Population in the United States and Canada from Natural Background Radiation, Report 94, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, Bethesda, MD, 1987. 

Phenol has been detected in surface waters, rainwater, sediments, drinking water, groundwater, industrial effluents, urban runoff, and at hazardous waste sites. Background levels of phenol from relatively pristine sites can be as high as 1 ppb for unpolluted groundwater and have been reported to range from 0.01 to 1 ppb in unpolluted rivers (Thurman 1985). Phenol has been detected in Lake Huron water at 3-24 ppb (Konasewich et al. 1978) and industrial rivers in the United States at 0-5 ppb (Sheldon and... 

---