The EPA celebrates 50 years of protecting human health and the environment in the United States, on tribal lands, and around the world. As part of the 50th anniversary commemoration, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler hosted an event at EPA's headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he unveiled the new Ruckelshaus Conference Center in honor of EPA's first administrator, the late William D. Ruckelshaus, and highlighted the many accomplishments of the EPA over the past 50 years.

Since 1970, EPA has made significant progress in protecting the nation's water, cleaning up our air and land, and safeguarding human health. Historic milestones include setting the nation's air quality standards to protect human health, regulating the quality of public drinking water, creating the Superfund program to clean up hazardous waste sites, protecting children from exposure to lead-based paint, and recently, launching the first ever United States Federal Strategy for Addressing the Global Issue of Marine Litter and new, modern National Recycling Goal of 50% by 2030.