This group is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is perhaps best known as the Agency that also houses the National Weather Service. Our job is basically to provide forecasts to protect people, and to make sure that the environment is protected well. This is the mandate given to us by Congress. As a part of the federal bureaucracy, we take the mission provided by Congress very seriously, and strive to ensure that we make use of all available methods to inform the public of the work we are doing. This is why we rely so heavily on the Internet.
NOAA was founded by President Nixon in 1970, at the same time as he founded the EPA. There is a lot of collaboration between NOAA and the EPA. The Air Resources Laboratory (of which we are a part) was set up much earlier, however. The history of ARL goes back to the time soon after World War 2, when concerns first started to arise about air pollution and its transport from one place to another.
There are about 150 people working in ARL, spread across all of our Divisions. We have Divisions in Nevada, Idaho, Maryland, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Please let us know if any other questions come to your mind.
Bruce Hicks
Director, ARL