"In an unprecedented step aimed at protecting children from toxic chemicals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce plans Monday to determine whether industrial pollution taints the air outside schools across the nation. The EPA plan, promised by new administrator Lisa Jackson during her Senate confirmation hearings in January, calls for regulators to identify 50 to 100 schools where pollution might pose significant health risks. At many of those locations, the agency will work with state and local regulators to monitor the air for a variety of toxic chemicals. The agency could begin taking air samples within five weeks and may release some results within a few months. The cost of the effort is expected to be about $2.5 million and will be funded 'through redirecting resources from the current budget as well as from the next fiscal year,' says EPA spokesman Allyn Brooks-LaSure. 'This is a priority.'"
