Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks
President: Bill Clinton
Required agencies to prioritize environmental health and safety risks that may disproportionately affect children and to analyze covered major rules.
Status: In effect as amended.
Is Executive Order 13045 still in effect? Yes. Active as amended; federal agencies continue to cite it in rulemaking and the interagency task force remains operating.
What does Executive Order 13045 do?
EO 13045 directed federal agencies to identify and address disproportionate environmental health and safety risks to children. It created an HHS–EPA interagency task force, coordinated research and statistics, and required specified analyzes for economically significant rules involving risks that may disproportionately affect children. Later orders extended and amended the task force. Agencies, including EPA, continue to cite the order in current rulemaking.
Before and after
Before the order
Agencies had program-specific child-health duties but no equivalent government-wide order coordinating research, statistics and regulatory analysis.
After the order
Children’s disproportionate risks became an explicit cross-government priority and a recurring part of covered regulatory reviews.
Who had to do what
| Agency / office | Action | Timing / position |
|---|---|---|
| All covered agencies | Identify and address disproportionate risks to children | Continuing |
| HHS and EPA | Co-chair the interagency task force | Continuing |
| Rulemaking agencies | Provide child-risk evaluation and alternatives explanation to OIRA | For covered actions |
| OMB | Convene the child and family statistics forum | Continuing framework |
What happened next
EO 13045 established the policy and task force.
EO 13229 extended the task force.
EO 13296 further amended the order.
Legal and source detail
How it works legally
The order applies within agency missions and existing law and expressly creates no enforceable private right. Substantive standards must rest on the agency’s governing statute and administrative record.
Sources by type
If a source is unavailable, first check the cited publisher or another official repository. The cited publisher remains the authority.
Primary and official sources
Orders, laws, court records and official implementation material.
- GovInfo — EO 13045 (opens in a new tab) Order text
- EPA — children’s health policy and plan (opens in a new tab) Official record
How we checked this
Last checked against the sources above on September 14, 2026. How we research →