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Overview of EPA Environmental Cooperation with India
While EPA activities in India date to the early 1980s, EPA’s concerted program of environmental collaboration with India largely emerged since 2000, with a Presidential visit to India that year that included commitments to enhancing U.S.-India environmental cooperation, including specific engagement of EPA. In November 2001, a Joint Statement was issued on the occasion of the India’s Prime Minister’s meeting with the President at the White House that established an Environment Track as a new component of the U.S.-India Economic Dialogue
The initial focus of establishing a more structured program of Environmental Cooperation was the development of a five year renewable Memorandum of Understanding between EPA and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests signed during the EPA Administrator’s visit to India in January 2002. The MOU established four focus areas of cooperation: air quality, water quality, toxics and waste, and environmental governance. EPA signed a Cooperative Agreement with India’s National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) 
to further support efforts under the EPA-MoEF MOU and Environment Track of the U.S.-India Economic Dialogue.
EPA and collaborators in India have also undertaken several other activities that support our shared interest in the area of climate change. Notable are bilateral efforts that have been pursued under to key international partnership initiative in which both the United States and India are members, including the International Methane to Markets Partnership and the Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate.
During a March 2007 visit to India, the EPA Administrator and Indian Minister of Environment and Forests signed a five year extension of the EPA-MoEF MOU (PDF) (11 pp, 2.4MB, About PDF Files). In addition, efforts have been made to develop new institutional ties with other important government entities, including the Planning Commission and Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, Urban Development, Power, and Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Coal. EPA has also sought to promote engagement of private sector partners in a number of activities through engagement with various industry associations.
