The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency closed 2005 by celebrating a $16.5 million settlement with chemical giant DuPont as a victory for public health. DuPont agreed to pay the record administrative penalty for keeping secret its knowledge that a chemical used to make Teflon® had seeped into the water supply of communities in Ohio and West Virginia, and into the blood streams of pregnant employees and their unborn children. In paying the fine, DuPont admitted no wrongdoing. Conversely, DuPont continues to dispute the EPA's position that it needed to report the widespread contamination of perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA. Even though DuPont executives were concerned about the discovery of PFOA in the people and groundwater around its facility, DuPont's says the chemical contamination never reached the EPA's threshold reporting criteria of creating a "substantial risk" to public health or the environment. DuPont's non-admission of guilt should be a major concern to the EPA regulators. Rather than popping corks over winning the large fine, the EPA regulators should be sharpening pencils. If DuPont can interpret the EPA's regulations differently than what the EPA intends, and thus likely will keep silent over similar future environmental contaminations, it is the EPA's duty to begin 2006 by clarifying what its regulations mean for a chemical to pose a "substantial risk" to public health. More