Environment and water as well as public health issues in Singapore today are overseen by the Ministry of the Environment and its two statutory boards — the National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Public Utilities Board (PUB). In law, a statutory board is an autonomous government agency established by an act of Parliament that specifies the purpose, rights, and powers of the body. The NEA and PUB have been formed under the National Environment Agency Act and the Public Utilities Act respectively.

The National Environment Agency Act outlines the functions, duties, and powers of the NEA. The functions and duties of the NEA include monitoring, reducing, and preventing pollution, ensuring high standards of public cleanliness through the supervision of cleansing services and the prevention of littering, ensuring high standards of public health through vector control and research on vector-borne diseases as well as licensing food outlets, managing and regulating refuse collection and disposal, promoting resource efficiency, and the provision of meteorological services.

NEA administers the Environmental Protection and Management Act (EPMA), which provides a comprehensive legislative framework for the control of environmental pollution and the promotion of resource conservation. The EPMA was previously known as the Environmental Pollution Control Act (EPCA). The EPCA was amended and renamed the EPMA on 1 January 2008 to provide for additional provisions on the protection and management of the environment and resource conservation. The EPCA came into operation on 1 April 1999 and consolidated previous separate laws on air, water, and noise pollution, and hazardous substances control. In addition, NEA administers legislations under the Hazardous Waste (Control of Export, Import and Transit) Act, which governs hazardous waste. NEA also administers the Environmental Public Health Act (EPHA) and the Control of Vectors and Pesticides Act). Together, these Acts provide the legislative framework for ensuring high standards of public health and cleanliness. The EPHA covers areas such as public cleansing, refuse disposal, industrial waste, food establishments and hawker centres, and sanitary conditions.

The Public Utilities Act outlines the functions, duties, and powers of the PUB in relation to water. The functions and duties of the PUB include providing an adequate supply of water, regulating the supply of piped water for human consumption, supplying industrial and treated used water, and operating the public sewer systems and storm water drainage systems.