The Role of Risk Analysis and Risk Management in Environmental Protection

The Role of Risk Analysis and Risk Management in Environmental Protection

Order Code IB94036
CRS Issue Brief for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
The Role of Risk Analysis
and Risk Management
in Environmental Protection
Updated March 1, 2005
Linda-Jo Schierow
Resources, Science, and Industry Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

CONTENTS
SUMMARY
MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
What Is Risk Analysis?
Views on Potential Uses of Risk Analysis
How Valuable a Tool?
Is It a Scientific Basis for Environmental Decisions?
Should It Be Used to Compare Costs and Environmental or Health Benefits?
Should Priorities Be Based on Relative Risks and Risk Reduction Opportunities?
The Information Value of Risk Analysis
Key Factors Determining the Quality of Information Provided
Quality of the Database
Risk Assessment Methods
Legislative Activity
Legislation in the 108th Congress
Legislation in the 109th Congress
LEGISLATION
CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS, REPORTS, AND DOCUMENTS
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The Role of Risk Analysis and Risk Management
in Environmental Protection
SUMMARY
At this time, it is not clear whether the
reliance on risk analysis to evaluate problems
109th Congress will consider new proposals to
and solutions related to human health and the
require environmental risk analysis or broader
environment, especially quantitative risk
regulatory reform legislation. No such legisla-
analysis, ignores other important facets of
tion was enacted by the 108th Congress.
policy decisions, such as environmental im-
However, administrative reforms promoting
pacts, timeliness, fairness, effects on demo-
risk analysis continued, building on efforts
cratic rights and liberties, practicality, moral-
begun during the 107th Congress.
ity, reversibility of effects, regulatory stability,
flexibility, or aesthetic values. Critics charge
Risk analysis is the systematic evaluation
that quantitative methods cannot assess very
of hazards and their possible effects. Views
long-term or newly discovered threats. They
on the potential uses of risk analysis differ.
also believe that quantitative cost-benefit
Although, most experts and policy-makers
analyses (which are derived in part from risk
agree that risk analysis is a valuable tool to in-
analyses) undervalue environmental and
form decisions, they disagree about the extent
health benefits, exaggerate costs, and focus on
to which risk estimates may be biased and
relatively widespread but individually small
should be allowed to influence public policies
costs and risks, rather than on much larger
to protect health and the environment.
costs and risks to smaller, and often more
vulnerable, groups. In addition, critics charge,
Some Members, many academics, and
risk analysis typically evaluates data for well-
regulated industries argue that risk analysis is
studied and relatively well-understood haz-
objective and reflects sound science. They
ards, ignoring emerging concerns about haz-
argue it should be used to target federal pro-
ards that are poorly understood.
grams to address the worst risks to health and
the environment first, to achieve risk reduc-
The quality (and value) of any risk analy-
tion in more cost-effective and flexible ways
sis depends on adequacy of data and validity
that minimize overall economic impacts, and
of method. For environmental hazards and
to ensure that risk reduction achieved by
most health and ecological effects, data are
regulations is worth the cost.
limited, methods are controversial, and conse-
quently, quantitative risk estimates are very

Other Members, some academics, and
imprecise and highly uncertain, offering little
many environmentalists argue that excessive
guidance to policy makers.

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MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
The outlook for legislation related to risk analysis that might be proposed in the 109th
Congress is unclear. In the 108th Congress, there was little legislative activity involving
environmental risk analysis or broader regulatory reform legislation. The House passed H.R.
2432, directing the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct a study
of regulatory budgeting focusing on programs at three agencies, potentially including EPA,
and to include the results of the study in the annual report to Congress on the costs and
benefits of federal regulations, but no further action occurred prior to adjournment. On the
other hand, administrative reforms promoting risk analysis that were begun during the 107th
Congress continued and intensified in the 108th, particularly in the form of directives from
the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in OMB. OIRA is likely to
continue to support regulatory reform during the 109th Congress.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
As a potentially valuable tool for addressing concerns about the growing cost to
regulated industries and communities of compliance with environmental requirements, risk
analysis may be useful to EPA and Congress to set priorities among programs and evaluate
management options. However, considerable controversy revolves around the value of risk
analysis and the role it should play in environmental decision making. (For more detailed
information, see CRS Report 98-619, Risk Analysis: Background on Environmental
Protection Agency Mandates and CRS Report 98-618, Environmental Risk Analysis: A
Review of Public Policy Issues. For a broader perspective on the role of risk analysis, see
CRS Report RL31781, Risk Assessment and Regulation in the Federal Government: A Brief
Overview.)
What Is Risk Analysis?
Professional risk analysts do not agree on how key terms should be defined, but for the
purpose of discussion, this report uses the following specific definitions. In the context of
environmental issues, “risk” is defined as the probability of occurrence of a particular
adverse effect on human health or the environment as a result of exposure to a “hazard,”
which may be a hazardous chemical in the environment, a natural hazard, or a hazardous
technology. “Risk assessment” refers to a formal or informal procedure producing a
quantitative estimate of environmental risk. For example, risk assessment is often used to
estimate the expected rate of illness or death in a population exposed to a hazardous
chemical. “Risk analysis” is used more broadly to include quantitative and qualitative
evaluation of all relevant attributes of environmental hazards, risks, adverse effects, events
and conditions that lead to or modify adverse effects, and populations or environments that
influence or experience adverse effects. “Risk management” is the process of deciding what
should be done about a hazard, the population exposed, or adverse effects, implementing the
decision, and evaluating the results. It also refers to decision making at the program or
agency level, for example, deciding which hazards should be managed and in what order.
Comparative (or relative) risk analysis and cost-benefit analysis are aids to risk management.
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Views on Potential Uses of Risk Analysis
How Valuable a Tool?
Most people seem to agree that risk analysis is a potentially valuable tool for
summarizing scientific information obtained from animal experiments and studies of
accidental or occupational human exposures to hazards. But, people disagree about how risk
analysis should be used and how much influence it should have on government decisions.
Regulated industries and many academics support legislation that would increase use
by environmental policy makers of risk analysis, arguing that it is a scientific and objective
basis for making rational risk management decisions. It allows comparisons of the
importance of perceived problems and evaluation of the need for proposed solutions, they
maintain. Thus, it permits efficient allocation of limited resources.
Other academics and most environmentalists stress the limitations of risk analysis.
Activists for environmental justice (that is, avoidance of disproportionate risks to low-
income and minority communities) oppose efforts to increase the influence of risk analysis,
and especially quantitative risk estimates, on environmental decisions, because it tends to
focus attention on relatively small risks to large populations (for example, the U.S.
population as a whole) rather than on large risks to smaller groups, such as workers, the
economically disadvantaged, or ethnic minorities.
Is It a Scientific Basis for Environmental Decisions?
Some policymakers promote risk analysis as an objective scientific basis for
environmental planning and decisions by federal agencies, Congress, and the public. In their
opinion, more risk analysis would lead to more rational decisions and replace what they
regard as the piecemeal environmental policy that has grown in response to real and
imagined crises. They favor legislation mandating use of risk analysis of environmental,
health, and safety problems to inform Congress and the public, who may then evaluate and
prioritize problems based on sound science.
Opponents of mandated risk analysis argue that the science used in risk analysis is
immature and suitable only for assessing immediate threats or the risk of developing cancer.
In addition, they warn that risk analysis oversimplifies the problems faced by policymakers
and managers of environmental programs, for example, by generally focusing on one hazard
and one effect at a time, or on problems or aspects of problems that already are well
understood. Critics of risk analysis also assert risk assessment methods are complex and
easily manipulated for political purposes. Thus, it is argued, the decision-making process
may be less democratic to the extent it is ostensibly based on risk.
Many who promote the use of risk analysis acknowledge that it has limitations but
believe these can be overcome through data collection, research, peer review, or the
establishment of guidelines for the consistent conduct of analysis and presentation of results.
The 106th Congress enacted a provision (Section 515) in omnibus appropriations legislation
(P.L. 106-554) requiring the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to
establish guidelines to help agencies ensure data quality supporting rules. OMB recently
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issued draft guidelines for peer review and data quality (68 Federal Register 54023,
September 15, 2003). OMB also revised guidance (OMB Circular A-4) for cost-benefit
analysis and risk assessments conducted by federal agencies. Agencies have been directed
to adopt detailed guidelines for risk assessments, consistent with OMB guidelines, to identify
research and training needs in risk assessment, and to develop a strategy to meet those needs.
However, the effect of these administrative measures and legislated mandates on agency
behavior is unpredictable due to the variety of circumstances surrounding risk assessments
and the legal consequences of EPA actions. For example, it is not yet known whether the
data quality act allows legal challenges to the scientific underpinnings of rules.
Should It Be Used to Compare Costs and
Environmental or Health Benefits?
Many policymakers want to use the results of risk analysis and cost analysis to identify
economically reasonable environmental management strategies. Various decision criteria
have been proposed for identifying such strategies, all of which would require comparisons
of the estimated costs and environmental or health benefits of existing or proposed
regulations and reasonable alternatives. However, proposals have differed in whether they
would have required (1) consideration of particular alternatives, (2) qualitative or
quantitative analysis, and (3) comparisons of risks to costs for each alternative, costs of one
to costs of another, or risks of one to risks of another. Different proposals also would
provide EPA with different levels of discretion. S. 746, as reported in the 106th Congress,
would have required consideration of “flexible” regulatory options, qualitative and
quantitative costs and benefits, and comparisons of risks to costs, costs to costs, and risks to
risks of the alternatives. Legislative proposals in earlier congresses (e.g., S. 2362, in the 106th
Congress) would have required cost-benefit analysis of proposed air quality standards and
would have authorized EPA to set a standard for which estimated benefits justified costs.
H.R. 2432, as passed by the House in the 108th Congress, would require a study on
“regulatory budgeting” for FY2006 and FY2007 focusing on programs in three of four
designated agencies: the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation, the
Department of Health and Human Services, and EPA. According to the bill, the “study shall
address the preparation of regulatory budgets ... [which] shall include the presentation of the
varying estimated levels of benefits that would be associated with the different estimated
levels of costs with respect to the regulatory alternatives under consideration by the agency
(or office within the agency).” The OMB Director would be directed to include these
analyses in its annual report to Congress on the costs and benefits of federal regulations.
Some critics of EPA assert that environmental regulations adversely impact the national
economy and international competitiveness of American businesses. They want EPA to use
cost-benefit analysis to identify less expensive strategies to reduce only the greatest risks.
Some would prohibit promulgation of regulations expected to cost more than they save in
economic terms (that is, that were not expected to produce a net benefit) or that cost more
than an alternative that would also achieve the statutory objective. In contrast, proposals that
advanced in the House and Senate of the 104th Congress did not require regulators to base
decisions on national net benefits. Rather, they promoted adoption of “flexible,” cost-
effective alternatives and authorized consideration of risks and costs borne by special
segments of the general population.
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The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (P.L. 104-4) requires all agencies to select from
a reasonable number of regulatory alternatives the least costly, most cost-effective, or least
burdensome alternative that achieves the objectives of the rule and is consistent with law or
to explain why such an alternative was not adopted. In the 106th Congress, S. 746, as
reported, would have directed agencies for major environmental rules —
! to perform a cost-benefit analysis;
! to make “a reasonable determination, based on the rule-making record as a
whole” as to whether the rule is likely to provide benefits that justify the
costs and whether it “is likely to substantially achieve the rule making
objective in a more cost-effective manner, or with greater net benefits, than
the other reasonable alternatives considered by the agency;” to conduct a
risk assessment; and
! to provide for peer review of risk assessments and, if the rule is likely to cost
more than $500 million, of the economic analysis.
However, existing laws would still determine the degree to which such cost-benefit
comparisons could affect the choice of regulatory options.
Some people object to quantitative comparisons of costs with the monetary value of
benefits of environmental or health laws and regulations. Whether they object on moral or
ethical grounds or for scientific reasons, they want benefits described in qualitative as well
as quantitative terms. Key proposals in the 104th, 105th , and 106th Congresses would have
permitted or required qualitative descriptions of benefits as well as costs.
Critics of cost-benefit analysis argue that the process is easily manipulated for political
purposes, and that evidence of manipulation is easy to conceal, especially from people who
lack economic or scientific training. Moreover, the quality of economic analyses varies
widely, they believe, and most quantitative cost-benefit analyses undervalue environmental
and health benefits and exaggerate costs. A Resources for the Future study found that cost
estimates for proposed environmental and occupational safety rules more often over-
estimated than under-estimated costs. Economic analysts also tend to focus on relatively
widespread but individually small costs and risks rather than on much larger costs and risks
to smaller, and often more vulnerable, groups, critics charge.
Many of these concerns about the quality of cost-benefit analyses might be addressed
through peer review, oversight by OMB or another agency, or other measures. OMB already
is required by P.L. 104-208 to assess costs and benefits for major federal regulations. In
addition, P.L. 106-312 directed the General Accounting Office (GAO, since renamed the
Government Accountability Office) to establish an office as part of a pilot project in which
GAO would independently evaluate an agency’s analysis of the potential benefits and costs
of a proposed or final, economically significant rule, alternative regulatory approaches, and
other aspects of the rule that the agency analyzed as required by law, if an evaluation were
requested by a chairman or ranking member of a congressional committee of jurisdiction.
However, Congress has never appropriated funding for this project. In the 108th Congress,
H.R. 2432, as passed by the House, would permanently authorize appropriations for such an
office at GAO.
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Another criticism aimed at proposals to require cost-benefit analysis is that they would
consume scarce EPA resources, sometimes to no purpose, because some authorizing statutes
do not permit EPA to consider costs.
Finally, many argue that cost-benefit analysis could delay EPA’s issuance of many
regulations, and delays would mean that lives or habitats might be irretrievably lost that
could have been saved had the regulation been in effect. Thus, the net benefit of regulating
would be reduced, they claim. In addition, some fear that delays will increase the cost of
analysis if the Agency misses statutory or judicial deadlines and environmental groups
respond, as they often do, by filing lawsuits. However, legislation could extend statutory
deadlines until its requirements for cost-benefit analysis were satisfied, or could authorize
agencies to request extension of court-ordered deadlines.
Should Priorities Be Based on Relative Risks
and Risk Reduction Opportunities?
The results of risk analysis also can be used to weigh the relative need for various
federal environmental programs. Some policymakers argue that EPA, the states, and
localities should prioritize expenditures based on relative opportunity for risk reduction.
Opponents of risk management based on relative risks and risk reduction potential contend
that comparative risk analysis is an unscientific, ad hoc procedure that lends a false air of
objectivity to the subjective judgments of scientists. Opponents question whether an exercise
that combines the diverse views of an unrepresentative sample of government scientists to
produce a single prioritized list of hazards is more informative than a thorough recitation of
the points on which scientists with diverse viewpoints agree and disagree, such as may occur
in a hearing or an advisory committee. Critics argue that priority setting requires value
judgments, and scientists are no more qualified than others to decide whether, for example,
the risk of a small decrement in intelligence for 3 to 4 million children exposed to lead-based
paint is more or less significant than the risk of approximately 13,600 deaths annually from
lung cancer due to indoor levels of radon gas. It is even more difficult and less scientific to
compare ecological risks with risks to human health, these critics contend.
Others protest that risk-based prioritization focuses on death or disease rates in the
population as a whole, ignoring other equally important issues, such as the feasibility of
controlling a risk or the fairness of the result. All means of risk reduction are not equally
desirable, these critics contend, citing diverse examples such as the wearing of a gas mask
and modification of a production process to reduce use of toxic chemicals. The nature of
hazards also matters, according to some who point out that risk is sometimes desirable, and
many risks, such as driving a car or skydiving, are taken voluntarily either for the benefits
that may be obtained or for the thrill of the experience. Priorities should be based on all
relevant information about hazards and available management options, not on risk alone,
they argue. Since scientists are expert only at determining probabilities, the public or its
representatives should be asked to contribute their expertise to the process of priority setting.
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When EPA’s Science Advisory Board was asked to update its 1990 relative risk report
Reducing Risk,1 it instead initiated a project to define “the next step” in environmental
decision making. The Board failed to achieve the goal of this project, “to articulate a
complete and rational method for including all aspects of integrated environmental decision-
making in a single process,” but in its final report, Toward Integrated Environmental
Decision-Making, it provided a framework and challenged EPA to develop the necessary
tools to move in that direction. The Board described integrated environmental decision
making, in the cover letter to the final report to the EPA Administrator, as follows.
One of the principle features of “the next step” is the involvement of a wider range of
people — and their perspectives/values — in the decision-making process. The
Framework also emphasizes use of the best science (both natural and social sciences) to
assess cumulative, aggregate risks; to consider a broader range of options for managing
or preventing risks; to make clear the role of societal (public) values in deciding what to
protect; to clarify the trade-offs (including costs and benefits) associated with choosing
some management scenarios and not others; and to evaluate progress toward desired
environmental outcomes (page 6).
Thus, instead of producing a prioritized list of environmental risks, the SAB advocated
development of a wider range of tools for examining environmental issues and a more
consultative process for ranking.
The Information Value of Risk Analysis
There appears to be general agreement that more information is needed to inform
decisions. Views diverge, however, regarding the type of information needed and whether
it would be best provided by risk analysis.
Key Factors Determining the Quality of Information Provided
Under ideal conditions, a risk analysis gathers, organizes, and summarizes all of the
important information relevant to hazard management. It includes qualitative as well as
quantitative information about the characteristics of the hazard, exposed population, potential
effects, and available management strategies; describes scientific uncertainties; and provides
a range of forecasts based on alternative, scientifically plausible assumptions about the
relationship between exposure to the hazard and potential health or environmental effects.
In practice, however, the type of information provided by risk analysis varies from
comprehensive to superficial, accurate to biased, and quantitative to qualitative, because risk
analysis is a field of inquiry rather than a single method. Risk analysts use a variety of
procedures and models adapted from other fields of study such as sanitary and industrial
engineering, psychology, economics, sociology, statistics, and operations research. Methods
developed for other purposes (for example, to determine life insurance rates) sometimes are
difficult to apply to, and may be scientifically invalid for, environmental hazards.
1 For a summary of the 1990 report, see CRS Report 98-618, Environmental Risk Analysis:
A Review of Public Policy Issues.
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A second consideration is that risk analysis is a tool for evaluating what is known about
things that cannot be known with certainty — that is, it is only used to describe the effects
of hazards that are unpredictable due to their natural randomness or a lack of scientific
understanding of the principles that govern their occurrence. Risk analysis always produces
an estimate, never a prediction, and estimates vary in quality. (Weather forecasts, for
example, are relatively well-informed risk estimates.) Thus, risk analysts can only discuss
the likelihood of various outcomes and, at best, may present risks as statistical probabilities.
If there is no past experience with a hazard, there is no basis for any forecast, much less a
quantitative estimate. If there is experience but no record to ensure accurate recall, risk
estimates are likely to be unreliable.
Finally, sometimes risk analysis can provide no information at all, even when data are
abundant. Science cannot always explain complex or unusual relationships between the
exposures to hazards and the potential health and ecological effects.
Quality of the Database
The quality of available data on exposure levels and potential effects determines the
quality of information that can be provided by a risk analysis. The most effective way to
improve risk assessment, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has concluded, is to
improve the quality and comprehensiveness of knowledge. Data on human exposure to
chemicals generally is acknowledged to be inadequate. See, for example, Toxic Chemicals:
Long-Term Coordinated Strategy Needed to Measure Exposures in Humans by the U.S.
General Accounting Office (May 2000, GAO/HEHS-00-80). S. 1588/H.R. 852 in the 108th
Congress would have directed the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to
conduct and coordinate research on the occurrence of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the
environment.
The situation for toxicity data, which is needed to assess potential human health effects
of chemical exposures, was summarized in a 1993 report by the U.S. Office of Technology
Assessment (OTA). It estimated that 62,512 chemicals were in commerce in the United
States, and another 1500 new chemicals entered the market annually. Environmental experts
believed that “good” data on health effects existed for only 10% of commercial chemicals.
In a 1995 report, OTA estimated that roughly 30,000 of the chemicals that have been in U.S.
commerce since 1976 were polymers that present little health risk. Another 25,000 are
produced in low volume (less than 10,000 pounds per year, including some chemicals which
no longer are in production). There remained approximately 15,000 chemicals produced in
significant volumes. About 3 or 4 thousand chemicals were produced in amounts greater
than one million pounds per year. OTA reported, “For perhaps thousands of these chemicals
of potential concern, toxicity and exposure data remain inadequate for risk assessment.” Of
course, many of these may be harmless, but data were also inadequate for many chemicals
Congress has deemed “hazardous,” according to NAS. NAS evaluated the availability of
data for risk analyses of 189 hazardous air pollutants and concluded EPA did not have
“sufficient data to assess fully the health risks ... within the time permitted by the Clean Air
Act Amendments of 1990” (Science and Judgment in Risk Assessment, 1994, National
Academy Press, Washington, p. 8-13). At least 12 federal agencies were conducting health
risk assessment research to fill the gaps in scientific understanding, but according to OTA,
their efforts were poorly coordinated and supported at a level that was less than 0.5% of the
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cost of complying with EPA regulations. The data situation has improved little if at all in
recent years, and it is much worse for environmental effects.
The Environmental Defense (ED, formerly Environmental Defense Fund) reported in
1997 on research conducted to determine the adequacy of test data for chemicals produced
in amounts greater than one million pounds per year that have been identified as subjects of
regulatory attention. The adequacy of test data was determined based on the public
availability of the minimum screening information data set that was created by the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Chemicals Program in
1990. This data set is adequate to perform preliminary assessment of the potential human
health hazard of a chemical, but does not provide sufficient data to conduct a comprehensive
health risk assessment, according to ED. ED drew a random sample of 100 chemicals and
found that 71% did not meet the OECD minimum data requirement. Most of the chemicals
in the sample had been tested for their ability to cause mutations (genetic toxicity) and
developmental toxicity, but there were no reproductive toxicity data for 53% of the
chemicals. Most of the chemicals had not been tested for any form of toxicity due to chronic
exposure. According to the authors of the study, the Chemical Manufacturers’ Association
(CMA, since renamed the American Chemistry Council) independently concluded that only
53% of the chemicals lacked adequate public data, but acknowledged that a key international
chemical database had very recently become available for public scrutiny. Critics of the ED
study, however, charged that up to three-fourths of chemicals have been adequately
evaluated.
EPA evaluated the availability of toxicity data for industrial chemicals produced in high
volumes and reported that there was a complete set of health and environmental effects data
for only 7%. There were no publicly available data for 1,216 of the 2,863 chemicals
evaluated by EPA. EPA and Vice President Gore called on the chemical industry to produce
data to fill the gaps at an EPA-estimated total cost of $427 million. That cost represents
about 0.2% of total annual sales of the top 100 U.S. chemical companies, according to EPA.
The chemical industry has supported the voluntary high-production-volume (HPV) chemical
testing initiative, but estimates the cost could approach $765 million and place U.S.
companies at a competitive disadvantage internationally. More than 430 companies publicly
committed to make health and environmental hazard data available on approximately 2,080
HPV chemicals by 2005, but some companies have withdrawn sponsorship. Animal rights
groups criticized early descriptions of the HPV testing initiative for garnering information
of dubious value and requiring laboratory experiments for thousands of animals. EPA
responded by examining alternative test methods that could reduce the number of animals
needed and reduce the pain and suffering of any animals employed. The Agency produced
guidance for companies responsible for chemical testing which should reduce animal usage
by 68 to 80 percent, according to EPA. On December 26, 2000, EPA published a proposed
rule that would require manufacturers and processors of 37 additional HPV chemicals to
conduct toxicity testing (65 Federal Register 81,657). In the fall 2004 semiannual regulatory
agenda, EPA estimated that the final rule would be issued in December 2004 (69 Federal
Register Part II, Dec. 13, 2004).
Risk Assessment Methods
Environmental risk assessment is a relatively new and immature field; this is evident
in the state of development of its analytic methods for assessing exposure levels and their
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potential adverse effects. Current methods of estimating human or ecological exposure
levels generally focus on individual hazards (e.g., arsenic or repetitive motions) and isolated
incidents or constant long-term exposures. Therefore, they inadequately account for
common, real-life conditions, such as fluctuating exposures to multiple hazards. The most
developed and well established methods of estimating potential adverse effects probably are
those used to analyze acute human health effects of high short-term risks (e.g., many
occupational injuries). Methods also are fairly well developed for assessing human cancer
risks of chemicals, although gaps in scientific understanding of cancer make these risk
estimates very uncertain. These methods evaluate and model the results of animal
experiments and human studies to estimate cancer risk due to exposure to individual
chemicals. Due to the variety of models that may be used, estimates of cancer risk usually
vary widely. Methods to evaluate risks of other health effects (such as impaired immunity,
reproductive problems, or birth defects) are less well established. Methods for ecological
risk analysis are still primitive.
There are at least four ways to promote the development and use of the best available
methods for risk analysis: peer review, research and training, oversight, and provision of
guidelines. Such methods help to ensure that risk assessments are conducted consistently
and are, therefore, more easily evaluated by independent experts. However, they do not
ensure that scientists will agree with the resulting risk estimates. The NAS has identified at
least 50 decisions required in conducting a cancer risk assessment that cannot be made on
a scientific basis. Thus, controversy grows from the subjective judgments, the science
policies, that make risk assessment possible and from the high stakes that ride on risk
estimates.
Legislative Activity
Legislation in the 108th Congress
In the 108th Congress, there was little legislative activity involving environmental risk
analysis or broader regulatory reform legislation. The House passed H.R. 2432, directing the
President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct a study of regulatory
budgeting focusing on programs at three agencies, potentially including EPA, and to include
the results of the study in the annual report to Congress on the costs and benefits of federal
regulations, but no further action occurred prior to adjournment. On the other hand,
administrative reforms promoting risk analysis that were begun during the 107th Congress
continued and intensified in the 108th, particularly in the form of directives from the Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in OMB. Final guidelines for cost-benefit
analysis were issued September 17, 2003, as Circular A-4.2 OIRA is likely to continue to
support regulatory reform during the 109th Congress.
Legislation in the 109th Congress
The outlook for legislative proposals promoting risk analysis is unclear in the 109th
Congress. No legislation has been proposed that would significantly promote environmental
2 OMB, Circular A-4, Regulatory Analysis, at [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a004/a-4.
html], visited Feb. 25, 2004.
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risk analysis. However, OMB plans to continue its administrative reforms, according to a
recent press release. OMB published final peer review requirements December 17, 2004.
LEGISLATION
No relevant legislation has been proposed yet in the 109th Congress.
CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS, REPORTS, AND DOCUMENTS
United States Congress. House. Committee on Commerce. Subcommittees on Commerce,
Trade, and Hazardous Materials and on Health and Environment. Risk Assessment and
Cost/Benefit Analysis for New Regulations. Joint Hearings, 104th Congress, 1st sess.,
February 1 - 2, 1995. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1995. 380 p.
United States Congress. House. Committee on Science. Subcommittee on Energy and
Environment. The Science of Risk Assessment: Implications for Federal Regulation,
Hearing, 105th Congress, 2nd sess., July 15, 1998. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off.,
1998. 637 p.
United States Congress. Senate. Committee on Environment and Public Works. Regulatory
Reform and Environmental Laws. Hearing, 104th Congress, 1st sess., March 22, 1995.
Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1995. 250 p.
United States Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. S. 981 — the
Regulatory Improvement Act of 1998. Hearing, 105th Congress, 2nd sess., February 24,
1998. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1998. 435 p.
FOR ADDITIONAL READING
CRS Products
CRS Report RL30116. Congressional Review of Agency Rulemaking: A Brief Overview and
Assessment After Three Years.
CRS Report RL30043. Environmental, Health, and Safety Tradeoffs: A Discussion of
Policymaking Opportunities and Constraints.
CRS Report 98-618. Environmental Risk Analysis: A Review of Public Policy Issues.
CRS Report RL30031. Environmental Risk and Cost-Benefit Analysis: A Review of
Proposed Legislative Mandates, 1993-1998.
CRS Report 98-619. Risk Analysis: Background on Environmental Protection Agency
Mandates.
CRS Report RL31781. Risk Assessment and Regulation in the Federal Government: A Brief
Overview.
CRS-10