[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 97 (Friday, July 22, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     THE ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE INSTITUTION IS A VALUABLE SOURCE OF 
                   INFORMATION ON ENVIRONMENTAL RISK

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                            HON. DICK ZIMMER

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 22, 1994

  Mr. ZIMMER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues the outstanding policy research efforts by the Alexis de 
Tocqueville Institution in building intellectual support for enhanced 
cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment for environmental decisions. 
All too often, billions of dollars are wasted on environmental problems 
that are not really dangerous, leaving little for others that pose far 
more serious human and ecological risks. The Alexis de Tocqueville 
Institution has undertaken an aggressive public information campaign to 
build support for cost-benefit and risk analysis initiatives that would 
focus environmental regulation on the most serious risks.
  The Environmental Risk Reduction Act, which I have introduced with 
Representative Jim Slattery in the House and which Senator Daniel 
Patrick Moynihan has introduced in the Senate, would ensure that 
policymakers and the public are aware of the true dangers posed by 
health and environmental risks, and the costs and benefits of reducing 
such risks. Only in this way can we rationalize environmental decisions 
and reduce the burden of environmental regulations on businesses, State 
and local governments and individual citizens.
  Clearly there has been a dramatic shift in the congressional debate 
over environmental questions toward requiring more stringent cost-
benefit analysis and risk assessments. The Senate has twice passed 
Senator J. Bennett Johnston's cost-benefit amendment by large 
bipartisan majorities. The Senate's version of the Safe Drinking Water 
Act would require more comprehensive risk assessments before new 
regulatory requirements are imposed on State and local governments. 
Here in the House, there has been a similar upsurge of support for risk 
assessment and cost-benefit analysis. In my view, the de Tocqueville 
Institution's writings have played a major role in educating Members, 
the press and the general public about the need to rationalize 
environmental policy and reduce excessive regulatory costs.
  I would ask that an article by Cesar V. Conda, executive director of 
the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution concerning the Moynihan-Zimmer-
Slattery Environmental Risk Reduction Act be entered into the Record 
for review by my colleagues.

              [From the Journal of Commerce, May 5, 1994]

                     Time To Rationalize EPA Rules

                          (By Cesar V. Conda)

       The cost of complying with environmental regulation has 
     exploded--currently $150 billion and projected to rise to 
     $185 billion by the year 2000. Now more than ever, the 
     science behind environmental decisions is being questioned.
       The New York Times summed it up best: ``In the last 15 
     years, environmental policy has too often evolved largely in 
     reaction to popular panics, not in response to sound 
     scientific analysis of which environmental hazards present 
     the greatest risks. As a result, billions of dollars are 
     wasted each year in battling problems that are no longer 
     considered especially dangerous, leaving little money for 
     others that cause far more harm.''
       As Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan, Democrat of New York, put it, 
     ``Truth be told, I suspect that environmental decisions have 
     been based more on feelings than on facts.''
       In response to the explosion in the cost of environmental 
     regulation, and the government's practice of spending 
     enormous amounts of money to reduce small risks instead of 
     big risks, Sen. Moynihan, Rep. Richard Zimmer, R-N.J., and 
     Rep. Jim Slattery, D-Kan., have introduced the Environmental 
     Risk Reduction Act. This bill would ensure that the billions 
     spent by the American people for environmental protection is 
     better targeted at reducing the most serious and probable 
     risks.
       The Moynihan-Zimmer bill is designed to sharpen the public 
     debate over risk assessments and require the Environmental 
     Protection agency to set risk reduction priorities based on 
     sound scientific analyses.
       Specifically, the bill would create two expert commissions 
     that would provide the EPA with advice on ranking relative 
     risks and on estimating the quantitative costs and benefits 
     of reducing risks to human health and natural resources. The 
     bill also creates a Risk Reduction Research Program that 
     would improve the data, methodology and accuracy of the 
     government's risk assessments.
       Every two years, the EPA administrator would be required to 
     submit a report to Congress--based on the new research 
     findings and recommendations of the risk assessment advisory 
     panels--that would prioritize health, safety and ecological 
     risks, estimate the costs and benefits of reducing these 
     risks and identify the public awareness of likelihood, 
     seriousness, magnitude and irreversibility of each risk.
       Ensuring that the general public is aware of the relative 
     risks they face is crucial to setting environmental 
     priorities. The 1990 Reducing Risk report by the EPA's 
     science advisory board states the ``relative risk data and 
     risk assessment techniques should inform (the public) 
     judgment as much as possible.''
       For example, if the public knew that an average-sized plate 
     of shrimp contains trace arsenic levels of 30 parts per 
     billion, would the people choose to continue paying for a 
     costly EPA water quality rule limiting arsenic to no more 
     than two to three parts per billion? Similarly, would the 
     public agree with some environmentalist's hope of banning the 
     commercial use of all pesticides (thereby raising prices of 
     fruits and vegetables) if they knew that there are more known 
     carcinogens consumed by drinking one cup of coffee than the 
     amount of potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues 
     consumed by the average person in a year?
       All too often, EPA selectively uses risk assessments to 
     dictate environmental policy to the public instead of to 
     inform them of their choices. For example, the EPA's recent 
     finding that ``environmental tobacco smoke''--or second-hand 
     smoke--is dangerous to human health is based on a threshold 
     of risk assessment two times lower than what the agency 
     normally uses for other substances. All too often, politics 
     get in the way of sound science.
       Upgrading the scientific methods behind EPA's risk 
     assessments and explaining to the public the health risks of 
     certain substances or activities relative to the risks they 
     normally face in their everyday lives would result in more 
     rational--and perhaps less costly--environmental decisions. 
     For instance, the public might decide that the millions spent 
     by local governments to monitor trace levels of drinking 
     water contaminants that pose no serious health risk would be 
     better spent on building new roads, improving local schools 
     or hiring more police.
       Right now, however, the people aren't aware that they have 
     such a choice. ``Relative risk ranking and cost benefit 
     analyses are tools,'' said Sen. Moynihan. ``Crude tools 
     today, yes, but perhaps sufficient in some cases to rank 
     activity A as more risky than activity B. If the costs or 
     political realities dictate that we should control B before A 
     then great.
       Today, the Clinton administration and many 
     environmentalists have vehemently opposed measures to expand 
     the use of cost-benefit tests and risk assessments for 
     environmental regulations and programs; they argue that such 
     requirements are ``unreasonable'' and would add unnecessary 
     costs for the EPA. But what about the ``unnecessary'' and 
     ``unreasonable'' costs imposed by environmental regulatory 
     agencies on state and local governments, small business 
     entrepreneurs, consumers, landowners?
       The issue of risk assessment and cost benefit analysis has 
     built up a tremendous head of political steam on Capital 
     Hill. Last April, an amendment proposed by Senator J. Bennett 
     Johnston, D-La., implementing risk assessment and cost-
     benefit analysis into the policy-making process at EPA passed 
     95-3 in the Senate when it was offered to the EPA cabinet 
     bill. Sen. Johnston plans to offer his amendment again during 
     the forthcoming U.S. Senate debate over legislation to 
     reauthorize the Safe Drinking Water Act. In addition, Sens. 
     Moynihan, Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., 
     Plan to advance a version of Sen. Moynihan's Environmental 
     Risk Reduction bill.
       Politicians on both sides of the aisle are responding to 
     the public's desire to rationalize the government's 
     environmental decisions. The Environmental Risk Reduction Act 
     is a workable, bipartisan approach that would help both the 
     environment and society by setting priorities for 
     environmental problems and lessening excessive environmental 
     regulatory burdens.

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