[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 110 (Wednesday, August 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  REFORMING THE WAY EPA ASSESSES RISKS AND INFORMS THE AMERICAN PUBLIC

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member rises this evening to speak 
about the urgent need for a practice of more effective and truthful 
risk assessment by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Some 
public attention has been focused on the problems of risk assessment in 
government during Supreme Court nominee Judge Stephen Breyer's 
successful confirmation hearings since he has written extensively on 
the manner in which our government wastes money and misleads the public 
in the areas of risk assessment and management. The regulatory public 
policy issue epitomizes the problems of mindless, inflexible 
regulations that are too commonly a part of Federal mandates which 
hamper farmers, businesses and local governments in Nebraska and across 
the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] 
has helped craft a workable, bipartisan product during committee 
consideration of H.R. 4306, the Risk Assessment Improvement Act, 
including perfecting amendments by the distinguished gentlemen from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] and New Jersey [Mr. Zimmer]. The science, 
Space, and Technology Committee's passage of this legislation on July 
20, 1994, was a step in the right direction. There are three main goals 
of this legislation. First, H.R. 4306 would make risk assessment 
guidelines legally binding on the EPA. Second, risk assessment will be 
conducted by the EPA under the guidelines of H.R. 4306 by formulating 
the most plausible and unbiased assumptions to a health hazard. Third, 
H.R. 4306 ensures that risk assessment will be communicated to the 
public in terms which can be readily understood--not scientific jargon. 
All of these are laudable goals which need to be implemented in order 
to better assure that common sense and rational thinking will win out 
in environmental policy-making.
  This Member urges swift passage of H.R. 4306, because approval of 
this legislation will provide relief to Nebraska businesses, local 
communities, as well as this Member's state government which are all 
spending millions of dollars annually to comply with Federal mandates, 
many of which are unnecessarily burdensome. The same is surely true in 
all parts of America.
  Mr. Speaker, other recent Congressional action that would take steps 
towards alleviating our current risk assessment problems include the 
amendments by the full House to the Environmental Technologies Act, 
H.R. 3870, offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] to 
reflect goals contained in H.R. 4306. In addition, this Member has 
agreed to cosponsor H.R. 2910, the Risk Communication Act, a bill with 
similar goals as H.R. 4306, which would further reform the way the EPA 
assess risks and informs the American public.

  The fact is that the EPA often presents situations thought to be 
hazardous to the environment or to human health in exaggerated terms 
that do not reflect the real situation or in biased scientific terms 
that deceive the public. If the damage and cost was not so great, it 
would almost be humorous to look at some of these health threats that 
have been blown out of proportion by both the EPA and by an American 
media with an appetite for sensationalism.
  In the area of pesticides, for example there are those who have tried 
to convince the EPA and the American public that all pesticides must be 
removed from the production of our food supply. In an opinion piece 
that appeared in the January, 1992, issue of Progressive Farmer 
Magazine, Dr. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United 
States, documented the overblown risk assessments of the health hazards 
involving pesticides in this country. To quote Dr. Koop:

       Americans are concerned because they are confused. They are 
     confused because no one sorts out for them various components 
     of what has become the food safety issue. The public does not 
     have a very good grasp of the relationship between the dose 
     of a toxic substance and its risk in human beings. Their 
     information comes from those who revel in using scare tactics 
     instead of science to warn the public about dangers in the 
     food supply. These scare tactics lead us down the wrong path. 
     We end up creating concern where it isn't necessary and 
     ignoring concerns that are real.''

  Pesticides are in fact a benefit to modern farming, if used 
responsibly and in a scientifically sound manner. According to Dr. 
Bruce Ames, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health 
Sciences Center at the University of California-Berkeley, in a July 5, 
1994, article in The New York Times, ``99.9% of the toxic chemicals 
we're exposed to are completely natural.'' Dr. Ames goes on to say 
that, ``We're shooting ourselves in the foot with environmental 
regulations that cost over 2% of the G.N.P., much of it to regulate 
trivia.'' Lest one regard this as a statement of a biased source, it 
should be noted that Dr. Ames does no consulting for businesses and is 
indeed a highly respected scientist. He defends the proper use of 
pesticide by American agriculture. Dr. Ames states, ``If our resources 
are diverted from important things to unimportant things, this does not 
serve the public.'' This Member wholeheartedly agrees.
  In a November 10, 1993 article in the Journal of the American Medical 
Association entitled, ``Review of Actual Causes of Death in the United 
States,'' by Dr. Michael McGinnis of the U.S. Department of Health and 
Human Services and Dr. William Foege of the Carter Presidential Center, 
documentation shows that deaths directly related to dietary and 
physical activity problems number over 300,000 a year. Since, according 
to Dr. Ames of Berkeley, only nine percent of Americans eat the 
recommended serving of five servings of vegetables and fruit daily, 
those dietary problems come from not eating enough of the very fruits, 
vegetables and foods that help prevent cancer. Drs. McGinnis, Foege 
(pronounced FOAG) and Ames all conclude that Pesticides help make these 
foods more bountiful and less expensive, which allows the public 
greater access to cancer-fighting fruits and vegetables. According to 
the Journal of the American Medical Association, the 300,000 American 
deaths due to dietary and physical activity problems is more than the 
260,000 annual, collective American deaths which are due to infectious 
disease, toxic pollutants, firearms, sexual behavior, motor vehicles, 
and illicit use of drugs! Maybe we need public service ads which show 
an inactive couch potato eating fatty foods with a voice in the 
background saying, ``Just Say No.''

  In all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, Americans need sensible information 
in order to make educated judgements as we balance out life's risks and 
benefits. Many times, the media hypes the most unusual and freakish 
occurrences in hopes of attracting high Nielsen ratings. We hardly ever 
see reports on the dangerous things we participate in each and every 
day. According to an article written by Robert J. Samuelson in the May 
4, 1994 Washington Post, entitled, ``The Triumph of the Psycho-Fact,'' 
one in every 167,000 Americans can expect to die in an airplane crash, 
one in every 9,100 child-bearing American women die in child birth, one 
in every 3,700 Americans die every year from car crashes, and one in 
every 300,000 Americans die every year on bicycles. Walking across the 
street is far more dangerous than eating foods protected by pesticides, 
yet the American media, and to some extent the EPA, only concentrates 
on the sensational or the unusual.
  In addition to these concerns, this Member believes that we must also 
consider Federal, state and local governments' financial problems when 
discussing this issue. This country should not mindlessly spend 
millions, perhaps even billions, of dollars on what is increasingly an 
area of diminishing returns. As Federal fiscal resources are 
increasingly scarce, we must focus our money and efforts in areas of 
high risk and hazard to both the American public and the environment. 
Common sense would tell us that mandating local governments to spend 
millions of dollars on unwarranted Federal mandates is not a wise idea. 
We must also consider that these mandates, which can often cost people 
their jobs, slow down the economy and create unnecessary poverty. 
According to a May 3, 1994, Washington Times article entitled ``Scaring 
Ourselves to Death'', just by being poor, out of a job, and in the 
bottom 20% of our Nation's social structure, an American's life will be 
shortened by seven to ten years.
  Mr. Speaker, examples like these illustrate why passage of H.R. 4306 
is necessary. This Member urges his colleagues to support H.R. 4306, as 
well as any amendments offered during consideration of this important 
legislation which would make risk assessment more realistic, less 
expensive, and more responsive to the public.
  Special appreciation is also noted to a member of my staff this 
summer, Mr. Andrew Loudon, who has been of great assistance in research 
assistance to this Member on the subject of risk-assessment.

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