[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 192 (Friday, October 3, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51854-51855]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-26320]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-5903-1]


Review and Evaluation of EPA Standards Regarding Children's 
Health Protection from Environmental Risks

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: As part of its ongoing commitment to protect children from 
environmental health risks, EPA will select five existing human health 
and environmental protection standards for review and evaluation to 
determine if they sufficiently protect children's health. EPA is 
seeking recommendations and comment concerning standards it should 
select for review, including detailed explanations and reference to any 
studies that support that recommendations, EPA does not intend to 
review recently promulgated standards as part of this effort. The 
standards EPA ultimately will select for review and evaluation will be 
those that could potentially have a major impact on children's health 
as a result of reevaluation and vision. These standards would generally 
be those where children's health was not considered in the original 
development of the standard; or, where children's health was considered 
but new data suggest the standard does not adequately protect children; 
and where, if changes were made in the standard, children's health 
protection would be strengthened.

DATES: Comments must be in writing and received by December 2, 1997.

ADDRESSES: Written comments should be submitted to Paula R. Goode, 
Office of Children's Health Protection, USEPA (MS 1102), 401 M Street, 
SW, Washington, DC 20460, [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paula R. Goode, (202) 260-7778.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Children in America today inhabit a world 
that is very different from that of two generations past. The 
traditional infectious diseases have largely been eradicated. Infant 
mortality is greatly reduced. The expected life span of a baby born now 
in the United States is more than two decades longer than that of a 
child born at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, children 
today face hazards in the environment that were neither known nor 
suspected only a few decades ago. At least 75,000 new synthetic 
chemical compounds have been developed and introduced into commerce; 
fewer than half of these compounds have been tested for their potential 
toxicity to humans, and fewer still have been assessed for their 
specific toxicity to children.
    Children's exposures to lead, pesticides, PCBs, and toxic air 
pollutants are widespread. Compared to adults, children are 
particularly vulnerable and at increased risk from many environmental 
threats in four ways (1) Children's organ systems are still 
developing--including rapid changes in growth and development immature 
body organs and tissues, and weaker immune systems--which makes them 
more susceptible to environmental hazards; (2) pound-for-pound, 
children breathe more air, drink more water and eat more food than 
adults; (3) children's exposures to toxins are further enhanced by 
their play close to the ground and their normal hand-to-mouth activity; 
and (4) children have more future years of life than adults and are 
more susceptible to chronic, multi-stage diseases such as cancer or 
neurodegenerative disease that may be triggered by early exposures. 
Environmental health hazards that threaten children range from air 
pollution that triggers asthma attacks and lead-based paint in older 
housing, to treatment-resistant microbes in drinking water and 
persistent industrial chemicals that may cause cancer to induce 
reproductive or developmental changes.
    EPA Administrator Carol Browner set forth a National Agenda to 
Protect Children's Health From Environmental Threats in EPA's 
publication, Environmental Health Treats to Children, September, 1996, 
to ensure that children receive the protection they need and deserve, 
and help fulfill our nation's obligation to protect future generations. 
This agenda includes a commitment to ``ensure that all standards EPA 
sets are protective of the potentially heightened risks faced by 
children, and that the most significant existing standards be 
reevaluated.''
    As stated in the Summary section of this notice, EPA will select 
and then review and evaluate five human health and environmental 
protection standards that establish discrete regulatory levels. The 
standards most suitable for this effort are those that if revised as a 
result of the review and evaluation, would strengthen and increase 
children's environmental health protection. The term ``standard'' for 
purposes of this notice means national standards established by EPA 
that identify discrete regulatory levels related to human health and 
environmental protection. Examples of such standards include pesticide 
tolerances that establish allowable levels of pesticide residues in 
food under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Maximum 
Contaminant Levels that establish allowable levels of contaminants in 
drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act; and, health-based 
regulations that establish acceptable levels for air pollutants under 
the Clean Air Act. EPA will consider comments and recommendations on 
such standards in all the environmental media (air, water, soil, etc.). 
The term ``standard'' as used in this Notice does not include standards 
establishing analytical methods, technology-based standards, or site 
specific actions (such as facility

[[Page 51855]]

permits under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, or 
Records of Decision for cleanup of Superfund sites).
    In selecting the five standards for review and reevaluation EPA 
will consider a variety of factors including any new information since 
the standards were originally promulgated, as follows:
     New scientific information or new data regarding adverse 
health effects on children;
     New understanding of routes of exposure to children;
     Whether the regulated substance/pollutant is persistent 
and bioaccumulative;
     New methodologies of evaluating human health risks;
     New epidemiology studies;
     New toxicity studies; and
     New environmental monitoring studies.
    As part of this effort, EPA will convene a balanced, broad-based 
external Advisory Committee, chartered under the Federal Advisory 
Committee Act, Public Law 92-463, to give advice to the Administrator 
on various issues of children's environmental health protection. Notice 
of the establishment of this Children's Health Protection Advisory 
Committee (CHPAC) was published on September 9, 1997 (62 FR 47494). 
CHPAC will consider recommendations received by EPA as a result of this 
notice and other information. Comments and other information received 
as a result on this notice will be placed in a docket that will be 
established for CHPAC. EPA will ask the Committee to recommend five 
standards that EPA should reevaluate with respect to children's health 
protection. CHPAC meetings will be announced in the Federal Register 
and open to the public. The Administrator will consider the Committee's 
recommendations and the recommendations and comments received in 
response to this Notice. EPA intends to announce the five selected 
standards in a Federal Register notice in early Summer of 1998.
    This EPA effort will help fulfill President Clinton's Executive 
Order 13045, Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and 
Safety Risks, signed on April 21, 1997. This Order, in part, directs 
each Federal agency to set as a high priority the identification and 
assessment of environmental health risks and safety risks that may 
disproportionately affect children; and ensure that its policies, 
programs, activities, and standards address disproportionate risks to 
children that result from environmental health risks or safety risks.

    Dated: September 26, 1997.
E. Ramona Trovato,
Director, Office of Children's Health Protection.
[FR Doc. 97-26320 Filed 10-2-97; 8:45 am]
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