=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #359
—October 14, 1993—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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THE RISKS OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL PRESIDENCY
The Clinton administration is far along toward achieving
environmental goals that President Bush and Vice-President Dan
Quayle tried to reach but couldn’t. Specifically, the Clinton
administration has now:
(a) generated a bandwagon effect in Congress to get rid of the
Delaney clause, the law that forbids the government from
approving food additives that cause cancer in humans or animals;
(b) issued an Executive Order that officially embeds “risk
assessment” into the “philosophy of regulation” that guides all
government regulatory agencies; and
(c) cut the budget of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by
$217 million for 1994, leaving EPA with a 1994 budget that is
$485 million less than the agency’s budget was in 1980 (in
constant dollars).[1]
Dumping Delaney
In testimony before Congress September 21, the administration
urged lawmakers to get rid of the Delaney clause (the law that
says the government cannot approve, for processed foods such as
soup and ketchup, food additives shown to cause cancer in animals
or humans).[2] In place of Delaney, the administration urged
Congress to substitute risk assessment and to adopt the idea that
“one in a million deaths” is a “negligible risk.”[3] Under the
administration’s proposal, toxic residues from each chemical on
each type of food would be capped so as to kill no more than one
citizen out of every million citizens each year. Since there
are approximately 250 million Americans, residues from each
food-use of each pesticide would be capped so as to kill no more
than 250 Americans each year, maximum.
Of course the effects would be additive; residues of pesticide A
on CARROTS would be set to kill no more than 250 people each
year; residues of Chemical B on CARROTS would be set to kill
another 250 people, maximum. Residues of Chemical A on APPLES
would be set to kill another 250 people, maximum, and so on. No
one knows–or even knows how to calculate–the total number of
human deaths and other damage that would be allowed under the
administration’s proposal.
There are somewhere between 21,000 and 24,000 different uses of
about 600 individual pest-killing chemicals (“active
ingredients”) now approved by the government, though most are not
approved for use on food crops.[4] In addition there are about
2000 “inert ingredients” mixed into pesticides. Though many of
these “inert ingredients” are themselves toxic and even
carcinogenic (for example, benzene), they are not considered in
risk assessments and they are not listed on product labels, so no
one knows who is being exposed to them.[5] The administration’s
“pesticide reform” testimony is silent on inert ingredients.
It seems mathematically certain that thousands of individual
“one-in-a-million” risks do not add up to one “one-in-a-million”
risk, but toxicological science has no way of analyzing multiple
exposures, cumulative exposures, cumulative damage, or multiplier
effects known to occur between different chemicals. Thus the
administration’s proposal, in effect, gives blanket permission to
the food-chemicals industry to continue adding new chemicals into
the American food supply each year without anyone ever being able
to calculate the consequences. Thus the chemical industry
continues to evade accountability for its behavior, with the
Clinton administration’s willing assistance.
The administration HAS expressed concern for food safety. In its
testimony before Congress, the administration promised that if it
learns that a particular food-use of a particular chemical is
killing 10 times the allowable maximum of 250 citizens each year,
such a chemical will only be allowed to remain in use for 10
years.[6]
The chemical industry has been trying to get rid of the Delaney
law since 1959,[7] but Congress has always been reluctant to
substitute “a little bit of cancer-causing chemicals in your
processed food” for the Delaney standard of “no approved
cancer-causing chemicals in your processed food.” The
administration seems to have broken that reluctance. Since the
administration urged Congress to get rid of Delaney, a bill to do
that (H.R. 1627) has gained nearly 200 sponsors in the House of
Representatives and a bandwagon effect is apparent as we go to
press. As of this moment, Delaney seems doomed.
My personal observation is that some of the so-called “pesticide
reform group” of environmentalists in Washington, D.C., have
accepted the demise of Delaney as inevitable and perhaps even
desirable because the administration wants Delaney killed. The
D.C. environmental community has been “on the outs” for a dozen
years and is so eager to become “a player” once again that some
groups don’t seem to care what game they’re invited to play. In
the presence of two dozen national environmental leaders last
May, I heard the head of a major environmental organization
announce to EPA chief Carol Browner, “You are our general. We
are your troops. We await your orders.” The result of such boot
licking is now becoming apparent.
Risk Assessment Now Guides All U.S. Regulation
President Clinton quietly signed Executive Order 12866 on
September 30, 1993, officially embedding risk assessment in the
U.S. “philosophy of regulation.” All federal regulatory agencies
will now be guided by a “regulatory philosophy” that explicitly
includes risk assessment. Vice-President Dan Quayle had tried to
accomplish something similar during the Bush administration but
had failed.[8]
Risk assessment is a mathematical technique intended to determine
the probability of certain kinds of damage to humans and the
environment from chemical exposures. Unfortunately, because so
little is known about the way chemicals exert their toxic
effects, and because science has no way of assessing the effects
of multiple chemical exposures, risk assessment can be used to
reach nearly any conclusion that a risk assessor wants to reach.
As former EPA chief William Ruckelshaus once said, “A risk
assessment is like a captured spy. Torture it enough and it will
tell you anything.”
The chemical industry has been working relentlessly since 1975 to
expand the use of risk assessment throughout government.
Executive Order 12866 is arguably the culmination of their
efforts. From the viewpoint of anyone who wants to spread
chemicals into the environment, risk assessment is a marvelously
useful technique: Because it is based in mathematics, most people
can’t even understand it, much less participate in it, so it
immediately excludes most of the public from decisions.
Furthermore, because it is mathematical, the result gains an aura
of certainty and precision, even if it is based on “data” that
are nothing more than guesses. Before he became chief of U.S.
EPA, William Reilly wrote, “The National Research Council
concluded in a 1984 report that fewer than 2 percent of the
chemicals currently used for commercial purposes have been tested
sufficiently for a complete health hazard assessment to be made.
Adequate information to support even a partial hazard assessment
is available for only 14 percent of the chemicals; for 70
percent, no information is available. Moreover, these
percentages refer only to human health hazards. In general,
environmental hazards are even less well understood.”[9] Never
mind that there are no data. This has never stopped a dedicated
risk assessor from calculating risks to the third decimal place,
presenting the results as factual and reliable, then using the
results to support a political decision to impose unknown risks
on the public.
Cutting EPA’s Budget
Under the administration’s 1994 budget, EPA will have less money
than it had in 1993 for controlling pesticides, toxic substances,
water quality and drinking water. “The cut in EPA’s budget is
evidence of the low priority given environmental protection
funding by the President,” said Marc Smolonsky, a budget analyst
in Washington.[1] “There will be scant resources for pollution
prevention activities, such as waste minimization. Without funds
for prevention now, future clean up costs will skyrocket, leaving
the impression that the Clinton administration is penny-wise but
pound-foolish on environmental protection programs,” he said.
“EPA’s pesticide program is unable to ensure the safe use of
pesticides and respond efficiently to evidence of high-risk
pesticides,” Smolonsky said. “At a time when the administration
has announced a plan to reform federal pesticide policy, it is
overseeing a cut in funding for the EPA pesticide program, which
will be reduced by approximately 15 percent.”
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
[3] “Testimony…,” cited in note 2, pg. 6.
[6] “Testimony…,” cited in note 2, pg. 12.
Descriptor terms: delaney clause; pesticides; congress;
carcinogens; food safety; risk assessment; regulation; executive
order 12866; epa; budget; negligible risk; inert ingredients;
h.r. 1627; lehman; bliley; dan quayle; george bush; william
ruckelshaus;