United States 20Z-1006
Environmental Protection June 1990
Agency
Office Of The Administrator (A-107)
Asbestos,
Sound Science,
And Public
Perceptions
Why We Need
A New
Approach To
Risk
Address by William K. Reilly
Administrator; EPA
at the Environmental
Policy Conference
of the
American Enterprise Institute
June 12, 1990
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Thank you, Chris [DeMuth], for that kind
introduction; I also want to thank you and the
American Enterprise Institute for sponsoring
this very timely conference on business and the
environment.
Business always has had, always will have, a
crucial role in environmental protection; and
that role is probably more in the spotlight now
than at any time in the past. At the same time,
it's clear that the impact of environmental
protection efforts on the economy as a whole,
and on the operating expenses of individual
businesses, is growing—and if s growing
rapidly.
Consequently all of us have a common
interest in finding the most effective, most
efficient means of ensuring the environmental
integrity of our nation and our planet. And I
want to encourage you, both during this
conference and after you've had some time to
reflect on your discussions here, to come up
with some suggestions for innovative new
ways to engage the marketplace in
environmental protection.
Now in saying that, I'm aware that there are
some significant barriers to overcome before we
can expect the widespread adoption of
environmentally-oriented business and
agricultural practices. I recognize, for example,
that efforts to develop and implement cleaner
industrial processes and environmentally
friendly products is risky—it is
time-consuming—and it's expensive. It
demands the active participation and support
of the public sector as well as the commitment
and good-faith efforts of the private sector.
sound science is our most reliable anchor in a
turbulent sea of environmental policy and
regulation.
Not long after my appointment was
announced, I had occasion to make the
customary rounds of the members of the
Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee, to whom it would fall to consider
my nomination.
One of my most memorable visits was with
Senator Moynihan; as Chris DeMuth can tell
you, conversations with Senator Moynihan are
always memorable.
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He sat me in a very nice Windsor chair,
about which he said, "This is a Republican
chair...this is appropriate, I think, for the new
EPA Administrator to sit in."
Then he perched his little half reading
glasses back on his nose, and he fixed these
two fingers, picador-like, on me.
And looking down his nose, he said, "Above
all—above all—do not allow your agency to
become transported by middle-class
enthusiasms!"
Well, I assured him that wouldn't happen;
and later I came to a conclusion about what he
meant. What he meant, I decided, was,
"Respect sound science; don't be swayed by
the passions of the moment."
I take it that all of us at this conference are
dedicated to avoiding being transported by
temporary enthusiasms; I most or all.
I am, I was, I will be. In the end, sound
science is our most reliable anchor in a
turbulent sea of environmental policy and
regulation. It can help a very hard-pressed
agency, the focal point of enormous public
expectations, to administer eight ambitious
statutes with highly constrained resources; to
try to fulfill, on a virtually level operating
budget, all the obligations layered upon us over
the years by the Congress—acting, ultimately,
on behalf of the American people. Sound
science can help us set priorities based on risk,
to the extent that we are able to do so within
the scope of our statutory mandates.
Indeed, the rigorous analysis of risk is
fundamental to all of EPA's regulatory
programs. Without some way of determining
relative levels of risk, we would quickly become
mired in a regulatory swamp, wherein all
problems were equally important; all risks
would have to be addressed with equal
urgency; and accordingly, nothing would get
done.
Unfortunately, as Senator Moynihan and
many others have noticed, we are much closer
to that kind of regulatory swamp than any of
us would like.
Too often our priorities are set, not by our
best judgment about relative levels of risk, but
by public opinion—opinion only partially
informed by our efforts to build a dependable
decision-making framework on a foundation of
sound science. *
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The perceptions and priorities of the general
public are not always well aligned with what
you and I might think of as "real" risks to
public health and the environment. And when
decision-making comes down to a choice
between the judgment of professional scientists
and government officials on the one hand, and
the will of the people on the other, if s no
contest: the people win.
/ have a good deal of experience with what has
been called "the law of unintended
consequences."
Now, that is as it should be; in our
democratic system, government is, and should
be, sensitive to the concerns of the public.
But it is also true that legislators and
regulators alike—not to mention the judicial
system—can become absorbed in responding to
public perceptions that are driven by the
dramatic, the sensational, and the
well-publicized. And the price we pay for this
responsiveness can be a diminished ability to
deal effectively with less obvious, but perhaps
more significant, public health and
environmental problems.
It is here, in the public arena where "real"
risks and public perceptions collide, that the
regulatory process can slow to a crawl; where
decisions, once finally made, are challenged,
delayed and even overturned; where
consistency and predictability go out the
window, costs grow exponentially—and the
commercialization of new products and
technologies is stymied.
An excellent example of a clash between real
risks and public perceptions is the current
controversy over asbestos in the nation's
schools and public buildings.
As a conservationist and as a lawyer, I have
a good deal of experience with what has been
called "the law or unintended consequences."
Our experience with asbestos is a good
illustration of that law in action, in two very
different ways:
First, in terms of the unanticipated adverse
health effects caused by a substance that was
regarded, earlier this century, as a miracle
fiber, widely used in construction and many
other applications;
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And second, in terms of how the public, and
the marketplace, have responded to the
government's efforts to deal with those health
effects.
Several decades ago, scientists discovered
that exposure to high levels of asbestos among
shipyard and other workers had caused a
variety of serious, sometimes fatal, diseases,
including asbestosis, mesothelioma, and lung
cancer. In response, both EPA and the U.S.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OHSA), through the 1970s and 1980s,
established and then tightened regulations to
limit exposure to the public at large, and to
asbestos workers in particular.
In addition, Congress passed special
legislation in the mid-1980s establishing a
comprehensive asbestos inspection and control
program for the nation's primary and
secondary schools—a program aimed at
protecting children and school maintenance
and custodial workers from exposure to
airborne asbestos fibers.
Most recently, the unusually compelling
medical evidence on asbestos led to my
decision last year to phase out virtually all
remaining uses of asbestos in consumer
a considerable gap has opened up between what
EPA has been trying to say about asbestos, and
what the public has been hearing.
products, in order to prevent the introduction
of additional asbestos into the environment.
Now at this point, one might have thought
the basic regulatory structure and the necessary
public understanding were in place to bring the
asbestos problem under control.
No such luck; in recent months the "law of
unintended consequences" has reappeared to
haunt the asbestos program.
Based on recent meetings I have held with
school officials—including a delegation
representing the U.S. Catholic Conference—on
discussions with members of Congress, and on
a recent spate of inaccurate and sometimes
tendentious articles and columns in the news
media, it's clear to me that a considerable gap
has opened up between what EPA has been
trying to say about asbestos, and what the
public has been hearing.
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EPA has been trying, especially in the last
few years, to emphasize the importance of
managing asbestos "in place" whenever
possible. We've stressed that approach because
the unnecessary removal of asbestos-containing
materials may actually pose a greater health risk
than simply leaving them alone—so long as the
materials are undisturbed and unlikely to be
disturbed.
As is true with any hazardous substance, the
mere presence of asbestos poses no risk to
human health; only when asbestos fibers are
released into the air and breathed into the
lungs do they become a health risk.
However, many school officials and
commercial building owners, apparently
responding to pressure from citizens,
contractors or mortgage bankers, have opted to
remove the asbestos from, their buildings, even
if there are no health-related reasons for doing
so.
Just last month, for example, the Chicago
Tribune reported that a school district in
Downers Grove, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, had
won voter approval of a $1.1 million bond sale
for safety improvements in its two high
schools—including what was described as an
expensive asbestos removal program.
The newspaper quoted one school official as
saying the asbestos program was so expensive
because the asbestos is buried deeply within
the school's walls. This official was quoted as
saying that removal contractors will "have to
rip the walls apart, take the asbestos off the
pipes in the pipe chases and seal up the walls
again."
Now, I am not familiar with all the facts in
this case—our regional office in Chicago is
looking into it—but it appears on the race of it
that this is an extreme overreaction to the mere
presence of asbestos.
Based on the newspaper's description, the
situation does not appear to pose a hazard
from a health standpoint; yet this school district
may be getting ready to spend a great deal of
money on an unnecessary asbestos removal.
Even more disturbing is the fact that an
asbestos situation that may have posed
virtually no risk at all could, if this removal is
not properly conducted, turn into a fairly
significant health risk.
Furthermore, schools are not the only
buildings where unnecessary asbestos removals
are being carried out; we've learned that a
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number of commercial building owners also
have undertaken expensive, and from a health
standpoint probably unnecessary, removals,
primarily-for financial reasons.
In some cases, it appears that mortgage
bankers are requiring that asbestos be removed
before approving loans secured by the
property, because they're worried about
property devaluation. In other cases, building
owners are concerned about the expense of
liability insurance or the cost of legal claims if
an occupant of the building develops an
asbestos-related disease.
Just consider the irony in this situation: the
market, so often accused in the past of
undervaluing externalities like pollution and
resource depletion to the detriment of the
environment, is now helping to foster an
expensive overreaction to an environmental
problem to the detriment of businessmen.
At EPA, we are constantly updating our risk
assessments as scientific knowledge advances;
The market, however, is not solely
responsible for this situation; nor are the school
officials who go beyond what the government
requires. The government, and EPA
specifically, must also accept a share of the
responsibility for the misperceptions that have
led to unwarranted anxiety and unnecessary
asbestos removals.
The asbestos issue shows us that even when
we try to communicate clearly about
environmental hazards, misperceptions and
overreactions can still occur. And it
underscores the fact that environmental risk
assessment is anything but, an exact science; it
must cope with a great deal of. uncertainty
With asbestos as with most hazardous
substances, we/rarely have enough
information, or information of sufficient
quality, to make unequivocal, unambiguous
decisions about risk. Most of our conclusions
about human health risks are based on
debatable assumptions and projections, which
may or may not accurately predict human
health effects.
But while we often don't have all the
scientific data we would prefer, we also don't
have the luxury of waiting for it to come in
before we take action. Based on what we do
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know, we must, and will, take a cautious,
protective approach until We get better data,
and until we learn more about the effects of
toxic substances on human cells and
ecosystems and the mechanisms by which
diseases are caused.
Now, this prudent approach, with all its
uncertainties, can lead to a number of problems
in terms of public perceptions.
If we perform a risk assessment on a
substance like asbestos and declare it, based on
the best information available to us at the time,
a carcinogen, or even a potential carcinogen,
we should hardly be surprised if the public's
immediate reaction is: "Keep this stuff away
from me and my children!"
If government is going to sound the alarm
about potential threats to public health and
safety—and we certainly have an obligation to
do so—we must also state clearly just what
these threats are, and how best to deal with
them.
And when inappropriate public reaction does
occur, we have a responsibility to step up
promptly and explain exactly what we
know—and don't know—so the public can
make an informed judgment of the situation.
At EPA, we are constantly updating our risk
assessments as scientific knowledge advances;
we are insisting that these assessments be
subjected to rigorous internal and external peer
review; and we are looking for ways to achieve
greater consistency in our use of risk
assessments across the range of EPA
decision-making.
As the science evolves, we have an
additional obligation to share this new
information with the public. The public has a
right to know which risks are regarded as
serious by the government, and which are not.
And government also has a duty to alleviate
public confusion by speaking with one voice on
questions of risk whenever possible.
With specific respect to asbestos, EPA is
taking a number of steps to clarify the degree
of risk posed by asbestos, and also to reinforce
our guidance on appropriate response
strategies.
We're conducting major research on the
extent of asbestos exposure in buildings under
the auspices of the Health Effects Institute -
Asbestos Research in Boston. The Institute is
also reviewing all the relevant literature on the
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controversial subject of possible differential
health effects associated with the various types
of asbestos.
We're conducting a thorough evaluation of
the asbestos-in-schools .program, to determine
how effective it has been for schools and what
aspects of it, if any, may be appropriate for
public and commercial buildings. And I might
note here that, contrary to several of the recent
press reports, EPA specifically recommended
two years ago that Congress not expand the
asbestos-in-schools program to other buildings
until further study could be done on the need
for such a program.
The asbestos-in-schools review will look at
whether inspections are being done properly; it
will assess the quality of the management plans
prepared for the schools; and it will evaluate
the training of school personnel and the
effectiveness of the schools' response actions.
We recently completed a year-long policy
dialogue with representatives of all the interests
I am today commissioning a major management
review of our asbestos communications effort
affected by asbestos in public and commercial
buildings—real estate groups, lenders and
insurers, trade unions, asbestos contractors and
consultants, a public health group, and
government agencies.
And next month we will publish a guide for
building owners entitled Managing Asbestos in
Place; developed with the help of several
affected groups, the guide puts asbestos risk in
perspective and provides practical guidance on
managing asbestos materials in buildings.
This document, like the other guidance EPA
previously has published, strongly recommends
in-place management when asbestos is
discovered. A well-run, in-place management
program often can reduce the risk of
developing an asbestos-related disease to a
negligible level, and may be cheaper than
complete removal.
This is, in fact, the key message that needs to
be conveyed with respect to asbestos; and since
it apparently has not reached large segments of
the public, I am today commissioning a major
management review of our asbestos
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communications effort—including a look at the
guidance being given to school districts by
contractors and management planners.
This review will be conducted by Lew
Crarhpfori/''EPA's assistant administrator for
communications and public affairs, who led my
90-day study of the Superfund program last
year.
our environmental decisions must never become
popularity contests
Unfortunately, as I indicated earlier, the
asbestos case is hardly an isolated instance of
mis-communication and misunderstanding.
Given these communication problems—these
clashes between sound science and public
perceptions—what can we in government do to
foster public trust in science-based" regulation,
while continuing to serve the public's interest?
Let me take a few minutes to share some
thoughts on that question, based on my time in
office so far:
First, it's clear that we must do a better job
of educating and informing the public about
our regulatory decision-making process, and
involving the public in that process.
To be fully effective, the federal agencies
charged with protecting public health and
safety must be able to communicate
constructively to an informed public—a public
that trusts the processes and the people
involved in making risk-related decisions.
As Henry Ward Beecher observed, "Anxiety
in human fife is what squeaking and grinding
are in machinery that is not oiled. In Efe, trust
is the oil."
To win that trust, we must do a better job of
explaining the legal mandates under which we
operate; how the regulatory process works; and
how we factor risk-benefit tradeoffs and other
considerations into our decisions.
We must listen carefully and respond to the
public's concerns; and the public for its part
needs to understand that EPA must and will
continue to rely on a rational, science-based
process for determining when to take risk
management actions.
And while our environmental decisions must
never become popularity contests, it is entirely
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appropriate, even necessary, to bring the public
into the debates on which our decisions turn.
Second, instead of seeing the environment in
individual segments, we need to see it as a
whole—as, in fact, it really is.
Much misunderstanding and mistrust results,
I think, from the fact that the public tends to
lump problems together, while government,
with its patchwork of media- and
pollutant-specific legislation and regulatory
programs, and the large number of
Congressional committees and subcommittees
we need to scale what we might call the Twin
Peaks of environmental policy for the 1990s:
risk reduction and pollution prevention.
concerned about the environment, tends to
separate them into discreet packets.
While EPA tries, for example, to determine
what level of a particular chemical in food, in
the air, or in drinking water might pose
unreasonable health risks, citizens look at the
entire spectrum of chemicals to which they are
exposed in daily life—in the home, on the job,
and in between—and worry about cumulative
effects as well as effects from multiple sources
of exposure.
Frankly, I think the public has the right idea.
EPA, and government in general, need to
take a broader, more integrated view of the full
costs and benefits of environmental action or
inaction.
We must find ways to compare
environmental risks across programs, and to
concentrate on those areas where we can
realize the greatest benefits for human health
and the integrity of natural systems.
And we must continue to broaden the factors
we explicitly consider in making risk
management decisions to reflect legitimate
cultural and ethical values and concerns, as
well as the inherent uncertainties of risk
assessment.
Third, we need to scale what we might call
the Twin Peaks of environmental policy for the
1990s: risk reduction and pollution prevention.
Risk reduction and pollution prevention must
become the watchwords for all of our,
environmental protection programs.
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I believe it is unrealistic to expect that we can
ever achieve consensus on what constitutes an
"acceptable" level of risk. There are too many
unknowns, too many competing social values
and policy agendas, too many trade-offs
between various kinds of costs and benefits.
The search for the Holy Grail of risk
management—the so-called "bright line" that
would let policy-makers determine, under any
and all circumstances, whether a particular
level of risk is "acceptable" or not—seems
doomed to failure.
In my view; a much more effective approach
to risk assessment is for us to identify the most
significant, most troublesome kinds of risk,
through a strategic planning process based on
relative risk; and then work to protect human
health and the environment by focusing our
resources and efforts on the most important
risks first.
How do we accomplish risk reduction? One
of the most important ways is to emphasize
pollution prevention: to look at risk
management options that eliminate the source
of the risk.
Not only is this approach more effective and
more consistent with market incentives than
traditional "end-of-pipe" treatment and control,
but it also avoids much of the expense and
frustration that is inherent in managing,
treating, or shunting wastes off to other
environmental media.
For example, in the case of two particularly
troublesome substances—lead and dioxin—EPA
has set up multi-program task forces that are
looking for ways to reduce overall exposures to
these substances from all sources.
Recently we announced an action plan to
require reductions in the amount of dioxin
discharged into streams, spread on land in
sludge, and incorporated into paper products,
even though we are still a long way from
scientific agreement on the degree of risk posed
by the presence of trace levels of dioxin in
water and food.
The focus of the plan is on reducing the
formation of dioxin, not on removing it after the
fact. We plan to announce a similar plan for
lead soon.
Let me conclude with another word or two
about the economic impact of environmental
protection.
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This Administration is serious about the
protection of public health and the
environment. But at a time of severe resource
constraints, it also behooves us to be serious
about the costs of environmental programs.
The intimate relationship between the
economy and the environment is a profound
reality of modern life. Right now the nation
spends more than $80 billion a year on
environmental programs, mostly private
money. Our capital and operating expenditures
on pollution control and cleanup, as a
percentage of our gross domestic product, are
higher than most, if not all, of the other
western industrial nations—in the range of 1.5
to 1.7 percent.
And according to a forthcoming EPA report,
that expenditure could double—to around 3
percent of GNP—in the 1990s as the revised
Clean Air Act takes effect and the
multi-billion-dollar cleanups of hazardous waste
sites and government nuclear facilities move
forward.
What we are trying to do in the Bush
Administration—and the President's package of
proposed Clean Air Act amendments is only
the first example—is to begin the search for a
more coherent, more integrated way of looking
at the trade-offs between continued economic
growth and environmental improvement.
That's why the Administration has been so
careful to analyze the cost of every measure in
our clean air bill. The President's clean air
proposals will put the United States on the
path toward dramatically cleaner air by the end
of the century; and equally important, by
allowing flexibility and incorporating market
incentives, the President's bill will achieve the
pollution reductions we need in the most
cost-effective way possible.
It will thus bring about environmental
improvements without unnecessarily impeding
economic growth over the long term.
I noted at the beginning of this talk that our
decisions must be based on sound science. This
is true whether we're talking about traditional
risk assessment and "end-or-pipe" pollution
control, or new approaches based on risk
reduction and pollution prevention.
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We must continue to improve our ability to
assess and characterize risk; but the surest path
to protecting human health and the .
environment, and to gaining the public's trust,
lies in our ability to point to a steadily
decreasing volume of, and exposure to,
hazardous substances in the environment.
We know from experience that pollution
prevention works, it can save money, and it
can save lives. It means setting in place laws
and policies, such as the creative market
incentives in the President's proposed Clean
Air Act amendments, that unleash American
ingenuity to solve problems in new ways,
This approach will require us to change some
fundamental precepts; it will ask that we think
more carefully about the consequences of our
actions on future generations; it will require
those of us in the federal sector to work
together as never before, both to achieve a
consistent approach to risk and to communicate
a consistent message to the public; and it will
demand creativity and commitment from all of
us—from government, from business, from the
environmental community.
I am profoundly conscious of the many
unmet environmental needs we face, and of the
unprecedented impatience and high
expectations of the American people. We will
not meet these needs and expectations unless
we work together.
Our challenge is to chart a prudent course
through an increasingly passionate time; to
demand good science in the face of
"middle-class enthusiasms;" to set priorities
based more explicitly on the opportunities to
reduce risks; to take protective actions when
necessary, even if we don't have all the data
we would like; and above all, to get real and
lasting results.
Results that will help foster the public trust
that is the foundation of our democratic
government; results that will produce a
sounder, more consistent, and more successful
program for protecting and enhancing the
quality of our environment and the health of
our citizens.
I invite you to join us in this effort. Thank
you.
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