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.
10

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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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