United Slates
Environmental Protection
Agency
Washington DC 20460
"The Next Four Years:
An Agenda for
Environmental Results"
Address by
Lee M. Thomas
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
at the National Press Club
ApriJ 3, 1985
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George Bernard Shaw once observed that there were
two kinds of work in the world. The first consisted
of moving objects from place to place on the surface of
the earth and the second consisted of telling other
people to do so. While environmental protection consists
largely of the first type—moving stuff from a place
where it may do harm to a place where it won'l-EPA's
role is to define when, where, and how the move should
take place.
Doing this sort of work right requires an enormous
amount of careful thought. "Careful" because the laws of
nature, which rule that work, are unforgiving, and not
subject to amendment on Capitol Hill. Doing it right also
requires a minimum amount of stability, continuity, and
consistency. It can't be done in a firehouse atmosphere.
If it is done "carefully" and "right", the benefits for us
and our children can be immense.
For that reason, we must dedicate the next four years
to obtaining measureable environmental results. We
must improve the management of our programs and
increase our understanding of what the Federal
environmental protection enterprise can really
accomplish.
Beyond that, we must begin to pursue a neglected
facet of EPA's original charter. That is the integration of
all environmental programs into a managed system,
capable of focusing Federal authority on the reduction of
environmental impacts wherever they are found, in the
most effective and efficient way.
This is a pragmatic approach to a set of issues that
have often been dominated by symbolic and political
concerns, but I think its time has come. EPA has been
given—perhaps not in the most thoughtful way
possible—an almost frightening armory of powers. It can
affect almost every aspect of American life—what we eat
and drink and how much we pay for it, what we drive.
what kind of gas we use, the kinds of jobs we can work
at—from the laundry room to the board room, EPA is
there.
This power makes it vital that we stay smart about
where and how we insert it into our society. Americans
have said over and over again that they want
environmental protection, and that they are willing to
sacrifice other goods to get it. What they haven't said,
and won't say, is that they are willing to make sacrifices
for nothing, or, at any rate for not much.
That is why 1 stress results. EPA is under obligation to
show what we have accomplished in terms of concrete
environmental values. Not how much money we spent,
or how many people we employed or how much paper
we moved. People want to know, is the air cleaner? Is
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the water cleaner? Have risks been reduced? Have the
most risks been reduced for our cost nncl theirs?
We must make sure that our efforts over the next four
years are concentrated on thu reduction of imporkinl
environmental risks, at places and in situations where
the Federal power is esscnlidl It is not efficiency alone
that demands this discipline.
Nothing erodes the public's tolerance of a regulatory
agency more than the imposition of burdens thai appear
to have only petty results in terms of some substantive
public benefit. At the same time, nothing erodes the
public's faith in a regulatory agency more than the
appearance that it is not. for whatever reason, acting
aggressively in the public interest.
My perception is that we have at (his point achieved a
reasonable balance between these two poles. I don't
want to see the pendulum start swinging again, because
if it does, the Agency will once again be distracted from
its important goals by controversy and political friction.
We have to be particularly careful at present because
we are'moving to control areas that will have a more
direct effect than ever before on the daily lives of our
people. For example, we have implemented inspection
and maintenance programs that Congress mandated for
automobiles in about thirty metropolitan areas that do
not meet air pollution standards. We are in the process
of removing most of the lead from gasoline, which will
affect millions'of people across the country. And we are
looking at controlling the vapor released when you fill
your gas tank, which may add to the inconvenience of
filling up the family car.
As we continue to focus on improving the
performance of our sewage plants, people may see their
sewage bills going up. In extreme cases, as happened
recently in one major city, new connections may have to
stop until the necessary improvements are made. The
imposition of expanded federal drinking water standards
requiring increases in monitoring costs for local
governments may result in water bill increases in many
communities.
Perhaps the most widespread of these more personal
impacts will occur in the thousands of communities
affected by our programs'to control hazardous waste. We
must decide how much to clean up Superfund sites and
where to treat, store and dispose of the more than 250
million tons of hazardous waste we produce each year.
These decisions are site-specific. They may change from
site to site, depending on unique site characteristics of
each. In every instance, however, there is a concerned
community that will be affected by what happens.
With that potential to affect people, the obligation to
focus our resources to achieve important environmental
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results should be obvious. But it isn't that simple.
In the first place, we always—always—underestimate
the complexity of the environmental problem we want to
control and the difficulty of operating the control
program. In other words, what comes out of a committee
room in Washington as a mandate often has lif'c
connection with what comes out of some pipe in Ohio I
consider this to be one of the greatest le.vsOns that can be
derived from fifteen years of Federal environmental
protection efforts.
In the second place. FiPA is not so much a coherent
national program to manage pollution as it is a reflection
of the success that many independent interests have had
in getting their positions established in the law. There
are air interests, drinking water interests, fish interests.
and interests devoted to particular diseases.
There is the regulated community, of course, with
another host of interests. And the pollution control
industry, a new big business, has interests of its own
Carried to the extreme, the success of these interests
could burden EPA with a set of mandates so vast that no
resource base within the realm of economic reason could
possibly carry all of them out.
We must choose to do the things that seem to us '.< UB
important, and do them well We must tell peop! : wny
we think they are important and why we didn't c'u other
things we think are less important
This is a sure recipe for getting flak, since tii -. interests
that your priorities have served take it for granted, and
the interests you have not served pillory you for neglect.
But the alternative is to pretend to do all the things we
are on the hook for doing, and set up programs that
create a lot of sound and fury without really
accomplishing much. Nobody at EPA wants to do that.
What, then, are some of the important problems?
Where do we think our efforts must be concentrated over
the next four years to achieve-the maximum
environmental improvement? Such efforts must involve
taking fresh looks at the problems of the older programs
that form the backbone of EPA. They also include
ensuring that some of the newer ones are making
progress in real environmental terms.
Sewage treatment is important. We have spent nearly
$40 billion on this program. The good news is that a
steadily increasing percentage of Americans are being
served by adequate treatment: 57 million people have
been added to the system since 1972.
However, 13% of the 3600 largest systems do not
comply with their permits. Others are overloaded or
subject to frequent breakdowns. Many communities have
chosen not to. or are not able to. operate and maintain
their plants properly.
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In addition, in order to meet the legal requirement for
universal secondary treatment there remains billions of
dollars worth of new construction needs. But half of this
"unmet need" exists on streams that meet water quality
standards already. Is this a good investment? If so, who
should make it?
Our efforts in this area will be focused on stiffening
our enforcement against municipal facilities, and
providing technical advice to the states on operation and
maintenance problems. Additionally, we must do this
while exploring ways for converting the federal
construction grants program to something states and
localities can manage on their own. It was never
intended to be a permanent federal program.
Controlling ozone and the other major air pollutants is
another important area. While I appreciate the concern
about more exotic toxic air pollutants, we should not
forget that controlling the criteria pollutants remains the
best way of preventing public health and property
damage from the effects of air pollution.
There are still 54 urban areas that clearly do not meet
ozone standards and 72 areas that do not meet carbon
monoxide standards. We have until 1987 to bring all of
them into compliance. Also, we are starting to see that
our basic strategy for dealing with these pollutants, a
strategy that assumes that the major environmental
effects are in the airshed where they are released, may
be mistaken in some important cases. We may have to
start taking a regional view when establishing pollutant
limitations.
It is now also becoming apparent that atmospheric
chemistry is far more complicated than we imagined
only a few years ago. Many pollutants interact; changing
the level of one may decrease or increase the level of
another. Part of the difficulty we have faced in deciding
on the best way to deal with the acid rain issue is only
the most familiar of these problems. There are others.
We intend to lake this new understanding into
account as we work with the states over the next four
years. Naturally, we hope that they are also taken into
account as Congress considers reauthorization of the
Clean Air Act.
Non-point source water pollution — another important
area. If we don't do something about this kind of water
pollution, which comes from drainage off farms and
urban areas, then on many water bodies we will never
reach the ambitious goals of the Clean Water Act. It
won't matter how hard we clamp down on point sources
such as industrial outflows, the water will stay dirty.
Dealing successfully with this kind of water pollution
is a much more difficult matter than establishing
required control technologies for industrial plants.
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Successful attacks must vary with locality and often
involve changes in land use or agricultural practices.
What we do about non-point pollution will have an
enormous impact on trip nation's wetlands—and
wetlands are important. They arc Ihn most productive
areas for a host of environmental values. In the past two
centuries we have converted about Imlf of America's
original body of wetlands in I hi; lower 48 stales to other
uses.
While we have been successful in protecting some
particularly critical wetlands, it remains a fact that
Federal, state and local programs do not deal with
wetlands consistently. Some may encourage conversion
while others try to halt it. At EPA. decisions affecting
wetlands are typically made case-by-case, without an
adequate strategic context, and they consume inordinate
amounts of time and effort.
I have the sense that we are observing an enormously
important part of our heritage being nibbled away
without us taking the time to state how we would like it
to be, now and into the indefinite future. We need a
strategy that incorporates an analytic basis for making
decisions about wetlands so that EPA's activities in this
area will make long-term sense.
Finally, we have the problem whose apparent
importance has eclipsed that of all others in recent
years—what to do about toxic substances and all that
hazardous waste.
I think we recognize that nothing is more critical than
continuing and completing our review of all existing
chemical and pesticide products. We must ensure that
our most stringent health-based standards are complied
with. At the same time we cannot neglect the thorough
review of new products proposed for the market.
As far as hazardous waste is concerned, I am
beginning to sense a change in attitude on the Superfund
side of this issue reflected in the kinds of questions we
have been getting from Congress. I believe this is the
result of our increased understanding of the dimensions
and complexity of the problem.
In its recent report, the Office of Technology
Assessment came to an important realization, one that
we in EPA had reached through first-hand experience. It
is that our clean-up program is operating on the cutting
edge of pollution control technology. Each site presents
a complex and unique problem, whose solution strains
current analytic tools.
Although we do not want to slow the momentum of
the Superfund program, we must realize that we run the
risk of serious errors if we try to force technical
solutions at sites where they are really not appropriate.
OTA recognized that it makes little economic or
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environmental sense to undertake costly long-term
clean-up projects until we are sure that we have the
technology to do it right.
Of course, we must continue to locate immediate
environmental and public health threats and deal with
them effectively, which is what wo have been
concentrating on. Our proposed extension of Superfund
will enable us to continue with Ihuse important actions
If Congress keeps this in mind. I think we will gel a
better reaulhorizalion than we could have expected a
year ago. And four years hence we will have a good
chance of saying that this seemingly intractable problem
is under adequate social control
On the RCRA side, we have created a program that is
going to rattle through the entire economy of this
country like a golf ball down a drain pipe. We generate
over 250 million tons of hazardous wastes every year
During the next four years I would like to see us settle
the debate about whether, where and when we should
bury it. burn it, detoxify it. shoot it down a well, or slop
it from being produced at all. I would like to see us
make these decisions, and those connected with
Superfund remedial action, on the basis of solid analysis
of the risks and costs involved in all the options.
Additionally, 1 believe we need to pay a lot more
attention to community relations in those places most
affected by hazardous wastes, in the belief that local
people can help us make intelligent risk management
decisions when we share the available information with
them. For that matter, citizens can contribute to making
better decisions in all environmental areas. I intend to
stress community involvement in each of our line
programs.
I have been talking about concentrating on the
important problems, but just as important is the manner
in which we exercise this concentration. It is by now
well known that pollution can move among the
environmental media—from air to water, from surface
water to groundwater, from water to soil, and so on.
But EPA is composed of individual programs, each
carrying out a particular statutory mandate. These are
typically focused on individual media It is
understandable that someone under the gun for
instituting water cleanup may not have paid the closest
attention to the effect on the air resulting from that
cleanup. But someone should have. I'rom now on,
someone will.
Let me give you a few examples. I mentioned
non-point source pollution as a priority. One way of
preventing pollution of surface water from agricultural
run-off is to institute certain management practices
designed to keep water on the land for a longer time, so
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that it will soak into the soil. But when it soaks into lliu
soil it carries with it the whole chemical
brew—pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides—that we use to
keep our farms productive. We now have ;i
pesticide-in-groundwater problem of unknown
proportions. Obviously, anything we do to correct
non-point-source pollution will h.ivc to t;ik<; this Inmsfcr
into account.
I also mentioned the importance of controlling criteria
pollutants. Look at the foundry industry. This is a
classic "smokestack" industry where we have done a
good job in controlling these pollutants. Now the
foundry industry has a serious water pollution problem.
over eighty percent of which, in some foundries, comes
from the wet scrubbers we mandated to control the air
pollution.
Finally. I mentioned the importance of improving
sewage plant performance. I will add that the settling
ponds and lagoons used in many of these plants are. in a
number of industrial areas, a significant source of toxic
air pollutants. The toxics come from industrial plants
that discharge into the sewer system.
We will be able to control much of this problem
through pre-treatment—the removal of the toxic material
at the source. But if you have followed my argument you
can see that (his is vet another.inter-media
transfer—from water into ha/.ardous "solid" waste.
which will have to be disposed of in some way.
This circle game has to stop. It is expensive At best it
is misleading—we think we are solving a problem and
we aren't. At worst, it is perverse—it may increase rather
than reduce pollution risks. It seems to me that the
solution to this problem is the consistent application
across all Agency programs of what we have been calling
risk management.
Reducing risk—to human health and environmental
values—is after all the reason we remove pollutants from
the environment. It is the currency of our business. By
closely watching the movement of pollutants that results
from regulatory options and calculating the attendant
risks for each we can assure the public that our actions
are indeed connected with a measureable. permanent
good.
Of course, once you start working with a risk
currency, EPA becomes something more than the sum of
its programs. We can start looking at the risk-reduction
potential of the various programs and directing resources
where this potential appears to be greatest. We intend to
begin doing this as a normal part of our budgetary
process in the coming years.
The approach has, of course, some obvious problems.
It is relatively easy to compare the risk of a single public
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health effect delivered via two different media. We can
agree that a one in a million chance of getting cancer
from drinking water is pretty much equal to the same
chance of getting it through breathing something in the
air. But what about comparing the chance of human
disease with the chance of harming the marine
environment?
I'll give you a concrete example. Let us say that if you
incinerate particularly toxic wastes on land there is
always some residual risk to the surrounding human
population. If you incinerate at sea. that risk virtually
disappears. But there is a quite small though still
calculable possibility that something could happen to
the incineration ship, with unpredictable effects on
marine organisms. Do you allow the ship to sail?
I can't see how you could solve dilemmas such as this
without a lot of information on risks, costs and
probabilities, and without the ability to respond flexibly.
depending on what that information yielded. Most
important, you need that kind of information to
communicate to the public how the decision was made,
what your values are, and how you balanced all the
factors involved.
In summary, then, I see a four-point environmental
management plan emerging over the next four years.
First we will make sure that our priorities are those that
can have important environmental results. We will take
steps to ensure that measuring those results becomes a
central part of Agency management. Over the next few
years I want to complement and m some cases replace
the largely administrative measures in our internal
accountability system with indicators of environmental
progress for each program.
Second, we will continue the strong movement
envisioned in our environmental statutes to decentralize
our programs and delegate additional responsibility to
Regions and States. Environmental protection is too large
a dog to be wagged by a tail clutched in Washington. We
intend to do everything we can to increase the flexibility
with which states and localities may implement Federal
standards. We will also strengthen our technical support
and oversight role. We must continue to change policies
and long-standing practices that impede this movement.
In this regard, we will continue our efforts to collect
information on risk in particular areas subject to unusual
environmental stress. Such information gives us the
ability to work with states and localities to tailor
environmental solutions to the varying needs of different
geographical areas. We have launched a number of
projects aimed at giving states and localities the kind of
information they need to make intelligent risk
management decisions.
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Third, we will increase (he emphasis we give to
community involvement and public education. At
present, we require a detailed community relations plan
for all Superfund sites. We have recommended that this
be embodied in law. I have also asked that all the line
programs develop community relations and public
outreach strategies. If what we are doing makes sense,
we ought to be able to communicate that to the grass
roots better than we have in the past. We must also
establish forums that consistently provide input to us
from the public as we make decisions which affect
peoples' lives.
Finally, we must plan control solutions with a
multimedia perspective. We have to reduce risk and not
merely transfer it. Building an integrated management
structure at EPA will not be easy. But we have some of
the elements in place, and we have the will to do it. We
must focus our resources on the most important
problems, and fix them so that they stay fixed.
And we can't do that without some kind of
measurable risk management integrated across
environmental media. We can't do that without the
knowledgeable participation of states and localities.
Most of all, we can't do that without strong public
support.
Thank you.
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United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Washington DC 20460
Assessing and Managing
Risks
in the Real World
Address by
Lee M. Thomas
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
before the
National Petroleum Refiners Association
San Antonio, Texas
March 25, 1985
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It is a pleasure for me to be here this morning to share
with you my thoughts on the state of our environment
and how we go about protecting it. During the two years
or so that I have been with EPA, I have learned a great
deal about the complexity of this process.
Managing an agency such as EPA is a tremendous
challenge. On the one hand, we have a clear mission
from Congress and the support of all Americans. On the
other, we must be able to see beyond that mission in its
abstract sense to appreciate the impact of our decisions.
It is not uncommon, in making regulatory decisions, to
find ourselves between the proverbial rock and hard
place. For every issue, there seems to be a corps of vocal
advocates and a cadre of equally vocal opponents. The
problem is that these groups tend to change from issue
to issue. And, of course, the issues themselves never
seem to end.
Now I know why Bill Ruckelshaus had a smile on his
face the day he handed me the keys to the
Administrator's office.
The rulemaking process at EPA today is really a series
of tradeoffs. There is a general realization among all who
actively participate in this process—environmentalists,
the regulated community, and even the media — that we
must find an optimum pathway to our goals. That
pathway must ensure that we continue to enjoy
economic prosperity and growth, but not at the expense
of our environment.
We achieve these objectives by carefully assessing the
risks we face as an industrial society, and managing
those risks effectively.
To assess the risk at hand, we gather as many facts as
possible about the problem. This is a scientific process
in which experts thoroughly review the extent of our
knowledge and carefully design and conduct
experiments to expand that knowledge. This scientific
process gives us a basis for understanding the risk we
'face. It tells us what the risk is, what we know about it,
and who is exposed.
Then comes the hard part—risk
management—deciding what to do about a problem once
we are sure there is one. Based upon our assessment of
the nature and extent of the risk, we must devise a way
of dealing with it. The options before us include such
things as new regulations, additional reporting
requirements, new outreach programs or some
combination of these and other approaches.
Our recent decision to take most of the lead out of
gasoline is a very important example of how the risk
assessment/risk management process works. The
increasing evidence of the injury done to children by
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airborne lead is undeniable. We know lead threatens
hundreds of thousands of children, particularly in the
inner city.
We are not alone in our assessment of this risk. The
Centers for Disease Control recently lowered the level of
lead in blood it says constitutes serious toxicity. And,
beyond the problem with children, there are new
indications emerging that lead may increase high blood
pressure in adults.
Last month, I signed regulations that will phase down
the lead content of gasoline by more than 90% this year.
The process will take place in two steps. And by January
1986, lead in gasoline will be limited to no more than
one tenth of a gram per gallon.
As a result, we will substantially reduce the
concentration of airborne lead, 80% of which comes
from gasoline. We hope our requirements will help to
equalize the price of leaded and unleaded gasolines.
This, in turn, should minimize any financial incentive
for motorists to put leaded fuel in cars designed for
unleaded, thereby increasing the emission of other
pollutants as well as lead.
Misfueling has been a problem in the past. We
estimate as many as 16% of all vehicles designed to use
unleaded gas are fueled illegally with cheaper leaded
gas.
Our standard is a stringent one. But it is justified by
the substantial benefits to be gained by all Americans.
And we are convinced that the refining industry can
meet the standard.
Bear in mind, this may not be the end of the line for
the lead-in-gasoline issue. We are looking closely at
whether lead should be banned entirely as a gasoline
additive.
The rule we have adopted will provide net benefits of
more than a billion dollars a year when we compare
health-related savings and lower auto maintenance costs
with increased production costs. And it is very possible
that we have understated the full benefits of lead
reduction.
If new data on the relationship between blood lead
and blood pressure hold up, the medical value of our
standard will increase by several billion dollars per year
This is a highly cost-effective regulation.
I am aware that implementing this rule will bring with
it a certain amount of disruption to the refining industry.
Our objective, of course, is Lo substantially cut lead
levels in our air, and to do it as soon as possible. We
want to work with your industry to accomplish this goal
as efficiently as possible.
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To ease the potential for capacity problems. I am
announcing today that I have signed final rules to allow
the banking of lead rights. These rules will extend the
successful lead trading program through 1967. and
would give refineries more flexibility in meeting the new
standard without reducing its effectiveness.
Banking will allow refiners to cut lead use now. ahead
of schedule, and use that lead later in meeting the new
standard. We estimate it will save refiners more than
$200 million without increasing the amount of lead in
gasoline. Our banking provisions are retroactive to
January 1, 1985. We will give you full credit for the
reductions you have already achieved.
A related risk-management decision of importance to
your industry deals with achieving the 1987 attainment
date for ozone extension areas, which embrace about
half of the country's population. We are convinced the
lead rule will help, as will expanded inspection and
maintenance programs.
They are not going to solve the entire problem,
however, and we are exploring alternatives. One
problem is thai many vehicles are not meeting our
evaporative emission standards. This increases
hydrocarbon loadings and thereby ozone. As much as
one-half of the hydrocarbons come from motor vehicles,
and now up to half of those are evaporative emissions.
Two factors may be contributing to this situation.
First, controls may not be as effective as we had
expected. They may need improvement. Second, the
volatility of gasoline is higher than that of the test fuels
used to certify vehicles. We are exploring a range of
options.
We are releasing lest results and soliciting public
comments, in preparation for workshops as early as this
summer. At the same time, we are sensitive lo the
interaction between our new lead rule and the costs of
volatility control.
Other options for vapor recovery are also being
studied, including controls at service stations and on
vehicles. We've received many comments on a sludy
released last fall. Not surprisingly, those in the
petroleum industry think onboard controls make sense.
while the auto manufacturers find a lot to like about
Stage II controls at service stations.
There are a number of other EPA programs with
important implications for the refining industry where
we must apply our risk assessment/risk management
skills. I will be very honest with you. In some areas, we
are moving in the right direction. We have sound,
obtainable objectives. In oth rs. I'm not as certain.
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I've already cited our lead regulation as one I believe
is a sound product of the risk assessment/risk
management process. It is one we initiated based upon
reliable data, thorough analysis, and careful assessment
of costs and benefits.
We cannot always be sure that the impact of our
efforts is so clearly positive. This is particlarly true
when we are carrying out a statutory mandate that,
however well intended, may have been enacted on the
basis of limited information.
For example, when it enacted amendments to the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act last year,
Congress imposed a number of important new
responsibilities on EPA. Not all of them will pay such
obvious benefits as our lead rule.
RCRA now broadens the reach of EPA's hazardous
waste regulatory program to those businesses generating
relatively small quantitites of regulated wastes. On the
surface, this would seem to be a good idea.
Until the new amendments were developed, our
cradle-lo-grave regulations applied only Lo those who
generated more than 1,000 kilograms of hazardous waste
each month, We know of approximately 15,000 such
generators. Combined, they produce some 264 million
metric tons of waste annually. That's about 99.5% of all
hazardous wastes generated in this country.
RCRA's new small-quantily-generator provisions bring
into the regulatory system another 175,000 firms. Yet
they generate only half of one percent of the total
volume. So, as a result of statutory requirements, we
now must vastly and rapidly expand the size of our
regulated universe. In so doing, we pick up a very small
amount of wastes which had escaped our net in the first
place.
My concern is this kind of requirement may serve only
to make our overall hazardous waste management
program less effective. We must devote substantial
resources to the small-quantily-generator program on the
assumption that a problem exists, with severe
constraints in the law. requiring a full regulatory
solution. Additionally, a portion of our enforcement
resources will now have to be oriented toward these
175,000 generators.
1 question whether our limited resources are best spent
on these activities. ! question whether the American
people are best served by the requirement for such a
program before we have fully defined the problem to be
addressed and determined how best to manage it. i.e.
risk assessment/risk management.
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Another new RCRA provision about which I have
reservations is the underground storage tank program.
There are more than 2 million underground tanks in the
U.S.today; about 100,000 new ones are installed each
year. Congress, in the new RCRA law. told us to develop
specific rules and performance standards for these tanks
in a relatively short time-frame, although we are just
beginning the data collection effort needed to determine
the extent of the problem they pose.
The program is bound to become a massive,
resource-intensive undertaking. It will involve a long and
complicated regulatory process. It will probably be very
difficult to implement and enforce, due in part to our
lack of expertise in this area and because of its sheer
size.
Both the small-quantity generator and underground
storage tank programs are examples of major regulatory
responsibilities imposed on EPA by Congress in the
absence of sound risk assessment/risk management
proceedings. I am uncertain at this point as to how well
we can implement either given the specificity and time
frames in the law.
This is not to suggest that everything in the new KCRA
statute is ill-conceived. To the contrary, regulation of
small quantity generators and underground storage tanks
may be necessary, but we will need lime to assess risks
and recommend solutions before the law mandates
remedies. Another important provision of RCRA calls on
EPA to move forward with efforts to ban the land
disposal of many hazardous wastes.
We have learned (he hard way over the years that land
disposal is the least desirable method of hazardous
waste management. We have the data we need to assess
the risks of land disposal The agency was procedmg
with land disposal bans on its own, even in the absence
of this specific Congressional mandate.
Finally, I think we should look for a moment at our
Superfund program as an example of how EPA has
employed a Congressional mandate effectively We have
used many principles of risk assessment and risk
management to build the Superfund cleanup program.
We will continue to do so.
First of all. in developing our list of national priority
sites requiring long-term cleanup, we assess each
potentially hazardous site. If it poses an immediate
threat to human health or the environment, we lake
emergency steps to eliminate the danger. At the same
time, we do detailed studies at those sites that appear to
pose long-term hazards. Where we determine sites
represent a chronic hazard, we place them on our
priority list.
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After a slow start, our cleanup program has during the
last two years made substantial progress. By the end of
the current fiscal year, we will have taken emergency
actions at nearly 650 sites. Long-term cleanup will have
begun at nearly 500.
A month ago, President Reagan sen! to Congress a
proposal lo reauthorize Superfund for another five years.
The $5.3 billion package would triple the size of the
current fund. It would also focus Superfund's authorities
on the most serious problems first — uncontrolled
hazardous waste dumps. In addition, the President's
program strengthens our enforcement tools and provides
for a reliable source of adequate funding through 1990.
All of this brings me back to the philosophical
question I started lo ask in the beginning. Once we have
decided that a given risk needs managing, exactly what
do we do about it? And if we can't create a risk-free
society, haw do we determine an acceptable level of
risk? How much do we spend lo reduce risk?
There are no fast, cheap or easy answers to these and
other questions dealing with risk. What we must do is
address all of our environmental challenges squarely,
assess the relative risks of each, and determine who best
to manage them. To do this effectively, we must involve
the public in the risk-management process.
We must build trust among our citizens. They must
know that EPA, industry, environmental organizations
and others are working together lo address the most
serious hazards facing the American environment.
We will spend billions on environmental and health
protection over the next couple of decades. That's a
major investment, most of il funded by taxpayers and
purchasers of products. We should make certain that
every penny is spent to get real, solid, measurable
results. That's our bottom line at EPA. Thai's what we
are trying to achieve.
Thank you very much.
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United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Washington DC 20460
"The Next Four Years:
An Agenda for
Environmental Results"
Address by
Lee M. Thomas
Administrator
U.S. EnvironmentaJ Protection Agency
at the National Press Dub
April 3, 1985
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eorge Bernard Shaw once observed that there were
VJtwo kinds of work in the world. The first consisted
of moving objects from place to place on the surface of
the earth and the second consisted of telling other
people to do so. While environmental protection consists
largely of the first type—moving stuff from a place
where it may do harm to a place where it won't-EPA's
role is to define when, where, and how the move should
take place.
Doing this sort of work right requires an enormous
amount of careful thought. "Careful" because the laws of
nature, which rule that work, are unforgiving, and not
subject to amendment on Capitol Hill. Doing it right also
requires a minimum amount of stability, continuity, and
consistency. It can't be done in a firehouse atmosphere.
If it is done "carefully" and "right", the benefits for us
and our children can be immense.
For that reason, we must dedicate the next four years
to obtaining measureable environmental results. We
must improve the management of our programs and
increase our understanding of what the Federal
environmental protection enterprise can really
accomplish.
Beyond that, we must begin to pursue a neglected
facet of EPA's original charter. That is the integration of
all environmental programs into a managed system,
capable of focusing Federal authority on the reduction of
environmental impacts wherever they arc found, in the
most effective and efficient way.
This is a pragmatic approach to a set of issues that
have often been dominated by symbolic and political
concerns, but I think its time has come. EPA has been
given—perhaps not in the most thoughtful way
possible—an almost frightening armory of powers. It can
affect almost every aspect of American life—what we eat
and drink and how much we pay for it, what we drive,
what kind of gas we use, the kinds of jobs we can work
at—from the laundry room to the board room. EPA is
there.
This power makes it vital that we stay smart about
where and how we insert it into our society. Americans
have said over and over again that they want
environmental protection, and that they are willing to
sacrifice other goods to gel it. What they haven't said,
and won't say, is that they are willing to make sacrifices
for nothing, or. at any rate for not much.
That is why I stress results. EPA is under obligation to
show what we have accomplished in terms of concrete
environmental values. Not how much money we spent,
or how many people we employed or how much paper
we moved. People want to know, is the air cleaner? Is
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the water cleaner? Have risks boon reduced? Have the
most risks been reduced for our cost and theirs?
We must make sure that our efforts over the next four
years arc concentrated on'the reduction of important
environmental risks, at places and in situations where
the Federal power is essential. It is not efficiency alone
that demands this discipline.
Nothing erodes the public's tolerance of a regulatory
agency more than the imposition of burdens that appear
to have only petty results in terms of some substantive
public benefit. At the same time, nothing erodes the
public's faith in a regulatory agency more than the
appearance that it is not. for whatever reason, acting
aggressively in the public interest.
• My perception is that we have at this point achieved a
reasonable balance between these two poles. 1 don't
want to see the pendulum start swinging again, because
if it does, the Agency will once again be distracted from
its important goals by controversy and political friction.
We have to be particularly careful at present because
we are'moving to control areas that will have a more
direct effect than ever before on the daily lives of our
people. For example, we have implemented inspection
and maintenance programs that Congress mandated for
automobiles in about thirty metropolitan areas that do
not meet air pollution standards. We are in the process
of removing most of the lead from gasoline, which will
affect millions of people across the country. And we are
looking at controlling the vapor released when you fill
your gas tank, which may add to the inconvenience of
filling up the family car.
As we continue to focus on improving the
performance of our sewage plants, people may sec their
sewage bills going up. In extreme cases, as happened
recently in one major city, new connections may have to
stop until the necessary improvements are made. The
imposition of expanded federal drinking water standards
requiring increases in monitoring costs for local
governments may result in water bill increases in many
communities
Perhaps the most widespread of these more personal
impacts will occur in the thousands of communities
affected by our programs-to control hazardous waste. We
must decide how much to clean up Superfund sites and
where to treat, store and dispose of the more than 250
million tons of hazardous waste we produce each year.
These decisions are site-specific. They may change from
site to site, depending on unique site characteristics of
each. In every instance, however, there is a concerned
community that will be affected by what happens.
With that potential to affect people, the obligation to
focus our resources to achieve important environmental
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results should be obvious. But it isn't that simple.
In the first place, we always—always—underestimate
the complexity of the environmental problem we want to
control and the difficulty of operating the control
program. In other words, what comes out of a committee
room in Washington as a mandate often has liC'e
connection with what comes out of some pipe in Ohio.I
consider this to be one of the greatest lessons that can be
derived from fifteen years of Federal environmental
protection efforts.
In the second place. EPA is not so much a coherent
national program to manage pollution as it is a reflection
of the success that many independent interests have had
in getting their positions established in the law. There
are air interests, drinking water interests, fish interests.
and interests devoted to particular diseases.
There is the regulated community, of course, with
another host of interests. And the pollution control
industry, a new big business, has interests of its own.
Carried to the extreme, the success of these interests
could burden EPA with a set of mandates so vast that no
resource base within the realm of economic reason could
possibly carry all of them out.
We must choose to do the things that seem to us ti be
important, and do them well. We must tell poop! •. why
we think they are important and why we didn't c'o other
things we think are less important.
This is a sure recipe for getting flak, since In-.; interests
that your priorities have served take it for granted, and
the interests you have not served pillory you for neglect.
But the alternative is to pretend to do all the things we
are on the hook for doing, and set up programs that
create a lot of sound and fury without really
accomplishing much. Nobody at EPA wants to do that.
What, then, are some of the important problems?
Where do we think our efforts must be concentrated over
the next four years to achieve the maximum
environmental improvement? Such efforts must involve
taking fresh looks at the problems of the older programs
that form the backbone of EPA. They also include
ensuring that some of the newer ones arc making
progress in real environmental terms.
Sewage treatment is important. We have spent nearly
$40 billion on this program. The good news is that a
steadily increasing percentage of Americans are being
served by adequate treatment: 57 million people have
been added to the system since 1972.
However. 13% of the 3600 largest systems do not
comply with their permits. Others are overloaded or
subject to frequent breakdowns. Many communities have
chosen not to, or are not able to. operate and maintain
their plants properly.
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In addition, in order to meet the legal requirement for
universal secondary treatment there remains billions of
dollars worth of new construction needs. But half of this
"unmet need" exists on streams that meet water quality
standards already. Is this a good investment? If so, who
should make it?
Our efforts in this area will be focused on stiffening
our enforcement against municipal facilities, and
providing technical advice to the states on operation and
maintenance problems. Additionally, we must do this
while exploring ways for converting the federal
construction grants program to something stales and
localities can manage on their own. It was never
intended to be a permanent federal program.
Controlling ozone and the other major air pollutants is
another important area. While I appreciate the concern
about more exotic toxic air pollutants, we should not
forget that controlling the criteria pollutants remains the
best way of preventing public health and property
damage from the effects of air pollution.
There are still 54 urban areas that clearly do not meet
ozone standards and 72 areas that do not meet carbon
monoxide standards. We have until 1987 to bring all of
them into compliance. Also, we are starting to see that
our basic strategy for dealing with these pollutants, a
strategy that assumes that the major environmental
effects are in the airshed where they are released, may
be mistaken in some important cases. We may have to
start taking a regional view when establishing pollutant
limitations.
It is now also becoming apparent that atmospheric
chemistry is far more complicated than we imagined
only a few years ago. Many pollutants interact; changing
the level of one may decrease or increase the level of
another. Part of the difficulty we have faced in deciding
on the best way to deal with the acid rain issue is only
the most familiar of these problems. There are others.
We intend to take this new understanding into
account as we work with the states over the next four
years. Naturally, we hope that they are also taken into
account as Congress considers reauthorization of the
Clean Air Act.
Non-point source water pollution — another important
area. If we don't do something about this kind of water
pollution, which comes from drainage off farms and
urban areas, then on many water bodies we will never
reach the ambitious goals of the Clean Water Act. It
won't matter how hard we clamp down on point sources
such as industrial outflows, the water will stay dirty.
Dealing successfully with this kind of water pollution
is a much more difficult matter than establishing
required control technologies for industrial plants.
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Successful attacks must vary with locality and often
involve changes in land use or agricultural practices.
What we do about non-point pollution will have an
enormous impact on the nation's wetlands—and
wetlands are important. They arc the most productive
areas for a host of environmental values. In the past two
centuries we have converted about half of America's
original body of wetlands in ihe lower 48 states to other
uses.
While we have been successful in protecting some
particularly critical wetlands, it remains a fact that
Federal, state and local programs do not deal with
wetlands consistently. Some may encourage conversion
while others try to halt it. At EPA. decisions affecting
wetlands are typically made case-by-casc. without un
adequate strategic context, and they consume inordinate
amounts of time and effort.
I have the sense that we are observing an enormously
important part of our heritage being nibbled away
without us taking the time to state how we would like it
to be, now and into the indefinite future. We need a
strategy that incorporates an analytic basis for making
decisions about wetlands so that EPA's activities in this
area will make long-term sense.
Finally, we have the problem whose apparent
importance has eclipsed that of all others in recent
years—what to do about toxic substances and all that
hazardous waste.
I think we recognize that nothing is more critical than
continuing and completing our review of all existing
chemical and pesticide products. We must ensure that
our most stringent health-based standards are complied
with. At the same time we cannot neglect the thorough
review of new products proposed for the market.
As far as hazardous waste is concerned, I am
beginning to sense a change in attitude on the Supcrfund
side of this issue reflected in the kinds of questions we
have been getting from Congress. I believe this is the
result of our increased understanding of the dimensions
and complexity of the problem.
In its recent report, the Office of Technology
Assessment came to an important realization, one that
we in EPA had reached through first-hand experience. It
is that our clean-up program is operating on the cutting
edge of pollution control technology. Each site presents
a complex and unique problem, whose solution strains
current analytic tools.
Although we do not want to slow the momentum of
the Superfund program, we must realize that we run the
risk of serious errors if we try to force technical
solutions at sites where they arc really not appropriate.
OTA recognized that it makes little economic or
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environmental sense to undertake costly long-term
clean-up projects until we are sure that we have the
technology to do it right.
Of course, we must continue to locate immediate
environmental and public health threats and deal with
them effectively, which is what we have been
concentrating on. Our proposed extension of Superfund
will enable us to continue with these important actions.
If Congress keeps this in mind. 1 think we will get a
better reaulhorizalion than we could have expected a
year ago. And four years hence we will have a good
chance of saying that this seemingly intractable problem
is under adequate social control.
On the RCRA side, we have created a program that is
going to rattle through the entire economy of this
country like a golf ball down a drain pipe. We generate
over 250 million tons of hazardous wastes every year
During the next four years 1 would like to sec us settle
the debate about whether, where and when we should
bury it. burn it, detoxify it, shoot it down a well, or stop
it from being produced at all. I would like to see us
make these decisions, and those connected with
Superfund remedial action, on the basis of solid analysis
of the risks and costs involved in all the options.
Additionally, I believe we need to pay a lot more
attention to community relations in those places most
affected by hazardous wastes, in the belief that local
people can help us make intelligent risk management
decisions when we share the available information with
them. For that matter, citizens can contribute to making
better decisions in all environmental areas. I intend to
stress community involvement in each of our line
programs.
I have been talking about concentrating on the
important problems, but just as important is the manner
in which we exercise this concentration. It is by now
well known that pollution can move among the
environmental media—from air to water, from surface
water to groundwater, from water to soil, and so on.
But EPA is composed of individual programs, each
carrying out a particular statutory mandate. These arc
typically focused on individual media It is
understandable that someone under the gun for
instituting water cleanup may not have paid the closest
attention to the effect on the air resulting from that
cleanup. But someone should have. From now on,
someone will.
Let me give you a few examples. I mentioned
non-point source pollution as a priority. One way of
preventing pollution of surface water from agricultural
run-off is to institute certain management practices
designed to keep water on the land for a longer lime, so
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that it will soak into the soil. But when it soaks into the
soil it carries with it the whole chemical
brew—pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides—(hat we use to
keep our farms productive. We now have a
pesticide-in-groundwater problem of unknown
proportions. Obviously, anything we do to correct
non-point-source pollution will have to take this transfer
into account.
1 also mentioned the importance of controlling criteria
pollutants. Look at the foundry industry. This is a
classic "smokestack" industry where we have done a
good job in controlling these pollutants. Now the
foundry industry has a serious water pollution problem,
over eighty percent of which, in some foundries, comes
from the wet scrubbers we mandated to control the air
pollution.
Finally, 1 mentioned the importance of improving
sewage plant performance. I will add that the settling
ponds and lagoons used in many of these plants arc, in a
number of industrial areas, a significant source of toxic
air pollutants. The toxics come from industrial plants
that discharge into the sewer system
We will bo able to control much of this problem
through pre-lreatmcnt—the removal of the toxic material
at the source. But if you have followed my argument you
can see that this is yet another inter-media
transfer—from water into hazardous "solid" waste.
which will have to be disposed of in some way.
This circle game has to stop. It is expensive. At best it
is misleading—we think we are solving a problem and
we aren't At worst, it is perverse—it may increase rather
than reduce pollution risks. It seems to me that the
solution to this problem is the consistent application
across all Agency programs of what we have been calling
risk management.
Reducing risk—to human health and environmental
values—is after all the reason we remove pollutants from
the environment. It is the currency of our business. By
closely watching the movement of pollutants that results
from regulatory options and calculating the attendant
risks for each we can assure the public that our actions
are indeed connected with a measureable, permanent
good.
Of course, once you start working with a risk
currency, EPA becomes something more than the sum of
its programs. We can start looking at the risk-reduction
potential of the various programs and directing resources
where this potential appears to be greatest. We intend to
begin doing this as a normal part of our budgetary
process in the coming years.
The approach has, of course, some obvious problems.
It is relatively easy to compare the risk of a single public
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health effect delivered via two different media. We can
agree that a one in a million chance of getting cancer
from drinking water is pretty much equal to the same
chance of getting it through breathing something in the
air. But what about comparing the chance of human
disease with the chance of harming the marine
environment?
I'll give you a concrete example. Let us say that if you
incinerate particularly toxic wastes on land there is
always some residual risk to the surrounding human
population. If you incinerate at sea, that risk virtually
disappears. But there is a quite small though still
calculable possibility that something could happen to
the incineration ship, with unpredictable effects on
marine organisms. Do you allow the ship to sail?
I can't see how you could solve dilemmas such as this
without a lot of information on risks, costs and
probabilities, and without the ability to respond flexibly,
depending on what that information yielded. Most
important, you need that kind of information to
communicate to the public how the decision was made,
what your values are, and how you balanced all the
factors involved.
In summary, then, I see a four-point environmental
management plan emerging over the next four years.
First we will make sure that our priorities are those that
can have important environmental results. We will take
steps to ensure that measuring those results becomes a
central part of Agency management. Over the next few
years I want to complement and in some cases replace
the largely administrative measures in our internal
accountability system with indicators of environmental
progress for each program.
Second, we will continue the strong movement
envisioned in our environmental statutes to decentralize
our programs and delegate additional responsibility to
Regions and States. Environmental protection is too large
a dog to be wagged by a tail clutched in Washington. We
intend to do everything we can to increase the flexibility
with which states and localities may implement Federal
standards. We will also strengthen our technical support
and oversight role. We must continue to change policies
and long-standing practices that impede this movement.
In this regard, we will continue our efforts to collect
information on risk in particular areas subject to unusual
environmental stress. Such information gives us the
ability to work with states and localities to tailor
environmental solutions to the varying needs of different
geographical areas. We have launched a number of
projects aimed at giving states and localities the kind of
information they need to make intelligent risk
management decisions.
8
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Third, we will increase the emphasis we give to
community involvement and public education. At
present, we require a detailed community relations plan
for all Superfund sites. We have recommended that this
be embodied in law. I have also asked that all the line
programs develop community relations and public
outreach strategies. If what we are doing makes sense,
we ought to be able to communicate that to the grass
roots better than we have in the past. We must also
establish forums that consistently provide input to us
from the public as we make decisions which affect
peoples' lives.
Finally, we must plan control solutions with a
multimedia perspective. We have to reduce risk and not
merely transfer it. Building an integrated management
structure at EPA will not be easy. But we have some of
the elements in place, and we have the will to do it. We
must focus our resources on the most important
problems, and fix them so that they stay fixed.
And we can't do that without some kind of
measurable risk management integrated across
environmental media. We can't do that without the
knowledgeable participation of states and localities.
Most of all, we can't do that without strong public
support.
Thank you.
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