^tosr^
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON D.C. 20460
PROle°
OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR
SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD
June 2, 2011
EPA-SAB-11-007
The Honorable Lisa P. Jackson
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Subject: Science Advisory Board Comments on the President's Requested FY
2012 Research Budget
Dear Administrator Jackson:
The Science Advisory Board (SAB) has a long history of reviewing the President's budget
request for the Office of Research and Development (ORD). This year, the SAB requested
specific budget-related materials from ORD, and an SAB Research Budget Work Group held a
public meeting on March 3-4, 2011, to receive briefings from ORD management and interim
National Program Directors. The Research Budget Work Group appreciated the quality of the
presentations made by ORD and the diligent effort in explaining the main points of the budget in
a compressed time frame. The chartered SAB held a public meeting on March 22, 2011, to
review and approve this report prior to submitting it to you.
ORD has realigned its research from 13 project areas, defined by specific problems and media
type, into four integrated programs (Air, Climate and Energy; Safe and Sustainable Water
Resources; Sustainable and Healthy Communities; and Chemical Safety for Sustainability)
related to your major priorities plus two cross-cutting areas (Human Health Risk Assessment and
Homeland Security Research). This consolidation and realignment of programs reflects an
emphasis on integrated transdisciplinary research, multi-pollutant exposures and sustainability.
Considerable synergies will be realized in integrating ORD research activities into the new
programmatic areas.
The SAB is highly supportive of the realignment of ORD research programs and of aligning the
FY 2012 budget with them. The SAB is pleased that the realignment reflects the
transdisciplinary and systems-based approach that has been recommended in previous SAB
reports (Office of Research and Development Strategic Research Directions and Integrated

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Transdisciplinary Research, EPA-SAB-10- 010; EPA 's Strategic Research Directions 2008: An
Advisory by the EPA Science Advisory Board, EPA-SAB-09-006). An example is the new area of
Sustainable and Healthy Communities that recognizes the linkages between public health,
ecosystem services and sustainability.
The SAB appreciates that in a time of budget declines, the requested reductions in ORD's budget
are not as deep as the reduction for EPA overall. It is appropriate that the proposed cuts to ORD
programs were not across the board but strategic, investing in some research programs while
decreasing resources to others. Based on the information ORD has been able to provide the SAB
at this time regarding its new alignment of research programs, our comments address the
appropriateness of the proposed investments and disinvestments for advancing EPA's strategic
research directions and meeting EPA's priorities.
Overall, the SAB is highly supportive of the increased investment in STAR Grants and
Fellowships, strategic investments that will benefit future environmental research. The SAB
supports the requested budget increases for the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Research
Program and the Chemical Safety for Sustainability Research Program as a minimum level for
these programs, which will require additional funding to be fully successful. The SAB believes
the cuts made to certain parts of the Homeland Security research program were understandable
and justified.
We disagree however, with the planned disinvestments made in human health research because
reductions in human health intramural research funding will hamper EPA's ability to conduct
major epidemiological studies and understand cumulative exposures and risks. We strongly
disagree with the the requested level of investment in climate change research; ecosystem
services science; and social, behavioral, and decision sciences. Funding for research on climate
change adaptation should increase because this research will have broad impacts for
environmental protection. The 10 percent cut in the President's budget for ecosystem research
weakens a program that supports multiple EPA regulatory programs. Lack of funding for social,
behavioral, and decision science research will frustrate efforts to attain environmental and
economic sustainability. We are concerned that the requested level of funding in these areas will
jeopardize EPA's ability to meet your environmental priorities.
Because ORD's restructured research programs are so new and ambitious, the FY 2012 budget
does not contain a great amount of detail describing research activities and the breakout of
funding. As a result, the SAB cannot fully comment at this time on the adequacy of the requested
budget for advancing the individual research visions in each of the new programmatic areas. At
ORD's request, the SAB plans to hold a joint public advisory meeting (June 29-30, 2011) with
ORD's Board of Scientific Counselors to review the draft frameworks that ORD has committed
to develop for each new research program. At that time the SAB will have additional advice that
may be useful to the Agency in future budget planning.

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The SAB is pleased to have again reviewed the EPA research budget and looks forward to
continued work with you to strengthen the Agency's vital research base that supports your
priorities. We look forward to receiving your response to this review and continuing our
interactions with EPA to develop future advice on the Agency's science program.
Sincerely,
/signed/
Dr. Deborah L. Swackhamer
Chair
Science Advisory Board
/signed/
Dr. Jerald Schnoor
Chair
SAB Research Budget Work Group

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NOTICE
This report has been written as part of the activities of the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB),
a public advisory group providing extramural scientific information and advice to the
Administrator and other officials of the Environmental Protection Agency. The SAB is
structured to provide balanced, expert assessment of scientific matters related to problems facing
the Agency. This report has not been reviewed for approval by the Agency, and, hence, the
contents of this report do not necessarily represent the views and policies of the Environmental
Protection Agency, nor of other agencies in the Executive Branch of the Federal government.
Mention of trade names of commercial products does not constitute a recommendation for use.
Reports of the SAB are posted on the EPA website at http://www.epa. gov/sab.
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Science Advisory Board
Research Budget Work Group
CHAIR
Dr. Jerald Schnoor, Allen S. Henry Chair Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Co-Director, Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University
of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
MEMBERS
Dr. Claudia Benitez-Nelson, Full Professor and Director of the Marine Science Program,
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
Dr. Terry Daniel, Professor of Psychology and Natural Resources, Department of Psychology,
School of Natural Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Dr. George Daston, Victor Mills Society Research Fellow, Product Safety and Regulatory
Affairs, Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH
Dr. Costel Denson, Managing Member, Costech Technologies, LLC, Newark, DE
Dr. Nancy K. Kim, Senior Executive, Health Research, Inc., Troy, NY
Dr. Kai Lee, Program Officer, Conservation and Science Program, David & Lucile Packard
Foundation, Los Altos, CA (affiliation listed for identification purposes only)
Dr. Cecil Lue-Hing, President, Cecil Lue-Hing & Assoc. Inc., Burr Ridge, IL
Dr. Floyd Malveaux, Executive Director, Merck Childhood Asthma Network, Inc., Washington,
DC
Dr. James R. Mihelcic, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South
Florida, Tampa, FL
Dr. Christine Moe, Eugene J. Gangarosa Professor, Hubert Department of Global Health,
Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Dr. Horace Moo-Young, Dean and Professor, College of Engineering, Computer Science, and
Technology, California State University, Los Angeles, CA
Dr. Eileen Murphy, Grants Facilitator, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University,
Piscataway, NJ
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Dr. Kenneth Olden, Dean, School of Public Health, City University of New York, New York,
NY
Dr. Duncan Patten, Research Professor, Hydroecology Research Program , Department of Land
Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Dr. Paige Tolbert, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of
Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Dr. Thomas S. Wallsten, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, University of
Maryland, College Park, MD
Dr. R. Thomas Zoeller, Professor, Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, MA
LIAISON MEMBER
Dr. Kenneth Olden, Dean, School of Public Health, City University of New York, New York,
NY (Liaison, Board of Scientific Counselors)
SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD STAFF
Dr. Angela Nugent, Designated Federal Officer, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
Science Advisory Board (1400R), 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, Phone:
202-564-2218, Fax: 202-565-2098, (nugent.angela@epa.gov)
in

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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Science Advisory Board
CHAIR
Dr. Deborah L. Swackhamer, Professor and Charles M. Denny, Jr., Chair in Science,
Technology and Public Policy, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Co-Director of
the Water Resources Center, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
SAB MEMBERS
Dr. David T. Allen, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas,
Austin, TX
Dr. Claudia Benitez-Nelson, Full Professor and Director of the Marine Science Program,
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences , University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
Dr. Timothy Buckley, Associate Professor and Chair, Division of Environmental Health
Sciences, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Dr. Patricia Buffler, Professor of Epidemiology and Dean Emerita, Department of
Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA
Dr. Ingrid Burke, Director, Haub School and Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural
Resources, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
Dr. Thomas Burke, Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Dr. Terry Daniel, Professor of Psychology and Natural Resources, Department of Psychology,
School of Natural Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Dr. George Daston, Victor Mills Society Research Fellow, Product Safety and Regulatory
Affairs, Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH
Dr. Costel Denson, Managing Member, Costech Technologies, LLC, Newark, DE
Dr. Otto C. Doering III, Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University,
W. Lafayette, IN
Dr. David A. Dzombak, Walter J. Blenko Sr. Professor of Environmental Engineering ,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA
Dr. T. Taylor Eighmy, Vice President for Research, Office of the Vice President for Research,
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
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Dr. Elaine Faustman, Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health
Sciences, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle,
WA
Dr. John P. Giesy, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Veterinary Biomedical Sciences and
Toxicology Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths, Associate Professor, Department of Public Health and Community
Medicine, School of Medicine, Tufts University, Boston, MA
Dr. James K. Hammitt, Professor, Center for Risk Analysis, Harvard University, Boston, MA
Dr. Bernd Kahn, Professor Emeritus and Associate Director, Environmental Radiation Center,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Dr. Agnes Kane, Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine,
Brown University, Providence, RI
Dr. Madhu Khanna, Professor, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
Dr. Nancy K. Kim, Senior Executive, Health Research, Inc., Troy, NY
Dr. Catherine Kling, Professor, Department of Economics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Dr. Kai Lee, Program Officer, Conservation and Science Program, David & Lucile Packard
Foundation, Los Altos, CA (affiliation listed for identification purposes only)
Dr. Cecil Lue-Hing, President, Cecil Lue-Hing & Assoc. Inc., Burr Ridge, IL
Dr. Floyd Malveaux, Executive Director, Merck Childhood Asthma Network, Inc., Washington,
DC
Dr. Lee D. McMullen, Water Resources Practice Leader, Snyder & Associates, Inc., Ankeny,
IA
Dr. Judith L. Meyer, Professor Emeritus, Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia,
Lopez Island, WA
Dr. James R. Mihelcic, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, State of Florida 21st
Century World Class Scholar, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
Dr. Jana Milford, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado,
Boulder, CO
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Dr. Christine Moe, Eugene J. Gangarosa Professor, Hubert Department of Global Health,
Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Dr. Horace Moo-Young, Dean and Professor, College of Engineering, Computer Science, and
Technology, California State University, Los Angeles, CA
Dr. Eileen Murphy, Grants Facilitator, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University,
Piscataway, NJ
Dr. Duncan Patten, Research Professor, Hydroecology Research Program , Department of Land
Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT
Dr. Stephen Polasky, Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics,
Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
Dr. Arden Pope, Professor, Department of Economics, Brigham Young University , Provo, UT
Dr. Stephen M. Roberts, Professor, Department of Physiological Sciences, Director, Center for
Environmental and Human Toxicology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Dr. Amanda Rodewald, Professor of Wildlife Ecology, School of Environment and Natural
Resources, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Dr. Jonathan M. Samet, Professor and Flora L. Thornton Chair, Department of Preventive
Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Dr. James Sanders, Director and Professor, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Savannah,
GA
Dr. Jerald Schnoor, Allen S. Henry Chair Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Co-Director, Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University
of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Dr. Kathleen Segerson, Philip E. Austin Professor of Economics , Department of Economics,
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
Dr. Herman Taylor, Director, Principal Investigator, Jackson Heart Study, University of
Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS
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Dr. Barton H. (Buzz) Thompson, Jr., Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law
at the Stanford Law School and Perry L. McCarty Director, Woods Institute for the
Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Dr. Paige Tolbert, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of
Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Dr. John Vena, Professor and Department Head, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics,
College of Public Health, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Dr. Thomas S. Wallsten, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, University of
Maryland, College Park, MD
Dr. Robert Watts, Professor of Mechanical Engineering Emeritus, Tulane University,
Annapolis, MD
Dr. R. Thomas Zoeller, Professor, Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, MA
LIAISON MEMBERS
Dr. Martin Philbert, Professor, Environmental Health Sciences and Senior Associate Dean,
School of Public Health University of Michigan (Liaison, Board of Scientific Counselors)
Dr. Kenneth Olden, Dean, School of Public Health, City University of New York, New York,
NY (Liaison, Board of Scientific Counselors)
Dr. James H. Johnson, Professor and Dean, College of Engineering, Architecture & Computer
Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC (Liaison, National Advisory Council for
Environmental Policy and Technology)
SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD STAFF
Dr. Angela Nugent, Designated Federal Officer, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
Science Advisory Board (1400R), 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, Phone:
202-564-2218, Fax: 202-565-2098, (nugent.angela@epa.gov)
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Table of Contents
1.	BACKGROUND	1
2.	KEY FINDINGS AND OBSERVATIONS	3
3.	SPECIFIC COMMENTS ON ORD'S RESTRUCTURED RESEARCH PROGRAMS7
3.1.	Air, Climate, and Energy	7
3.2.	Safe and Sustainable Water Resources	9
3.3.	Sustainable and Healthy Communities	13
3.4.	Chemical Safety for Sustainability	17
3.5.	Human Health Risk Assessment	19
3.6.	Homeland Security	21
3.7.	Economics and Decision Science	23
TABLE OF ACRONYMS	26
REFERENCES	27
ATTACHMENT A: EXTRACTS FROM EPA'S FY 2012 BUDGET IN BRIEF FOR THE
SAB	28
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Science Advisory Board Comments on the President's Requested FY 2011
Research Budget.
1. Background
The Science Advisory Board (SAB) has a long history of reviewing the President's budget
request for the Office of Research and Development (ORD). The SAB reviewed the President's
FY2012 request for each of ORD's six research areas (Air, Climate and Energy; Safe and
Sustainable Water Resources; Sustainable and Healthy Communities; Chemical Safety for
Sustainability; Human Health Risk Assessment; and Homeland Security), plus a seventh research
area, Economics and Decision Science, directed by the National Center for Environmental
Economics (NCEE) in EPA's Office of Policy. The SAB addressed five common questions to
each program area:
1.	How well will the requested budget permit EPA to advance its strategic research
directions and meet EPA priorities?
2.	Are the changes since the FY 2010 enacted budget and EPA's research budget
trends appropriate, taking into consideration overall resources, FTEs, and
intramural and extramural resources?
3.	Are there well defined objectives/work products for next year's budget? Can these
be accomplished with the given resources?
4.	Are there pivotal, "game-changing" investments that can advance the science?
5.	Are there investments that will serve multiple program or multiple priority needs?
In addition to the detailed Budget Narratives and presentations provided by ORD and NCEE,
which described the major programs that were enhanced, preserved or cut in the FY 2012 budget
request, the work group drew on three information items extracted for them by ORD from EPA's
FY 2012 Budget in Brief.
•	Transformational Solutions Through Science Innovation (fact sheet)
•	EPA Office of Research and Development FY 2010 to FY 2012 in NEW
Program/Project Structure
•	EPA Office of Research and Development FY 2010 to FY 2012 in FORMER
Program/Project Structure.
This information provides an overview of the changes associated with the President's Budget
request and is included as Attachment A to this report. The overview information details the
cross-walk and realignment of budget categories in the FY 2012 President's Budget with earlier
budgets. In this context, it is important to note that many of the "decreases" and "increases" in
budgets for individual ORD program areas represent reallocations from "old program" structures
to new FY 2012 research program structures. The graphic below, provided by ORD to the SAB
Research Budget Work Group Meeting on March 3, 2012, provides an overview of these
complex budget reallocations.
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Transfer of funds to ORD Integrated FY 2012 Programs
CURRENTPROGRAMS
Clean Air

Global Change

Drinking Water

Water Quality
mwi
Land
$28.1M $4.2^1
Fellowships
$17.3M ¦
Hum Health & Eco
$113.2M $31.OM
Sustainability
$18.5M $5.4M p2^i
Pesticides & Toxics
$12.1M $15.OM
CompTox
$21.2M ¦
EDCs
$16.9M ¦
Homeland Security
gmwni
HH Risk Assessment

INTEGRATED FY2012
PROGRAMS
45.7M

Key to ORD Program Acronyms
ACE
Air, Climate and Energy Research Program
CSS
Chemical Safety for Sustainability Research Program
HHRA
Human Health Risk Assessment
HSR
Homeland Security Research Program
SHC
Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program
SSWR
Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Research Program
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2. Key Findings and Observations
The President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget request recommends a 13 percent decrease in
EPA's budget, a 2.6 percent cut to Science and Technology programs within the Agency and a
2.1 percent cut to EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD). Funding for ORD
declined more than 20 percent (in GDP indexed dollars) from the high in 2004 to the low in
2008, and had only begun to recover slightly in 2009 and 2010. The proposed reductions in FY
2012 reverse this very appropriate trend toward recovery in levels of investment in science and
technology. The proposed reductions limit the research needed to support EPA's efforts to
protect human health and the environment.
Overall, the SAB recognizes the difficult budget environment with which the nation is dealing in
2012, and although we consider these planned cuts to EPA's budget to be extremely unfortunate,
we understand that they may be necessary to reduce overall government spending. Given the dire
need for more cost-effective research on human health and the environment, the SAB agrees that
it is critical to promote innovative, job-creating research. Thus, the SAB understands the relative
priority given to ORD in this budget, but also recognizes that Agency cuts do not come from fat,
but rather from the marrow of its activity and mission. The United States cannot ignore threats to
air quality and ecosystems and threats from climate change as these threats will significantly
reduce the health of the American people and the vitality of the American economy and
ecosystems. It is also important to bear in mind that research has consistently strengthened the
economy, in part by creating new kinds of jobs. Ceres, an organization that articulates the views
of major American corporations on their social responsibilities, recently estimated that the
National Ambient Air Quality Standards alone will result in the creation of 1.5 million jobs over
the next five years. The country needs clean energy and clean air as well as jobs, and the former
can augment the latter.
Over the last year the EPA has realigned its research organization from 13 project areas,
defined by specific problems and media type, into four integrated programs and two cross-
cutting areas (Human Health Risk Assessment and Homeland Security Research). Motivation for
this consolidation and realignment of programs reflects an emphasis on integrated
transdisciplinary research, multi-pollutant exposures and sustainability. The integrated research
programs represent a new way of thinking about environmental research. Considerable synergies
will be realized in combining research into the four programmatic areas: Air, Climate and
Energy; Safe and Sustainable Water Resources (water quality plus drinking water); Sustainable
and Healthy Communities; and Chemical Safety for Sustainability. The SAB strongly commends
ORD for a dramatic response to SAB past recommendations concerning its realignment of
research areas and dedication to transdisciplinary research for protecting human health and the
environment.
ORD's realignment is wise and ambitious, moving EPA research in a new and bold direction.
ORD is moving from a risk management paradigm, which has guided and influenced research
over the past two decades, towards a sustainability paradigm, and that move is welcome. It is
consistent with a public health approach of preventing disease rather than a medical approach to
treating disease after it occurs and recognizes that environment and health are an interconnected
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system. Restructuring EPA's research programs, however, is a significant challenge, and the
Agency must consider how to translate research results from this new approach into science-
informed environmental policy and decisions. The Board looks forward to providing continued
advice to ORD as it develops strategic plans for each of its newly restructured research
programs.
The SAB is highly supportive of two requested increases for FY 2012. The President's budget
requests an increase in extramural research grants under the Science to Achieve Results (STAR)
program of 40 percent from $61.4M in the FY2010 enacted budget to $86.1M. It is most
appropriate to seek out and stimulate cutting-edge research from external research institutions at
a time when EPA itself is restructuring its research programs and exploring new research
paradigms. The President's FY 2012 budget request also includes a 56 percent increase over the
FY 2010 enacted budget for EPA's overall research Fellowship program to $17.3M. This overall
fellowship program includes a Presidential Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM)
initiative, an important investment to stimulate research and training for scientists that supports
the emphasis on sustainability. Within the overall fellowship investment, there is a 45 percent
increase over the FY 2010 enacted budget for the STAR Fellowship program to $14.1M. It is
most appropriate to invest in training the next generation of environmental scientists when
ORD's research programs are taking a new direction.
Among the requested investments in the President's budget for FY 2012, the SAB strongly
supports a major reallocation of funds for Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS) research, a
22.9 percent increase over the FY 2010 enacted budget to $95.7M in the FY 2012 President's
budget request, and for Safe and Sustainable Water Resources (SSWR) research, a 6.9 percent
increase over the FY 2010 enacted budget to $118.8M in the FY 2012 President's budget
request.
The requested increase in the CSS budget appears justified given the ambitious goals of this
newly aligned multidisciplinary program. Realignment allows EPA to streamline its work and be
more effective in achieving public health and environmental protection. The SAB supports the
investments in endocrine-disrupting chemicals research, a 48 percent increase over the FY 2010
enacted budget to $16.9M in the FY 2012 President's budget request, the new green chemistry
and design for the environment initiative (+$5.4 M) and next-generation computational
toxicology tools (+$2 M).
Given the planned shift toward multi pollutant cumulative risk assessment and the backlog of ten
thousand chemicals that need to be assessed, there is a strong need to invest in modernizing the
human risk assessment approach to move beyond the one-pol 1 utant-at-a-time framework. The
Agency needs to develop a clear plan for how the outputs of the CSS program (e.g., Tox 21,
NexGen) will be used by the ORD Human Health Risk Assessment program. With a flat budget
for HHRA, it is unclear how innovation and modernization of the risk assessment program will
be achieved.
In the SSWR program, the SAB recommends an increased focus on viewing water and
wastewater holistically as an integral part of the overall water cycle, and additional resources for
this area of research are needed. Wastewater is a resource providing water, nutrients, and energy
for harvest and reuse, and it can be used to make communities more socially, economically, and
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environmentally sustainable. Such an approach is in concert with EPA's changing role from
purely a regulatory agency to one that promotes sustainable and healthy communities.
In the President's FY2012 budget request there are significant reductions in ORD research in the
areas of homeland security, human health, ecosystems, and air/climate/energy research. These
programs provide needed knowledge and data as well as guidance and expertise to EPA offices
charged with the mission of maintaining homeland security, improving air quality, mitigating
climate change and cleaning up our environment while promoting sustainable and livable
communities.
Homeland Security Research (HSR) is slated for a 24 percent budget reduction from the FY
2010 enacted budget to $26.7M in the FY 2012 President's budget request. The HSR program
has developed emergency response products for water and wastewater treatment plants and
buildings under threat of a chemical, biological or radiological attack. The SAB understands that
these programs are considered "mature," and the products that have been developed are widely
considered to be of very high quality. The SAB believes that the reductions made as a result of
the maturation of certain program elements are justified, but that funds should be provided to the
Agency to disseminate the knowledge and software developed through these mature programs to
states and communities. These products could help to make the nation's water infrastructure
more sustainable in the event of either terrorist attack or natural disasters.
Within the new Sustainable and Healthy Communities (SHC) research program, the President's
FY 2012 budget request calls for reductions in funding for human health research, a 16 percent
reduction from the FY 2010 enacted budget to $45.4M in the FY 2012 President's budget
request, and ecosystem research, a 15 percent reduction from the FY 2010 enacted budget to
$60.9M in the FY 2012 President's budget request. Reductions in human health intramural
research funding will hamper EPA's ability to conduct major epidemiological studies and
understand cumulative exposures and risks. Future budgets need to provide for more high-quality
epidemiological studies to better understand exposures and their impacts, especially for
susceptible and vulnerable populations and hazard dose-responses functions needed to protect
public health using the best possible science. The SAB does not support the reduced funding
request for FY 2012 in this area.
The SAB is especially concerned about a 10 percent reduction in funding for ecosystems services
research compared to 2.1 percent overall for ORD research. The proposed reduction provides
inadequate funding for research that supports multiple EPA regulatory programs and that the
SAB has characterized as transdisciplinary with the "potential to be transformative for
environmental decision making" (SAB Report, Consultation on EPA 's Implementation of the
Ecosystem Services Research Program, EPA-SAB-09-019). Ecosystem services research is
critical for understanding the ways in which policy and management choices affect the type,
quality and magnitude of the goods and services that ecosystems provide to sustain human well-
being. Furthermore, these cuts jeopardize EPA's sustainability research program efforts.
Funds for ORD research on Air, Climate and Energy (ACE) would decline 3 percent from the
FY 2010 enacted budget to $108.M in the FY 2012 President's budget request. Relative to other
budget cuts, this is modest, and it indicates that certain aspects of biofuels and mercury-in-air
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research are being completed. But there are cuts in resources for priority activities in the Clean
Air Research Program for source-receptor and dose-effect research that investigate human
exposure to air pollutants and resulting health effects in the nation's major cities (-$ 0.150M) and
in priority research on the effects of climate change on estuaries
(-$0.625M). Funds for modeling research to support the development of State Implementation
Strategies will be reduced (-$ 0.762M) and, as a result, State Implementation Strategies will be
delayed. Additionally, the ACE program lacks focused investment in climate mitigation and
adaptation, research needed to meet EPA's priority of "taking action on climate change."
After reviewing the President's FY 2012 budget request in light of EPA's Fiscal Year 2011-2010
EPA Strategic Plan, the SAB finds ORD's plan to structure its four major research programs
around the Administrator's four major goals meritorious. Based on the explicitly identified
research visions and objectives identified for all of the newly structured programs, the SAB sees
a major research gap in the area of social, behavioral and decision sciences. The SAB
recommends that ORD develop an additional research strategy centered on addressing this gap.
EPA should conduct research addressing ways of obtaining environmental goals other than
through command-and-control regulations. Research in social, behavioral and decision sciences
is required to understand and effectively apply human behavior, market approaches and
innovative incentives to conserve resources and emit less pollution.
The SAB advises ORD to assume leadership to include the social, behavioral and decision
sciences more broadly as an explicit research enterprise. This need not be a new program, but
can be accomplished effectively by treating it as a cross-cutting strategy. This recommendation
seems especially pertinent during ORD's realignment of programs because each of the four
research programs acknowledges issues in the decision, behavioral and social sciences, ranging
from decision analysis and decision structuring to risk communication to behavior change and
beyond. None of these realigned programs, however, seem to have devoted any resources to it.
Research in these areas is inexpensive relative to the costs involved in much of the physical and
biological sciences. Relatively modest investments in this cross-cutting domain could have large
future benefits.
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3. Specific Comments on ORD's Restructured Research Programs
3 .1. Air, Climate, and Energy
ORD identified the problem statement that shaped the goals of this research program as follows:
Protecting health and the environment from the impacts of climate change and air
quality are central 21st century challenges. These challenges are complicated by
the interplay between air quality, the changing climate, and emerging energy
options.
The vision of the Air, Climate and Energy (ACE) research program is to "provide
cutting-edge scientific information and tools to support EPA's strategic goals to protect and
improve air quality and take action on climate change."
How well will the requested budget permit EPA to advance its strategic research directions and
meet EPA priorities?
Because of the changing structure of EPA's research programs, ORD was not able to provide
sufficient detail for the SAB to say with certainty whether the requested budget will permit EPA
to advance its program-level strategic research directions and meet EPA priorities. ORD research
on Air, Climate and Energy (ACE) is slated to decrease by $3.4 million dollars from $111.4
million in 2010 (enacted budget) to $108 million in the President's 2012 proposed budget - a
decline of about 3 percent. Relative to other budget cuts, this is modest, and it indicates that
certain aspects of biofuels (-$2.2 M) and mercury-in-air research (-$2.4 M) are being completed
and are no longer in the budget. But there are cuts in resources for priority activities in the Clean
Air Research Program for source-receptor and dose-effect research that investigate human
exposure to air pollutants and resulting health effects in the nation's major cities (-$150 K) and
also cuts in research on the effects of climate change on estuaries (-$625 K). Funds for modeling
research to support State Implementation Strategies will be reduced (-$ 762 K) and will delay
their development.
The requested budget for global change research will decrease by $17,000 to $20.8M in a critical
area where increased investments are needed. There are no clear investments in climate change
adaptation, a very important area that will affect environmental protection broadly. Climate
change affects different regions differently. Some arid regions and those depending on snowmelt
from mountains may become drier; humid regions may become wetter with added problems of
flooding. ORD could investigate various adaptation strategies with program offices and regions
to help communities adapt to climate change by "hardening" their infrastructure, practicing water
reuse, and implementing soil conservation practices on the landscape. Even research on
"geoengineering" is needed in the event that mitigation and adaptation efforts are not sufficient.
Overall, Ceres (2011) estimates that the National Ambient Air Quality Standards alone will
result in the creation of 1.5 million jobs over the next five years. The country needs clean energy
and jobs. Finally, clean air is one of EPA's success stories. Ambient pollution levels have
steadily decreased since the establishment of EPA and the enactment of the Clean Air Act. In
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March 2011, EPA issued The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020.
According to this study, the direct benefits from the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments are
estimated to be almost $2 trillion for the year 2020, exceeding costs by a factor of more than 30
to one.
Are the changes since the FY 2010 enacted budget and EPA's research budget trends
appropriate, taking into consideration overall resources, FTEs, and intramural and extramural
resources?
Certainly ACE should be a priority for the agency. Although air quality has improved over the
decades as a result of EPA research, monitoring and enforcement, fine particulate matter and
ozone are responsible for a large fraction of the human health effects in the United States each
year caused by pollution, and OMB estimates that the benefits of air pollution regulations far
exceed their costs. In addition, climate change and energy choices are among the most important
issues looming before the country. It should be a top priority for EPA to research the most cost-
effective, job-creating policies possible to ensure our safe energy future. Support for climate
change mitigation is roughly without change in the President's 2012 budget compared to the
2010 enacted budget, but it should be a high priority for more funding on both mitigation and
adaptation. ORD has contributed substantially to the U.S. Global Change Research Program,
especially in the area of modeling climate change effects on air and water quality. With new
regional climate scenarios about to emerge from the North American Regional Climate Change
Assessment Program and the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment, EPA
could provide cutting edge research on possible futures expected under climate change 2010-
2050. Considerable research exists on climate mitigation strategies (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change Working Group III, 2007), but very little has been done on estimating
adaptation capacities on a regional scale and integrating them with mitigation capacities.
Are there well-defined objectives/work products for next year's budget? Can these be
accomplished with the given resources?
Yes, there are well-defined objectives and expected accomplishments for the FY 2012 budget
year, but ORD did not fully communicate to the SAB the stage of each of those investments.
Furthermore, there are certain objectives that seem to be missing. For example, the ACE
program's "Theme 2" was identified as "Develop integrated approaches to assess how social
and economic factors affect vulnerability to air pollution and climate change," but ORD did not
present plans for social and economic research to address this item. Research is needed in how to
encourage behavior that sustains and improves the environment, such as driving habits, recycling
and reducing carbon footprints, which are small investments with big returns.
Are there pivotal, "game-changing" investments that can advance the science?
There are initiatives to develop and implement a new air-monitoring network using the latest
breakthroughs in technology that promise to be much more cost effective and enlightening for
mixtures of air pollutants. The Near Road research program promises important new information
on road side exposures, an important human health and environmental justice issue. In addition,
the SAB recommends that the Agency implement another game-changing investment in
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behavioral social sciences. By a small investment in behavioral science, ORD could conduct
research to identify how to accomplish regulatory goals much less expensively with alternate
incentives other than enforcement actions. There should be an entire new research effort in
alternate means to attain improvements in air quality and greenhouse gas emissions without the
traditional command-and-control options and enforcement paradigm. This would revolutionize
environmental protection and may prove popular with citizens, business, and Congress alike.
Are there investments that will serve multiple program or multiple priority needs?
ACE provides tremendous synergies among the ORD climate, and energy research programs.
There are many cross-cutting issues between ACE and the other research areas as well:
atmospheric nitrogen deposition to watersheds, social and behavioral science on changing
climate and water resources, and the energy-water nexus just to name a few. The United States
cannot have clean energy resources in the future without water availability, and it cannot create
clean water by desalination or water reuse if the country does not have abundant energy supplies.
One of the model projects for which the SAB applauds ORD is the cookstove project. Through a
public-private partnership with the Peace Corps and the Department of State through the Global
Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, EPA has leveraged private funds to expand the use of safe cook
stoves in developing countries and parts of the United States, especially in Native American
territory, where traditional cookstoves generate black soot. ORD's investment in this area
focuses on an important driver of global climate change. Black soot also is a threat to women's
and children's health in developing countries and Native American reservations. By utilizing
EPA's unique expertise in characterizing emission generation, quantifying exposures and
assessing human health effects, ACE will continue to address the health, environmental,
economic, and gender risks associated with the use of solid fuels in traditional cookstoves.
3 .2. Safe and Sustainable Water Resources
ORD identified the problem statement that shaped the goals of this research program as follows:
Increasing demands for sources of clean water combined with changing land use
practices, growth, aging infrastructure, and climate change and variability, pose
significant threats to our Nation's water resources. Failure to manage our
Nation's waters in an integrated, sustainable manner will limit economic
prosperity and jeopardize both human and aquatic ecosystem health.
The vision of the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources program is to "use an integrated,
systems approach to research for the identification and development of the scientific,
technological and behavioral innovations needed to ensure clean and adequate and equitable
supplies of water that support human well-being and resilient aquatic ecosystems."
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How well will the requested budget permit EPA to advance its strategic research directions and
meet EPA priorities?
In its Fiscal Year 2011-2015 Strategic Plan the EPA identifies six near-term priority goals,
including: "Clean water is essential for our quality of life and the health of our communities.
EPA will take actions over the next two years to improve water quality."
The SAB agrees with the reallocation of funds and the overall increase in the FY 2012 budget for
Safe and Sustainable Water Resources (SSWR), a 6.9 percent increase over the FY 2010 enacted
budget to $118.8M in the FY 2012 President's budget request. While this increase is only a
modest request, it attests to the Administration's commitment to support SSWR during difficult
economic times.
These budget increases for drinking water and water quality research are consistent with
prevailing scientific and technological opinions that continued improvements in public health,
the availability of reliable supplies of energy, a cleaner environment, adaption to climate change
and economic stability cannot be achieved without the availability of adequate supplies of safe
potable water and clean water for industrial and commercial development. This budgetary
support continues SSWR's obligation to deliver the scientific information and technological
innovation necessary for the nation to produce adequate supplies of clean water. The SSWR
program combines two well established groups, drinking water research and water quality
research, both with a strong history of providing sound scientific and technical advice to the
Agency.
The SAB supports the $6.0M increase to develop innovative new tools and information research
in the development of green water infrastructure, especially in the face of nationally restricted
financial resources. However, the SAB has concerns about whether the planned funding is
sufficient to meet the full vision of the SSWR program. In 2012, SSWR appears to generally
focus on urban systems and specifically on the management of storm-water. If this assessment is
correct, the SAB considers this approach to be too narrow, and encourages the EPA to expand
the scope of this work to include, for example, the study of large watersheds.
Given the tight integration of larger watersheds with urban water resources, larger watersheds
need to be explicitly studied. Only in this manner can specific program goals be obtained, which
focus on innovative solutions to reducing and managing groups of chemicals and pathogens and
nitrogen and phosphorus pollution.
The new paradigm in wastewater management is to view wastewater not as a waste, but rather as
a resource that can provide water, nutrients, and energy to meet social, economic and
environmental needs. This paradigm fits within ORD's focus of sustainability and a systems
approach, and it links management of wastewater with issues of food production, land use, water
quality and energy production. It also provides opportunities to advance science in understanding
the direct and indirect energy use in public infrastructure as well as understanding risk associated
with the use of non-potable water. There is also a strong social/behavioral component to this type
of research. The SAB recommends that ORD demonstrate a leadership role in this effort to help
water and wastewater utilities make critical advances in these areas.
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The SAB is very supportive of the $4.2M increase in funding to assess the potential public health
and environmental risks associated with hydraulic fracturing. The combination of retrospective
analyses and new case studies is reasonable but may not be sufficient to gain the critical
knowledge of the large-scale impacts of these processes from an ecological and human health
perspective. The SAB encourages the SSWR program to ensure that new case studies are
conducted to expand the knowledge gained from this initial program. Proposed funding levels for
FY 2012 are likely insufficient for the out-years.
The SAB understands the $2M reduction in the Beaches Program as it draws to a conclusion.
However, these studies are still critical and the SAB advises the program to provide a phased
reduction approach that maintains the high quality of research and management guidelines that
has already emanated from this program. Similarly, the SAB is concerned that proposed funding
reductions for "development of best management practices" and informing decisions associated
with control of pathogens in drinking water systems will limit the extent to which EPA can
respond to the priorities defined by EPA's Distribution System Research and Information
Collection Partnership. These reductions will affect the nation's ability to respond water
infrastructure problems that may cause endemic waterborne disease.
With respect to the SSWR program, the SAB believes that the EPA's requested level of funding,
which includes a 6.9 percent increase, will generally enable it to advance its strategic research
directions and meet its near-term priorities.
Are the changes since the FY 2010 enacted budget and EPA's research budget trends
appropriate, taking into consideration overall resources. FTEs and intramural and extramural
resources?
Realignment of drinking water and water quality research programs into an integrated research
program addressing water resources and water infrastructure will exploit synergies, increase
efficiency and foster transformative research focusing on entire watersheds for both ecological
and human health. It is clear that by implementing this alignment and integration that the Agency
is responding to recent recommendations and suggestions of the SAB and other external advisory
groups. The SAB commends the Agency for this initiative. The realignment integrates drinking
water and water quality, two mature ORD water programs. These program components have a
history of delivering sound scientific and technological advice to inform EPA regulatory
decisions and advisories, and the SAB expects that, with adequate budgetary support, the
realigned SSWR program will continue to maintain its high level of performance. Synergies
from this realignment will help to leverage the SSWR's resources and extend its already
impressive capabilities.
As the nation engages the daunting environmental challenges of the twenty-first century, the
critical nexus that exists between the water-energy, water-food, water-health, water-climate and
water-environment interfaces cannot be overemphasized. The SAB recommends that the SSWR
program continue to receive the budgetary support that it deserves. These interfaces demand
abundant supplies of water to preserve and maintain the nation's health and economic viability.
The EPA depends on a vibrant and productive SSWR program to meet its mandate to protect the
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nation's health and environment, which depend on the production of safe drinking water and the
maintenance of appropriate water quality nationally.
Are there well-defined objectives/work products for next year's budget? Can these be
accomplished with the given resources?
Yes, clearly defined research goals are stated for the FY 2012 budget, and the SAB believes that
the SSWR will make progress towards meeting ORD's objectives.
FY 2012 objectives and work products for the SSWR include the delivery of scientific and
technical data from ongoing projects such as: studying the impacts associated with hydraulic
fracturing on watersheds; criteria development and implementation guidance for recreational
waters; carbon sequestration monitoring and model development; national wetlands condition
assessment; developing new approaches for evaluating and managing groups of chemicals and
pathogens; and developing new innovative approaches for reducing and managing nitrogen and
phosphorus pollution in food producing watersheds such as the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.
The SAB believes that the budget requests made by the SSWR program will allow ORD to
accomplish its near-term priorities and objectives through the activities noted.
Are there pivotal "game-changing" investments that can advance the science?
The investment in "green infrastructure" is potentially "game-changing." One prime example is
the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. EPA's preliminary evaluation of the
application of green and gray infrastructure within the watershed found that a proper mix of
these infrastructures provides a least-cost solution for meeting nutrient and sediment reduction
targets and achieving greenhouse gas mitigation, floodwater storage and recreational use.
While the evaluations are in their infancy, the use of these infrastructures appears to have merit
and the SAB encourages the Agency to continue these evaluations, and to explore opportunities
to broaden the scope of their application.
Are there investments that will serve multiple program or multiple priority needs?
In its Fiscal Year 2011- 2015 Strategic Plan, the EPA identifies its strategic goal #2 as
"Protecting America's Waters" with two objectives: 1) to protect human health and 2) to protect
and restore watersheds and aquatic ecosystems. Goal 2 is also defined as: "Protect and restore
our waters to ensure that drinking water is safe, and that aquatic ecosystems sustain fish, plants
and wildlife, and economic, recreational, and subsistence activities. "
The strategic measures associated with the two objectives for Goal 2 are quite extensive, and for
objective 1, include waters safe to drink, fish and shellfish safe to eat and water safe for
swimming. For objective 2, the strategic measures are even more extensive and comprehensive.
Strategic measures for objective 2 call on EPA to improve water quality on a watershed basis;
improve coastal and ocean waters; increase wetlands; improve the health of the Great Lakes;
improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem; restore and protect the Gulf of Mexico;
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restore and protect the Long Island Sound; restore and protect the Puget Sound Basin; and
sustain and restore the United States-Mexico Border Environmental Health. All of these strategic
measures require either the availability of abundant quantities of water safe to drink or water of
specified quality appropriate for some intended commercial or industrial application(s), e.g., fish
and shell fish production, a fundamental charge of the SSWR program. It is commendable that
these EPA's strategic goals and measures encompass the repair and protection of such a wide
array of large scale natural systems, such as wetlands, oceans and coastal waters, the Great Lakes
and the sensitive Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound ecosystems.
The work of the SSWR serves multiple priority needs by also protecting the nation's food
production capabilities, e.g., improving the health of the Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem, one of the
nation's unique and most efficient natural human seafood production resources. Also, as
mentioned below in Section 3.6, the CANARY early detection system for drinking water
contamination, developed collaboratively with ORD's Homeland Security research program, not
only protects drinking water but also protects Homeland Security.
3 .3. Sustainable and Healthy Communities
ORD identified the problem statement that shaped the goals of this research program as follows:
Communities face social, economic, and environmental trade-offs in a resource-
constrained world. These trade-offs are often not well characterized in terms of
the implications and interactions between human health, ecosystem services,
economic vitality, and social equity. Conventional decision-making often does not
adequately characterize these complex interactions. Communities therefore need
holistic, integrated, andfunctional science and practical technical tools and
support to find solutions that are sustainable: that is, they are equitable, efficient,
and effective.
ORD described the "expected broad outcomes" for the Sustainable and Health Communities
(SHC) as follows: "Local, regional and national decision-makers will have tools to more
equitably weigh and integrate social (including human health), economic, and environmental
factors in order to promote human health and welfare and to ensure that nature's benefits are
available to generations to come." The FY 2012 budget requested research funds to support an
integrated systems approach to: 1) pilot the development and use of information and tools for
decision makers and stakeholders in urban communities; 2) conduct research on human health
protection; 3) conduct research to address barriers to community sustainability; and 4) conduct
research to develop performance measures for sustainable and health communities.
How well will the requested budget permit EPA to advance its strategic research directions and
meet EPA priorities?
The President's FY 2012 budget request calls for reductions in funding within the SHC program,
a 10 percent reduction from the FY 2010 enacted budget to $189.3M in the FY 2012 President's
budget request. The President's FY 2012 research budget would create this new program by
combining five programs (Fellowships, Human Health and Ecosystems, Sustainability, Land
Protection and Restoration and Pesticides and Toxics), which existed in the FY 2010 enacted
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budget, into one transdisciplinary program. This restructuring appears appropriate based on the
following ORD budget narrative descriptions for this program:
The SHCRP will focus primarily on environmental sustainability at the
community scale. The SHC program aims to conduct research and development
that will help communities assess their current health and environmental condition
and identify strategies that increase ecosystem services while decreasing
community health risks. Healthy communities will translate to healthy economies.
This new program is ambitious. It has the potential to offer communities an integrated
understanding of environmental issues and solutions that can not only protect citizens from
hazardous materials and activities but also offer them ways to understand, protect and use the
"nature on which they depend" to help achieve a "sustainable and healthy community." This
approach aims to offer communities research that informs an integrated understanding of the
science that is essential to move toward sustainability and good health. Such integrated
understanding would encompass both protection from pollution and hazards and identifying
opportunities to make better use of the ecosystems and renewable resources on which every
community depends.
The success of this novel and ambitious approach, however, depends on adequate research
funding. The SAB believes that the funding request for FY 2012 is not adequate to support the
program. The overall requested budget shows a reduction at a time when the new program
requires investments to ensure its success.
Reductions in ecosystem research, a 15 percent reduction from the FY 2010 enacted budget to
$60.9M in the FY 2012 President's budget request, will impair ORD's research on ecosystem
services. These reductions will slow progress that SAB believes has the potential to characterize
a fuller suite of ecological benefits from environmental protection actions for decision makers
and the public [Consultation on EPA's Implementation of the Ecosystem Services Research
Program (EPA-SAB-09-019), SAB Advisory on the EPA Ecological Research Program Multi-
Year Plan (EPA-SAB-08-011)]. The reductions in funding in the FY 2012 President's budget
request for ecosystems research follows a dramatic long-term downward trend since 2004 when
the EPA ORD ecosystems budget was nearly double ($108M) the President's request for FY
2012. EPA should be cognizant of the potential impact of these reductions in research funding on
the future direction of the SHC program.
Reductions in funding for human health research, a 16 percent reduction from the FY 2010
enacted budget to $45.4M in the FY 2012 President's budget request, include a -$3M loss of the
Congressionally-directed FY 2010 appropriation for children's environmental health research
and other reductions that will severely hamper EPA's intramural capability to conduct major
epidemiology studies. Such studies are needed to better understand exposures, especially for
susceptible and vulnerable populations, and hazard dose-responses functions to support
development of regulations to protect public health using the best possible science.
In addition, the requested budget does not explicitly show investment in two additional key
areas. There is no explicit investment in or plans for social, behavioral and decision science
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research that will help communities understand and address key elements of the SHC vision, i.e.,
"the implications and interactions between human health, ecosystem services, economic vitality,
and social equity." Also, the requested budget does not explicitly show investment in research
linking ecosystem services and ecological health. To achieve EPA's and ORD's sustainability
goals, ORD's research budget should include explicit investments in research on the
interconnections between human health and ecosystem services, a perfect example of where a
systems approach could be applied. A budget that allows ORD to advance its strategic research
directions should show investment in ways sustainable and healthy communities depend on
ecosystem services and ways reductions in environmental degradation can reduce human
sensitivity to exposure to environmental toxicants.
Are the changes since the FY 2010 enacted budget and EPA's research budget trends
appropriate, taking into consideration overall resources. FTEs. and intramural and extramural
resources?
As noted above, the SAB supports the overall new structure and approach of the SHC research
program. The Board believes, however, that the reduced funding for ecosystem and human
health research is inappropriate and that the lack of funding for social, behavioral, and decision
sciences within this program will reduce its effectiveness. In addition, the SAB considers the
reductions in the research budget for waste clean-up to be substantial. The Hazardous Substances
Superfund research would experience a 16.7 percent reduction from the FY 2010 enacted budget
to $17.8 in the FY 2012 President's budget request. These cuts will impact future programs in
OSWER, adversely affect the health and well-being of communities and impede EPA's efforts to
promote environmental justice.
The SAB, however, does support the FY 2012 budget request increase of $2M in a long-term
review of EPA's overall laboratory network. With increasing coordination, ORD, program and
regional laboratories could integrate activities generally and across disciplines to save funds and
use laboratory resources in a more effective, efficient fashion.
Are there well-defined objectives/work products for next year's budget? Can these be
accomplished with the given resources?
ORD provided the SAB with an initial description of the general objectives for the SHC research
program, but because of the novelty of the research program, EPA is still in the process of
developing a detailed plan outlining research products, timelines and deliverables. The objectives
are reasonable in general, but many specifics remain to be articulated. The objectives require
alignment with the research products, FTEs and budget. ORD has committed to provide a draft
plan for SAB review in June 2011 describing a proposed timeline and a strategy for multi-year
investments.
This realigned SHC program is an exciting and courageous effort to shift towards a community-
based approach to risk assessment and management, with all its multi-stressor/multimedia,
cumulative risk complexities. It is the right direction and the Agency is correct to pursue it.
However, unlike other realigned programs (ACE, CSS and SSWR), which have been able to
quickly and clearly define expected outcomes based on earlier accomplishments within the more
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traditional programs from which they were formed, the SHC program has not presented as clear
a picture of what will be accomplished with the $189M allocated in the President's requested FY
2012 budget. This is understandable because the SHC program is not so much a collection of
previous programs as a new way of conceptualizing the interrelated human health and
environmental protection goals and the science and policy approaches for accomplishing them.
The SAB advises ORD to carefully plan how it will communicate SHC goals and activities and
evaluate this new program as it develops.
Since the new research will use an integrated approach that considers problems from a systems
perspective, research will cut across several of ORD's former research areas that are now
included in SHC research program. ORD has an opportunity to explain ways in which an
integrated approach can realize synergies and program integration and minimize the adverse
impacts to research from the significant reductions in the FY 2012 budget request. The SAB
recommends that ORD provide a better mapping between outcomes and FTEs and budget to
demonstrate how the requested budget for the SHC research program will permit EPA to
advance its strategic research directions and meet EPA priorities.
Are there pivotal "game-changing" investments that can advance the science?
Unfortunately, because of lack of funding for social, behavioral, and decision science research
and research focusing on the integration of human health and ecosystem services, ORD is not
reaping the maximum benefit from this important new research area. ORD has, however, still
identified important "game-changing" investments in the SHC research area presented to the
SAB. These investments include:
•	Identification of barriers to community sustainability,
•	Tools designed to inform local decision makers and stakeholders so that they can move
their communities toward greater sustainability, and
•	General modeling approaches and pilot projects that may advance environmental justice
and equitable solutions.
The SAB looks forward to learning more about these investments from ORD.
In addition, SAB members identified four additional game changing investments that should be
included in the 2012 priorities and supported with research. These topics will be explored with
ORD as part of the SAB's continued focus on ORD strategic research directions. First, ORD
should support research on life-stage susceptibility throughout the human life cycle. Second,
cumulative risk assessments should be part of projects that consider interactions among human
health; ecosystems; and economic, social, and nonchemical stressors. Third, as projects
investigate interactions among human health and chemical stressors, ORD should invest in the
epigenetic effects that can potentially result in transgenerational changes.
Finally, there is a need for ORD to invest in program evaluation to consider the effectiveness of
the SHC research program. Because the SHC is such a novel and ambitious program, it can serve
as the "test bed" for integrated transdisciplinary research that takes a systems approach and
develops innovative solutions for environmental problems. It will be important to invest in
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evaluation to test the concept and measure its impact. SHC is an appropriate test-bed, since
EPA's work in ecosystem services, now integrated within SHC, has laid the groundwork for the
realignment to emphasize sustainability. The community-based approach offers a unique
opportunity to determine what specific "mixes" of threats (including cumulative risks across
stressors and media) in particular social contexts are faced by actual communities. This would
provide an empirical basis for orienting the multi-stressor research in the other programs.
Are there investments that serve multiple programs?
Yes, there are investments that may potentially serve multiple programs. There will be natural
synergies with the SSWR program, the efforts of ACE to address air pollution and global change
and EPA's environmental justice program. Through the SHC research program, EPA will have
opportunities to develop non-invasive methods for controlling mold and asthma and for
promoting green infrastructure.
3.4. Chemical Safety for Sustainability
ORD identified the problem statement that shaped the goals of this research program as follows:
Although chemicals are essential to modern life, we lack innovative, systematic,
effective, and efficient approaches and tools to inform decisions that reduce
negative environmental and societal impacts of chemicals.
The vision of the Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS) program is "EPA science will lead
the sustainable development, use, and assessment of chemicals by developing and applying
integrated chemical evaluation strategies and decision support tools for integrated evaluation
strategies."
This new research program consolidates chemical safety-related research programs from eight
previous ORD programs (Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, Computational Toxicology,
Pesticides and Toxics, Land Protection and Restoration, Human Health and Ecosystems,
Sustainability (E-waste), Human Health Risk Assessment and Clean Air). The realignment will
allow the Agency to streamline its work and be more effective in achieving public health and
environmental protection.
How well will the requested budget allow EPA to advance its strategic research directions and
meet EPA priorities?
The President's requested increase for this program, a 22.9 percent increase over the FY 2010
enacted budget to $95.7M in the FY 2012 President's budget request, appears justified and
should allow the program to achieve many of its goals as outlined by the interim National
Program Director. Ensuring the safety of chemicals and preventing pollution is a high priority for
the Administrator. The program realignment is consistent with past SAB advice encouraging
EPA to invest in multiple pollutant and cumulative risk approaches, but the requested budget
shows no clear investment in several key areas.
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This program is forward-looking and visionary. If given adequate resources, it appears that it
could lead EPA in a number of other areas, including improved ecological risk assessment
through modeling and simulation, life-cycle assessment, improved exposure assessment (a
critical need as EPA moves forward with developing routine aggregate exposure and cumulative
risk assessments and considers the "exposome," the measure of all the exposures of an individual
in a lifetime and how those exposures relate to disease), enhanced understanding of
environmental impacts on the epigenome and computational approaches to green chemistry.
More funding should be allocated in the future to these areas.
Placing the NextGen risk assessment program within the CSS program is appropriate because it
will allow more seamless transfer of basic science into risk assessments. Special attention and
coordination, however, will be required to ensure that the methodology is being translated into
risk assessment practice, since such activities are still within the purview of ORD's separate
Human Health Risk Assessment program. In addition, the SAB is concerned that there is no
proactive budget initiative to develop ways of employing the results of the CSS program,
including high throughput data, into hazard or risk assessment. This is a significant weakness.
Are the changes since the FY 2010 enacted budget and EPA's research budget trends
appropriate, taking into consideration overall resources. FTEs. and intramural and extramural
resources?
The request for increased resources for FY 2012 is appropriate for the CSS program. This
integrated, transdisciplinary program leverages the talents and expertise of existing ORD staff to
go beyond individual disciplines. The staff is well trained to conduct excellent research. By
realigning these scientists to work with each other toward common new research goals, the
Agency will be able to successfully implement the goal of true multi-disciplinary research. The
Agency should take the time to ensure that staff scientists are formally developed as this program
progresses and that they are brought on board this new initiative. Clearly, this research capacity
is important for the success of the realignment.
Are there well-defined objectives/work products for next year's budget? Can these be
accomplished with the given resources?
The SAB advises ORD to better define the specific objectives for the upcoming Fiscal Year. The
CSS program is a new program that consolidates the strengths and assets of numerous former
programs, so it is understandable that there are ambiguities in the presentation of specific
objectives and the specific timeline for these goals. Some research areas appear overly broad,
such as "targeted high priority needs." As a result, it is difficult at this time to fully assess
whether the objectives can be accomplished with the given resources. However, the broad
objectives do represent Agency steps toward conducting more transdisciplinary research.
Are there pivotal, "game-changing" investments that can advance the science?
The program has the potential to make game-changing contributions in predictive toxicology and
in reducing uncertainty in risk assessment through the use of state-of-the-art screening methods
and computational approaches.
18

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This research program has a high potential to accomplish game-changing objectives. These
include: 1) development of approaches to assess multiple contaminant exposures; 2) reducing the
use of animal models to assess toxicity and relying more on predictive models; and 3)
developing tools that can be used in the medical field to further our understanding of
individualized medicine and individualized toxicology. The program has been very creative in
accessing data sources (e.g., data on discontinued pharmaceuticals) at no cost to the Agency.
The program could serve as a model for the rest of ORD in the use of computer modeling and
simulation as a first step, rather than empirical testing. By combining the endocrine disrupter
screening program with the computational toxicology program, there is a significant opportunity
for the former to be modernized and provide much more valuable information for decision-
making.
Are there investments that will serve multiple program and multiple priority needs?
Much of the work in this program will serve other programs and other priority needs. One could
make the argument that this program will generate information that will be required across
programs within EPA and across different federal agencies. The SAB hopes that EPA and the
federal government will be able to provide the investments to help make this happen.
Health and environmental implications of nanotechnology appeared throughout the presentations
and was included for CSS as well. However, the National Institutes of Health and other federal
programs engage in public-private partnerships to fund the development of nanotechnology
applications and products. The budget allocated to evaluating the health and environmental
impacts of nanotechnology is not sufficient for EPA to anticipate possible future environmental
issues associated with development of this technology. Resources committed to developing
nanotechnology by private companies dwarf those allocated for assessing its impacts.
3.5. Human Health Risk Assessment
ORD described this program as providing an interface between researchers in other ORD
programs who are generating new findings and data and regulators in the EPA program and
regional offices who make regulatory, enforcement and remedial action decisions. The three
parts of the program are: 1) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) and other priority health
hazard assessments; 2) risk assessment models, methods, and guidance and 3) air quality
Integrated Science Assessments.
How well will the requested budget allow EPA to advance its strategic research directions and
meet EPA priorities?
Inasmuch as the 2012 budget represents only a slight reduction, a 1 percent reduction from the
FY 2010 enacted budget to $5.7M in the FY 2012 President's budget request, the Human Health
Risk Assessment (HHRA) program appears to be in a reasonable position to maintain its
strategic research and meet its top priorities. The increase in FTEs by 13 also appears to be
appropriate. Presumably many of these will be EPA scientists with specialized risk assessment
training. However, the IRIS reviews in progress are ambitious and the Agency will be required to
19

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manage these reviews carefully. Moreover, it will be challenging for the Agency to incorporate
new information, especially types of information resulting from Tox21 program, into IRIS and
other assessments. IRIS assessments and the Integrated Science Assessments for National
Ambient Air Quality Standards are important products that provide a foundation for protection of
the public from chemical risks. The SAB is pleased that ORD is increasing the speed of
producing these assessments. Given the basically flat budget, it is hoped that this increased
efficiency will allow greater focus on cumulative risk assessment or groups of chemicals. The
plan for a transition to multipollutant assessment needs to be clarified.
Are the changes since the FY 2010 enacted budget and EPA's research budget trends
appropriate, taking into consideration overall resources. FTEs. and intramural and extramural
resources?
It will be difficult for the Agency to keep abreast of the "-omics" revolution and be able to use
the latest computational toxicology tools to protect public and environmental health. Thus, the
budget changes since 2010 do not appear to be sufficient for innovation and modernization of
risk assessment for the Agency. As EPA moves from a risk management paradigm to a
sustainability paradigm, increased resources will be needed. If the Agency is to make progress
addressing the tens of thousands of chemicals of concern, it will be necessary to make an
investment in using computational toxicology methods and conducting multipollutant risk
assessment rather than only focusing on one chemical at a time.
Are there well-defined objectives/work products for next year's budget? Can these be
accomplished with the given resources?
The objectives/work products for the next year were well articulated and it appears that the
modest goals as outlined can be accomplished with the given resources, as they were in 2010 and
2011. But eventually more funds will be needed as described above.
Are there pivotal, "game -hanging" investments that can advance the science?
Integrating Tox21 data into risk assessment will require investments that will be essential to
modernize our ability to predict human and environmental health risks. It is not clear to the SAB
who makes these investments at EPA. Formalizing and clarifying the linkage between the CSS
research program and HHRA will assist in ensuring that output from CSS is used by HHRA in a
scientifically sound and defensible way.
The multi-pollutant, cumulative risk approach is a potential paradigm shift in how to assess
chemical risks. Perhaps the ambient air pollution multi-pollutant science assessment under way
could be considered a pilot for evaluating multi-pollutant assessments.
Are there investments that will serve multiple program and multiple priority needs?
The HHRA program inherently serves multiple program needs. IRIS assessments clearly link to
all the other integrated ORD programs. The IRIS assessments are used by basic science
20

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programs as well as regulatory programs not just in EPA but in other agencies and by states as
well. This program is a shared federal resource.
The Integrated Science Assessments are extremely important to the National Ambient Air
Quality Standard reviews and thus are integrally related to the ACE program.
There are strong potential linkages to the CSS program - the HHRA program will clearly need to
work with CSS to use the CSS output appropriately and maximally.
3.6. Homeland Security
ORD described three major responsibilities of the Homeland Security research (HSR) program.
Research is designed to 1) protect water systems from attacks and for detecting and recovering
from successful attacks affecting water systems; 2) decontaminate buildings and outdoor areas
impacted by a terrorist attack by leading efforts to establish clearance goals and clean up and 3)
be part of a nationwide laboratory network with the capability and capacity to analyze for
chemical, biological and radiological agents for routine monitoring and in response to a terrorist
attacks.
How well will the requested budget allow EPA to advance its strategic research directions and
meet EPA priorities?
This program has a well defined mission. The ORD Center for Homeland Security was initially
charged to develop and deliver products quickly, with the plan that the Homeland Security
Research Center would be sunsetted after three years. However, it has been positively received
within the Agency and by the users of its products and continues to enjoy support from many
stakeholders. Therefore, ORD has supported maintaining the program because it recognizes its
value. However, in the FY 2012 President's budget, HSR is slated for a 24.9 percent reduction
from the FY 2010 enacted budget to $26.7M in the FY 2012 President's budget request, due
mostly to maturation of its initial research products.
Over half of the $24.7M request is directed towards monitoring and decontamination after a
chemical, biological or radiological release, including response to a wide area anthrax attack.
The safe buildings program was eliminated in the requested FY 2012 budget. The program
activities related to developing contamination approaches to wide areas is limited because the
budget allows only for small pilot level tests. The efforts are focused on evaluating single agent
releases and no budget is provided to address release of mixtures.
Are the changes since the 2010 budget and EPA's research budget trends appropriate, taking into
consideration overall resources. FTEs. and intramural and extramural resources?
The cuts in the budget are likely to limit the ability of the HSR program to interact with EPA's
regional and program offices, important clients for ORD's water related research. These
interactions are especially important for disseminating recently developed real-time water
monitoring and decision-making tools. EPA must plan for the resources needed to disseminate
these models and real-time tools available for states and communities to use.
21

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A 75 percent reduction in methods development for analyses of chemical, biological and
radiological warfare agents is a huge reduction in a single program. The changes since the 2010
budget may be appropriate as several programs within the Center for Homeland Security are
mature.
Are there well-defined objectives/work projects for next year's budget? Can these be
accomplished with the given resources?
This program has a well defined mission and the FY 2012 requested budget describes many HSR
activities that are maturing. The SAB is concerned, however, that many of the 2012 activities are
related to data collection efforts, which are resource-intensive and may be damaged if budgets
are cut rapidly. The FY 2012 requested budget describes the planned research objectives broadly
and does not detail the research tasks to be performed to achieve these objectives. For example,
in "developing microbial risk assessment methodologies," is the need really to develop methods?
Or is it to develop more data that could be used in these risk assessments? More detail is needed
to fully evaluate whether the requested budget is sufficient, in general, to allow EPA to
accomplish the stated objectives.
Are there pivotal "game-changing" investments that can advance the science?
There do not appear to be many game changing investments supported by the requested budget
that can advance the science. The relatively small budget and homeland security mission
primarily focus on monitoring and decontamination after a chemical, biological, or radiological
release preclude many game-changing advances.
One example, however, of a pivotal, "game-changing" investment is the CANARY early
detection system for drinking water contamination, developed collaboratively as part of the
homeland security initiatives program. CANARY was designed to detect when there has been
intentional or unintentional contamination of a drinking water system by monitoring and
analyzing through its unique software. The CANARY system is a free software tool available
worldwide to drinking water utilities striving to provide safe water to their customers. The
software is in use in over 20 major U.S. cities including Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, Los
Angeles and San Francisco. CANARY has been accessed by more than 600 utilities in 15
countries. The tool resulted from an investment in interagency collaboration between two
Federal agencies, the EPA's ORD and DOE's Sandia Laboratories. The SAB commends the
Agency for demonstrating that interagency innovative collaboration not only works, but can be
accomplished relatively inexpensively.
Are there investments that will serve multiple program or multiple priority needs?
The majority of proposed research activities are directed to monitoring and decontamination after
a chemical, biological or radiological release. EPA makes a significant contribution to the
nation's ability to respond to natural disaster and unconventional warfare because of the
Agency's expertise in identifying and handling toxic substances in environmental media. Within
the Agency and ORD's emphasis on sustainability, HSR could serve multiple priority needs and
programs and also provide opportunities for game-changing research if it were better integrated
22

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with research developing resilience of the built environment in the face of sudden disruptions
and natural disasters.
3.7. Economics and Decision Science
Sustainability is a challenge grounded in the human dimensions of a coupled human and natural
system. Humans are the driving force of environmental changes both good and bad, and human
institutions and behavior must change if a transition toward a sustainable economy is to be
achieved. Thus it is striking that EPA's budget accords so little explicit attention to research on
the human elements of coupled systems.
Economics remains a low priority for EPA, and decision sciences were eliminated altogether in
the 2008 reorganization that transferred the Economics and Decision Science extramural
research program to the National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE). The fragments
of social science research continue to be subjected to the disinvestments of a declining budget. A
long-term dataset, the Pollution Abatement Cost and Expenditure survey series, is a casualty of
these cuts, limiting our ability to understand the economic implications of environmental
regulation. This is a serious loss because of the length of time needed to collect data on industries
making long-term capital investments in response to globalization and national economic shifts,
as well as environmental regulations. NCEE retains a function as an internal "consulting group,"
available for studies in the Office of Policy and elsewhere within the Agency. This is an
important function, not only to help EPA meet its immediate responsibilities involving economic
analysis, but also as a way to maintain awareness within EPA of the perspectives and utility of
understanding the human dimensions of environmental problems.
Social science has no explicit place within the four major research programs around which ORD
is being reorganized. The SAB appreciates the need for social science as a cross-cutting theme,
but that understanding needs to be translated into a durable institutional presence in the Agency
if the human dimensions of sustainability are to become a permanent part of EPA's approach.
The SAB has commented repeatedly on the neglect of social and behavioral at EPA. A time of
politically frightening budget deficits is not the moment for a sweeping investment in the social
sciences. But people and the institutions that shape human behavior, including markets and
informal norms, as well as the regulations and laws that fall within EPA's legal responsibility, are
central to sustainability. Environmental protection requires research related to these dimensions
to achieve sustainable outcomes.
How well will the requested budget allow EPA to advance its strategic research directions and
meet EPA priorities?
It appears that the total budget devoted to Economics and Decision Science (EDS) is $1M (plus
an additional $0.4M for NCEE), a reduction of $.2M from FY 2010 enacted funding of 1,2M.
This is barely enough to keep the Center alive, much less to advance strategic directions.
23

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Are the changes since the FY 2010 enacted budget and EPA's research trends appropriate, taking
into consideration overall resources. FTEs. and intramural and extramural resources?
The President's requested FY 2012 budget for EDS represents a 17 percent decrease from the
FY10 level and is only 43 percent of the EDS budget in FY 2007. The SAB believes that the
EDS budget should be increased. Economics and especially decision sciences cut across the
Agency's goals, yet the budget marginalizes them. This marginalization is misguided because
relatively small investments in these areas can provide large benefits. The one appropriate
research investment to note is ORD's requirement that STAR grant applications include a social
scientist on applicants' research teams.
The EDS research program was transferred from ORD to the NCEE in 2008. Since 2008, EPA
has disinvested in decision science research and the SAB believes this disinvestment was a
mistake. The SAB advises EPA to return responsibility for decision science research to ORD and
develop an explicit research enterprise in environmental behavioral, social, and decision
sciences. Such an enterprise need not be a separate new program, but would provide institutional
support for integrating environmental behavioral, social, and decision sciences into ORD's
transdisciplinary research programs.
Are there well defined objectives/work products for next year's budget? Can these be
accomplished with the given resources?
It appears that efforts will be directed towards children's health protection and valuation of water
resources, but only two projects seem to be well defined, both relating to water valuation. These
activities involve modeling cost-effective nutrient management options for the Chesapeake Bay
and modeling welfare impacts of ocean acidification.
The limited budget makes it difficult to accomplish very much, and these few projects may be
sensible, given that they address problems that cut broadly across the Agency.
Are there pivotal, "game-changing" investments that can advance the science?
This program would be game-changing if the investments were adequate. The budget is too
small to be game-changing in any sense. The SAB supports NCEE's plans to direct a substantial
portion of its limited funds to external grants, especially for graduate student research. This is a
good way to leverage resources and to bring new economists into environmental research.
However, there is little evidence that this program can similarly affect the other social,
behavioral and decision sciences.
The SAB deplores the elimination of decision sciences from the portfolio. It is apparent in the
Agency's strategic plan that the decision sciences, and more generally the behavioral and social
sciences, should be playing increasing roles in EPA's portfolio of research activities. Needs for
research in social, behavioral, and decision science are apparent in the Strategic Plan, but receive
virtually no funding in the President's FY 2012 requested budget.
24

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Are there investments that will serve multiple programs or multiple priority needs?
The entire, albeit very small, budget serves multiple programs at EPA that require the
results of economic research.
25

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TABLE OF ACRONYMS
ACE
Air, Climate and Energy Research Program
CSS
Chemical Safety for Sustainability Research
Program
HHRA
Human Health Risk Assessment
HSR
Homeland Security Research Program
iNPD
Interim National Program Director
IRIS
Integrated Risk Information System
ORD
Office of Research and Development
SBIR
Small Business Innovation Research
SHC
Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research
Program
SSWR
Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Research
Program
26

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REFERENCES
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007 Climate change 2007: Mitigation.
Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Summary for Policymakers. Authors Netz,
B.; Davidson, O. R.; Bosch, P. R.; Dave, R.; Meyer, L. A. Editors Netz, B.;Davidson, O.
R.;Bosch, P. R.;Dave, R.;Meyer, L. A.. 23 pp. Web site:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-spm.pdf.
Olshansky, S. Jay et al. 2005. A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the
21st Century. New England Journal of Medicine. 352:11, 2005.
Pope, Arden, Majid Ezzati, and Douglas W. Dockery. 2009. Fine-Particulate Air Pollution and
Life Expectancy in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine. 360:376, 2009.
University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute, James Heintz, Heidi Garrett-
Peltier, Ben Zippere. 2011. New Jobs Cleaner Air; Employment Effects Under Planned
Changes to the EPA's Air Pollution Rules. Ceres Report. 2011.
www.ceres.org/epajobsreport
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Attachment A: Extracts from EPA's FY 2012 Budget in Brief for the SAB
EPA Research and Development
Transformational Solutions through Science Innovation
EPA's Office of Research and Development provides critical support to the Agency's
environmental policy decisions and regulatory actions to protect human health and the
environment. EPA research has provided effective solutions to environmental problems
for the past 40 years. The Agency's research has informed risk reduction approaches
that have resulted in cleaner air, land and water. However, today's increasingly
complex public health and environmental problems require an evolved approach to
research. Scientific innovation is needed to produce transformational solutions beyond
those more narrowly targeted to single chemicals or problems.
To address these new challenges, in FY 2012 EPA is strengthening its planning and
delivery of science by implementing an integrated research approach that looks at
problems from a systems perspective. Research will leverage the diverse capabilities of
in-house scientists and engineers and bridge traditional scientific disciplines. In
addition, research plans will incorporate input from external stakeholders such as
Federal, State, and local government agencies, non-governmental organizations,
industry, and communities affected by environmental problems.
EPA will implement this new approach by realigning and integrating the work of twelve
of its base research programs into four new research programs:
•	Air, Climate, and Energy
•	Safe and Sustainable Water Resources
•	Sustainable and Healthy Communities
•	Chemical Safety and Sustainability
This integration capitalizes on existing
capabilities and promotes the use of a
transdisciplinary perspective to further
EPA's mission.
For example, available tools have failed
to fully address complex aspects of
chemical risk such as the impact of life-
stage vulnerability, genetic susceptibility, disproportionate exposures, and cumulative
risk. By formally integrating chemicals research, EPA will combine developments in
computational, physico-chemical, and biological science to advance science in the
sustainable development, use, and assessment of chemicals.
Within the new integrated programs, EPA will continue research to address targeted,
existing problems and provide technical support, with an emphasis on sustainable
applications and outcomes. The Human Health Risk Assessment and Homeland
Security Research programs also will continue as key components of EPA's overall
research portfolio.
INTEGRATED RESEARCH
EPA Labs, Centers &
Program Offices
External Research
Partners
SAFE &
SUSTAINABLE
WATER
RESOURCES
SUSTAINABLE
& HEALTHY
COMMUNITIES
CHEMICAL SAFETY &
SUSTAINABILITY
91
28

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EPA Office of Research and Development FY 2010 to FY 2012 in FORMER Program/Project Structure1



2010 Enacted
2011 CR2
2012 Pres Bud1
2012 vs 2010
Appropriation
Program/Project
$000
FTE
$000
FTE
$000
FTE
$000
FTE
Science £
Earmarks
$4,700
0.0
$4,700
0.0
$0
0.0
-$4,700
0.0
Technology
Homeland Security
Total Program
$32,361
55.5
$32,861
55.5
$24,684
62.7
-$8,177
7.2


Decontamination
$20,890
40.2
$20,890
40.2
$15,637
44.0
$5,253
3.8


Safe Buildings
$1,996
0.0
$1,996
0.0
$0
0.0
-$1,996
0.0


Other Research
$9,975
IS.3
$9,975
15.3
$9,047
18.7
-$928
3.4

Human Health Risk Assessment
$44,789
173.7
$44,789
173.7
$44,108
187.4
-$681
13.7

Research: Global Change
$20,826
35.5
$20,826
35.5
$20,810
41.2
$16
5.7

Research: Clean Air
$81,917
269.5
$81,917
269.5
$83,313
262,8
$1,396
-6,7

Research: Drinking Water
$49,155
190.2
$49,155
190.2
$52,547
196.2
$3,392
6.0

Research: Water Quality
$61,918
236.8
$61,918
236.8
$66,229
243,4
$4,311
6.6

Research: Human
Total Program
$161,511
484.9
$159,511
484.9
$145,446
475.0
-$16,065
-9.9

Health and Ecosystems
Human Health Research
$84,904
211.2
$83,904
211.2
$45,392
112.2
¦$39,512
¦99.0


Ecosystems Research
$76,607
273.7
$75,607
273.7
$60,906
2SS.7
$15,701
-18.0


Other Research 4
$0
0.0
$0
0.0
$39,148
107.1
$39,148
107.1

Research: Land Protection
$14,111
58,8
$14,111
58.8
$13,601
57.3
$510
-1.5

Research: Fellowships
$11,083
2.6
$11,083
2.6
$17,261
6.4
$6,178
3.8

Research: Sustainability
$27,287
70.8
$27,287
70.8
$26,788
67,0
-$499
-3.8

Research: Pesticides and Toxics
$27,347
137.4
$27,347
137.4
$27,159
135.3
-$188
-2.1

Research: Endocrine Disruptors
$11,355
50.1
$11,355
50.1
$16,888
46.1
$5,533
-4.0

Research: Computational Toxicology
$20,048
32,7
$20,048
32.7
$21,211
34.4
$1,163
1.7

S&T Appropriation Total
$568,908
1798.5
$566,908
1798.5
$560,045
1815.2
$8,863
16.7
LUST
Research: Land Protection
$345
1.9
$345
1.9
$454
1.6
$109
-0.3
Inland Oil Spills
Research: Land Protection
$639
0.9
$639
0.9
$614
0.9
$25
0.0
Superfund
Homeland Security
$2,166
2,0
$2,166
2.0
$1,968
2.0
-$198
0.0

Human Health Risk Assessment
$3,404
14.9
$3,404
14.9
$3,342
14.9
-$62
0.0

Research: Sustainability
$73
0.0
$73
0.0
$0
0.0
-$73
0.0

Research: Land Protection
$21,191
93.1
$21,191
93.1
$17,706
89.5
-$3,485
-3.6

Superfund Appropriation Total
$26,834
110.0
$26,834
110.0
$23,016
106.4
$3,818
-3.6
GRAND TOTAL


$596,726
1911.3
$594,726
1911.3
$584,129
1924.1
$12,597
12.8
NOTES:
FY 2010 Enacted includes the $2M supplemental for research to determine human health and environmental impacts of oil spill dispersants. Differences in totals between new
and former program areas reflect transfers and cross-walk adjustments for workforce support costs.
JFY 2011 CR represents an annualized continuing resolution based on FY 2010 Enacted levels excluding supplemental appropriations.
3FY 2012 total for Research: Sustainable and Healthy Communities excludes $Q.5M in Agency green conferencing resources not included as part of the Office of Research and
Development budget,
4FY 2012 resources for nanotechnology and other areas will now appear separately from the Human Health and Ecosystems research areas.
2/17/2011 12:04 PM
29

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EPA Office of Research and Development FY 2010 to FY 2012 in NEW Program/Project Structure1
Appropriation
Program/Project
2010 Enacted
$000 FTE
2011 CR2
$000 FTE
2012 Pres Bud3
$000 FTE
2012 vs 2010
$000 FTE
Science &
Technology
Earmarks
$4,700
0.0
$4,700
0.0
$0
0.0
-$4,700
0.0
Homeland Security
Total Program
$32,861
55.5
$32,861
55.5
$24,684
62,7
-$8,177
7.2
D econtami na tion
$20,890
40.2
$20,890
40.2
$15,637
44.0
-$5,253
3.8
Safe Buildings
$ 1,996
O.O
$1,996
O.O
$0
O.O
-$1,996
O.O
Other Research
$9,975
15.3
$9,975
15.3
$9,047
18.7
-$92 X
3.4
Human Health Risk Assessment
$42,899
167.6
$42,899
167.6
$42,400
180.9
$499
13.3
Research: Air, Climate
and Energy
Total Program
$111,449
313.6
$111,449
313.6
$108,000
309.6
-$3,449
-4.0
Global Change Research
$20,822
35.5
$20,822
35.5\
$20,805
41.2
-$17
5.7
Clean Air Research
$81,605
268.5
$X1,605
268.5
$83,102
261.X
$1,497
-6.7
Other Research
$9,022
9.6
$9,022
9.6
$4,093
6.6
-$4,929
-3.0
Research: Safe and
Sustainable Water
Resources
Total Program
$111,073
427.0
$111,073
427.0
$118,776
439.6
$7,703
12.6
Drinking Water Research
$49,129
190.2
$49,129
190.2
$52,521
196.2 II $3,392
6.0
Water Quality Research
$61,944
236.8
$61,944
236.8
$66,255
243,4 $4,311
6.6
Research: Sustainable
and Healthy
Communities
Total Program
$188,095
551.1
$186,095
551.1
$170,528
529.711 -$17,567
-21.4
Human Health Research
$54,1 HO
106.7
$53,180
106. 7
$45,392
112.2
-$8, 78X
5.5
Ecosystems Research
$71,698
272.4
$70,69X
272.4
$60,906
255. 7
-$10, 792
-16.7
Other Research
$62,217
172.0
$62,217
172.0
$64,230
161.8
$2,013
-10.2
Research: Chemical
Safety and Sustainability
Total Program
$77,831
283.7
$77,831
283.7
$95,657
292.7
$17,826
9.0
Endocrine Oisruptors
Research
$11,350
50.1
$11,350
50.1
$16,883
46.1
$5,533
-4.0
Computational Toxicology
Research
$20,044
32.7
$20,044
32.7
$21,209
34.4
$1,165
1.7
Other Research
$46,437
200.9
$46,437
200.9
$57,565
212.2
$11,12H
11.3
S&T Appropriation Total
$568,908
1798,5
$566,908
1798.5
$560,045
1815.2
$8,863
16.7
LUST
Research: Sustainable and Healthy Communities
$345
1.9
$345
1.9
$454
1.6
$109
-0.3
Inland Oil Spills
Research: Sustainable and Healthy Communities
$G39
0.9
$639
0.9
$614
0.9
-$25
0.0
Superfund
Homeland Security
$2,166
2.0
$2,166
2.0
$1,968
2.0
-$198
0.0
Human Health Risk Assessment
$3,404
14.9
$3,404
14.9
$3,342
14.9
-$62
0.0
Research: Sustainable and Healthy Communities
$21,264
93.1
$21,264
93.1
$17,706
89.5
-$3,558
-3.6
Superfund Appropriation Total
$26,834
110.0
$26,834
11O.0
$23,016
106.4
-$3,818
-3.6
GRAND TOTAL
$596,726
1911.3
$594,726
1911.3
$584,129
1924.1
-$12,597
12.8
NOTES:
aFY 2010 Enacted includes the $2M supplemental for research to determine human health and environmental impacts of oil spill dispersants. Differences in totals
between new and former program areas reflect transfers and cross-walk adjustments for workforce support costs.
2FY 2011 CR represents an annualized continuing resolution based on FY 2010 Enacted levels excluding supplemental appropriations.
FY 2012 total for Research: Sustainable and Healthy Communities excludes $0.5M in Agency green conferencing resources not included as part of the Office of
Research and Development budget.
2/17/2011, 12:04 PM
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