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6
Findings and Recommendations
Since its formation in 1970, the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has played a leadership role in developing the broad fields of environ-
mental science and engineering. It has stimulated and supported basic and ap-
plied research, developed environmental-education programs, supported re-
gional science initiatives, supported and promoted the development of safer and
more cost-effective technologies, provided a firm scientific basis of regulatory
decisions, and prepared the agency to address emerging environmental prob-
lems. The broad reach of EPA science has also influenced international policies
and guided state and local actions. As a result of EPA's scientific leadership,
both the nation and the world have made great progress in addressing environ-
mental challenges and improving environmental quality over the last 40 years.
As a regulatory agency, EPA applies much of its resources to implement-
ing complex regulatory statutes that have been established by Congress. That
regulatory mission can engender controversy and place strains on the conduct of
EPA's scientific work in ways that do not affect most other government science
agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science
Foundation (NSF). Amid this inherent tension, EPA generally, and the Office of
Research and Development (ORD) specifically, strive to meet the following
objectives in their research:
Support the needs of the agency's present regulatory mandates and
timetables.
Identify and lay the intellectual foundations that will allow the agency
to address current environmental challenges and challenges that it will face over
the course of the next several decades.
Determine the main environmental problems on the US environmental-
research landscape.
Sustain and continually rejuvenate a diverse inhouse scientific research
staff--with the necessary laboratories and field capabilities--to support the
agency in its present and future missions and in its active collaboration with
other agencies.
187
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188 Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead
Strike a balance between inhouse and extramural research investment.
The latter can often bring new ideas and methods to the agency, stimulate a flow
of new people into it, and support the continued health of environmental re-
search in the nation.
In the present climate of tight federal budgets, EPA faces the challenge of how
to set priorities and achieve as many of these research objectives as it can within
a limited budget that, in some cases, is shrinking in real terms.
The committee has examined the agency's capacity to obtain and apply
the best new scientific and technologic tools to meet current and future chal-
lenges. For 4 decades, EPA has been a national and world leader in addressing
the scientific and engineering challenges of protecting the environment and hu-
man health. The agency's multidisciplinary science workforce of 6,000 is bol-
stered by strong ties to academic research institutions and science advisers rep-
resenting many sectors of the scientific community. A highly competitive
fellowship program also provides a pipeline for future environmental science
and engineering leaders and enables the agency to attract graduates who have
state-of-the-art training.
Thus, the foundation of EPA science is strong. However, the agency needs
to successfully address numerous present and future challenges if it is to main-
tain science leadership and meet its expanding mandates. There is a pressing
need to groom tomorrow's leaders and prepare for the retirement of large num-
bers of senior scientists (some of whom have been with the agency since it was
created in 1970). As this report has underscored, there is an increased recogni-
tion of the need for cross-disciplinary training and the expansion of the science
base to strengthen capacity in social and information sciences. In addition, EPA
will continue to need leadership in the traditional core subjects, including, but
not limited to, statistics, chemistry, economics, environmental engineering,
ecology, toxicology, epidemiology, exposure science, and risk assessment.
EPA's future success will depend on its capacity to address long-standing envi-
ronmental problems, to recognize and respond to emerging challenges, to de-
velop solutions, and to meet the scientific needs of policy-makers.
Figure 6-1 presents the committee's approach for addressing science for
EPA's future. The following sections elaborate on the issues described above
and bring together the principal findings and recommendations detailed
throughout the report. In assessing the scientific opportunities and needs that the
agency faces, the committee did not consider it appropriate to prioritize where
EPA should invest its limited resources. Such an exercise will require detailed
internal EPA deliberations and administrative guidance. Instead, the committee
has focused on the statement of task, which asked for an assessment of EPA's
capabilities to develop, obtain, and use new science and technologic information
to meet persistent, emerging, and future challenges.
Most of the committee's recommendations, which are discussed in Chap-
ters 4 and 5 and summarized in the sections below, are broad and are intended to
help EPA enhance its ability to address environmental problems and their solu-
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Findings and Recommendations 189
tions from a systems perspective and through strengthened leadership, commu-
nication, internal expertise, and internal and external collaboration. The mecha-
nism or mechanisms through which EPA chooses to address the recommenda-
tions will depend on its funding, its priorities, and what environmental science
and engineering areas it wants to focus its efforts on in the future. EPA already
addresses some aspects of the committee's recommendations to some degree. It
is the committee's aim that this report will help the agency to choose where to
enhance its ability to integrate its current science and to use new tools and tech-
nologies to address its mission challenges.
SYSTEMS THINKING
It is important for EPA to try to balance its capacity and resources to ad-
dress complex environmental challenges, to address potential favorable and un-
favorable health and environmental effects, and to apply emerging scientific
information, tools, techniques, and technologies. Approaching problems from a
systems perspective will allow EPA to meet those challenges and make the
maximum continuing use of new scientific tools. The committee has suggested
ways in which the agency can integrate systems-thinking techniques into a 21st
century framework for science to inform decisions (see Figure 6-1). That
framework will help EPA to stay at the leading edge of science by encouraging
it to produce science that is anticipatory, innovative, long-term, and collabora-
tive; to evaluate and apply emerging tools for data acquisition, modeling, and
knowledge development; and to develop tools and methods for synthesizing
science, characterizing uncertainties, and integrating, tracking, and assessing the
outcomes of actions. If effectively implemented, the framework would help to
break the silos of the agency and promote collaboration among different media,
time scales, and disciplines. In supporting environmental science and engineer-
ing for the 21st century, there will need to be a move from using science to
characterize risks, to applying science holistically to characterize both problems
and solutions at the earliest possible time. ORD's move toward embracing sus-
tainability throughout its research program is a positive move in this direction.
Finding: Environmental problems are increasingly interconnected. EPA can no
longer address just one environmental hazard at a time without considering how
that problem interacts with, is influenced by, and influences other aspects of the
environment.
Recommendation 1: The committee recommends that EPA substantially
enhance the integration of systems thinking into its work and enhance its
capacity to apply systems thinking to all aspects of how it approaches com-
plex decisions.
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190
Complex Challenges for the Future
Problem Formulation
Hypothesis Generation
Needs Assessment
Technical Approaches
Analysis of Key Measures to Advance Knowledge Knowledge
Data Acquisition Environmental Fate
Impacts
Ecologic Population Health
Biologic Data Modeling, Exposure and Dose
Physical Analysis, and Mechanism and Mode of Action
Chemical Synthesis Implications
Epidemiologic Costs
Socioeconomic Feedback
Outcomes Behavioral Behaviors
Balanced Informed Decisions Informatics Decision Options
Improved Health
Cleaner Environment
Lower Costs
Systems Thinking to Assess Implications of Decisions
Applying Science that Anticipates, Innovates, Takes the Long View, Is Collaborative Translation and
Communication
Applications, Decisions, Synthesis and Evaluation Systems Tools and Skills
and Actions Sustainability Analysis Life-Cycle Assessment
Policy Solution-Oriented Approaches Cumulative Risk Assessment
Regulation Multiple-Criteria and Social, Economic, Behavioral,
Social Change Multidimensional Tools and Decision Sciences
Uncertainty Synthesis Research
FIGURE 6-1 Framework for enhanced science for environmental protection. The iterative process starts with effective problem formulation, in
which policy goals and an orientation toward solutions help to determine scientific needs and the most appropriate methods. Data are acquired
as needed and synthesized to generate knowledge about key outcomes. This knowledge is incorporated into an array of systems tools and solu-
tions-orineted synthesis approaches to formulate policies that best improve public health and the environment while taking account of social
and economic impacts. Once science-informed actions have been implemented, outcome evaluation can help determine whether refinements to
any previous stages are required (see the dotted lines in the figure).
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Findings and Recommendations 191
The following paragraphs provide examples of some of strategies that EPA
could use to help it set its own priorities and to enhance its use of systems think-
ing.
Even if formal quantitative life-cycle assessment (LCA) is not feasible, in-
creased use of a life-cycle perspective would help EPA to assess activities, regu-
latory strategies, and associated environmental consequences. Placing more of a
focus on life-cycling thinking would likely include increasing EPA's investment
in the development of LCA tools that reflect the most recent knowledge in LCA
and risk assessment (both human health and ecologic). In addition, it may be
more cost effective for EPA to provide incentives and resources to increase col-
laboration between LCA practitioners in the agency and those working on re-
lated analytic tools (such as risk assessment, exposure modeling, alternatives
assessment, and green chemistry). EPA has some internal capacity for LCA, but
could benefit from a more systematic use of such an assessment across the
agency's mission.
Continuing to invest intramural and extramural resources in cumulative
risk assessment and the underlying multistressor data, including coordinated
bench science and community-based components, would give EPA a broader
and more comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions between
chemicals, humans, and the environment. A challenge before the agency is the
characterization of cumulative effects using complex, incomplete, or missing
data. Even as EPA seeks to improve its understanding of risks, some prevention-
based decisions may need to be made in the face of uncertainty.
In EPA's science programs, environmental decisions will only be effective
if they consider the social and behavioral contexts in which they will play out.
Such decisions can substantially affect societal interests beyond those that are
specifically environmental. Tradeoffs among environmental and other societal
outcomes need to be anticipated and made explicit if decision-making is to be
fully informed and transparent, and predicting economic and societal responses
at various points in the decision-making process is necessary to achieve desir-
able environmental and societal outcomes. For these reasons, developing
mechanisms to integrate social, economic, behavioral, and decision sciences
would lead to more comprehensive environmental-management decisions. EPA
can engage the social, economic, behavioral, and decision sciences as part of a
systems-science perspective rather than as consumers and evaluators of others'
science. In addition, EPA would benefit from a long-term commitment to ad-
vancing research in a number of related fields, including valuation of health and
ecosystem benefits.
Research centers that focus on synthesis research have demonstrated the
power and cost effectiveness of bringing together multidisciplinary collaborative
groups to integrate and analyze data to generate new scientific knowledge. De-
liberately introducing synthesis research into EPA's activities would contribute
to accelerating its progress in sustainability science. A specific area where
knowledge from systems thinking could be applied is in the design of safer
chemicals, products, and materials.
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192 Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead
ENHANCED SCIENCE LEADERSHIP
The committee evaluated EPA's capabilities and the needs that the agency
will face given both large and complex future environmental challenges and the
necessity of identifying, evaluating, and implementing a large number of new
scientific tools in its science and decision-making. Based on that evaluation, it
identified a need to substantially strengthen its science leadership. There has
been progress toward agency-wide science integration with the establishment of
the Office of the Science Advisor, and further progress might be made with the
shift of the science advisor position from within ORD to the Office of the Ad-
ministrator in early 2012; however, the Office of the Science Advisor may need
further authority from the administrator or additional staff resources to continue
to improve the integration and coordination of science across programs and re-
gions throughout the agency. When the committee speaks of enhancing science
leadership, it is not just referring to the strengthened capacity of someone in a
higher-level position within EPA to whom the administrator has provided inde-
pendence, authority, and resources, but also the internal support at all levels in
the agency (including scientists, analysts, directors, and deputy and assistant
administrators) to ensure that the highest-quality science is developed, evalu-
ated, and applied systematically throughout the agency's programs.
In the committee's analysis of the strengths and limitations of an enhanced
agency-wide leadership position, it has concluded that successful implementa-
tion of the systems-based application of emerging tools and technologies to meet
persistent and future challenges cannot be achieved under the current structure.
Success will require leadership throughout the agency, in the programs and re-
gions as well as in ORD. There will need to be clear lines of authority and re-
sponsibility, and regional administrators, program assistant administrators, and
staff members at all levels will need to be held accountable for ensuring scien-
tific quality and the integration of individual science activities into broader ef-
forts across the agency.
Finding: The need for improvement in the oversight, coordination, and man-
agement of agency-wide science has been documented in studies by the National
Research Council, the General Accountability Office, and the agency's own
Science Advisory Board as a serious shortcoming and it remains an obstacle at
EPA. The committee's own analysis of challenges and opportunities for the
agency indicates the need for integration of systems thinking, and the need for
enhanced leadership at all levels is even stronger than it has been in the past.
Recommendation 2: The committee recommends that the EPA administra-
tor continue to identify ways to substantially enhance the responsibilities of
a person in an agency-wide science leadership position. That person should
hold a senior position, which could be that of a deputy administrator for
science, a chief scientist, or possibly a substantially strengthened version of
the current science advisor position. He or she should have sufficient au-
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Findings and Recommendations 193
thority and staff resources to improve the integration and coordination of
science across the agency. If this enhanced leadership position is to be suc-
cessful, strengthened leadership is needed throughout the agency and the
improved use of science at EPA will need to be carried out by staff at all
levels.
Whatever administrative arrangement is adopted, the following are sug-
gestions of the types of responsibilities that the committee thinks should be as-
sociated with this position:
Chairing and assuring that the work of the Science and Technology
Policy Council is comprehensive and effective.
Promotion of systems thinking and systems-oriented tools to address
complex challenges ahead and the integration of this approach into every aspect
of agency science and engineering (as described in Chapter 4).
Working to ensure that the scientific and technical staff throughout the
agency (including program, regional, and research offices) have the expertise
necessary to perform their duties whether in support of the agency's research or
in support of its role as a regulatory and policy decision-maker.
Assuring that the agency has in place a system for quality assurance
and quality control of its scientific and technical work (including a system for
consistent high-quality peer review).
Assuring that the best available scientific and technical information is
being used to carry out the agency's mission.
Working to coordinate research and analytic efforts within and outside
the agency to ensure that the best information is used in the most efficient man-
ner.
Encouraging and supporting interoffice and interagency science col-
laboration in order to solve problems and develop good solutions.
If the occupant of the position is to be successful, he or she will require
sufficient staff and resources to act on behalf of the EPA administrator to im-
plement a coordinated budget and strategic planning process for the regional,
program, and research offices to ensure that appropriate scientific and technical
expertise and capabilities are available and used. The person in this position
would also oversee the policies and procedures that relate to the operation of the
agency's federal advisory committees. The committee specifically recom-
mends that the person in this position and his or her staff create, imple-
ment, and periodically update an integrated, agency-wide multiyear plan
for science, its use, and associated research needs. Such a plan would bring
together ORD, program, and regional science initiatives while being cognizant
of the flexibility that is imparted through bottom-up initiatives undertaken in
ORD, the program offices, and the regions.
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194 Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead
The strengthening of science leadership is not without its challenges. For
example, whether or not the position is held by a political appointee could affect
the ability of the person in the position to be effective throughout the agency,
especially with the other political appointees who head the programs that rely on
science (and supervise many of the agency's scientists). There is also the possi-
bility that new procedures established from the central administration could
serve to discourage innovation in science if not carefully applied. To a certain
extent, the recent EPA decision to re-establish the position of science advisor as
a non-political position distinct from ORD (as had been the case in earlier EPA
administrations) will provide a test of how to overcome some of these chal-
lenges. However, the revised role of the current science advisor does not fully
implement the committee's recommendation unless that person is empowered
with the tools and support described above. Even with the full support of the
administrator and senior staff, the effort will fail if the need to improve the use
of science in EPA is not accepted by staff at all levels.
STRENGTHENING CAPACITY
Assessing and obtaining the proper scientific expertise within the agency
is necessary to address complex environmental problems facing the nation and
to create and implement solutions. That includes having the expertise to take
advantage of new technologies that will improve the science basis of regulatory
decision-making at the national, state, and local levels. It also includes having
broad interdisciplinary expertise and engaging in collaboration to more effec-
tively evaluate system-level impacts and sustainable solutions. In order to be
prepared to address a wide array of environmental and health challenges and
their complex interactions, EPA will need to continue to ensure that it has exper-
tise in critical fields. In some cases, the agency will need to advance scientific
understanding through inhouse research; in others, it will need to assimilate and
influence scientific efforts that are undertaken elsewhere. However, even as the
agency moves to increase the breadth and depth of its skills in new disciplines,
and especially in light of an aging work force, continued support is needed to
ensure that basic scientific disciplines are strongly represented. In order to have
the capacity to address future environmental challenges, the agency will need to
have enough internal expertise to identify and collaborate with the expertise of
all of its stakeholders so that it can ask the right questions; determine what exist-
ing tools and strategies can be applied to answer those questions; determine the
needs for new tools and strategies; develop, apply, and refine the new tools and
strategies; and use the science to make recommendations based on hazards, ex-
posures, and monitoring.
Finding: EPA has been a leader in environmental science and technology both
nationally and internationally. If it is to retain that leadership in the coming dec-
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Findings and Recommendations 195
ades, it must maintain its expertise in traditional scientific disciplines while en-
hancing the breadth and depth of its skills in new disciplines.
Recommendation 3: The committee recommends that the agency strengthen
its scientific capacity by (a) continuing to cultivate knowledge and expertise
within the agency generally, (b) hiring more behavioral and decision scien-
tists, and (c) engaging mechanisms to draw on scientific research and exper-
tise from outside of the agency.
Within EPA
Addressing the environmental challenges of today and the future requires
forward-thinking and resourceful scientists and engineers. One of the keys to
recruiting and retaining high-quality scientists who can help the agency to main-
tain its leadership role is for the agency to foster an environment where scien-
tists and engineers have opportunities to work on interesting, challenging prob-
lems, interact synergistically with colleagues, have an impact, and earn
recognition for their work. Furthermore, if the agency is going to address the
problems of today and the future from a systems perspective, its scientists and
engineers need to be able to optimize resources, create and benefit from scien-
tific exchange zones, and lead innovation through transdisciplinary collabora-
tions.
Finding: Expertise in traditional scientific disciplines--including, but not lim-
ited to, statistics, chemistry, economics, environmental engineering, ecology,
toxicology, epidemiology, exposure science, and risk assessment--are essential
for addressing the challenges of today and the future. The case of statistics is
one example where the agency is facing significant retirements and needs to
have, if anything, enhanced expertise. EPA is currently attuned to these needs,
but staffing high-quality scientists in these areas of expertise who can embrace
problems by drawing from information across disciplines will require continued
attention if EPA is to maintain its leadership role in environmental science and
technology.
Recommendation 3a: EPA should continue to cultivate a scientific work-
force across the agency (including ORD, program offices, and regions) that
can take on transdisciplinary challenges.
Some options that EPA might explore to fulfill the recommendation above in-
clude:
Build a stronger mentoring and leadership development program that
supports young researchers and fosters a culture of systems-thinking research.
Recruit young scientists who have expertise and interest in scientific
concepts and tools relevant to systems thinking and its supporting analytic tools.
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196 Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead
Promote rotations through its laboratories and through the laboratories
of other federal agencies and scientific organizations as valuable training experi-
ences for new scientists in the areas of environmental health, science, and engi-
neering.
Expand opportunities for internal networking, including opportunities
for scientists and engineers to work between programs and offices.
Encourage scientists and engineers to work in interdisciplinary teams
and in new ways to provide expertise where it is needed in a timely fashion.
Implement programs to help scientists and engineers to acquire new
skills and expertise throughout their careers, including educational opportunities,
sabbaticals, and other kinds of leave, and laboratory rotations.
Provide opportunities for agency scientists to interact with colleagues
in other agencies, in universities, in nonprofit organizations, and in the private
sector; such opportunities could include workshops, roundtables, participation in
traditional research conferences, and long-term exchanges with or as visiting
scientists.
Promote the visibility and recognition of scientific excellence across its
divisions, programs, and locations by enhancing and highlighting its featured
research and awards programs.
Assess its current policies for retaining and hiring civil service employ-
ees. The agency must be nimble and must be able to easily hire or reassign em-
ployees to make sure it has specific expertise to understand emerging challenges
and make use of new tools, technologies, and approaches in the appropriate of-
fices, regions, and laboratories at the appropriate time.
Economic, social, behavioral, and decision sciences can make important
contributions to improving environmental policy decisions within the emerging
integrated systems-based approach to environmental management. They can
also make contributions to supporting innovative strategies for achieving envi-
ronmental goals efficiently, equitably, and cooperatively. Behavioral and deci-
sion sciences are particularly essential in dealing with such issues as "framing
effects", cognitive heuristics, risk communication, and the design and assess-
ment of the likely effectiveness of alternative regulatory strategies.
Finding: EPA's economic, social, behavioral, and decision science staff consists
almost entirely of economists. The agency is without strong expertise in social,
behavioral, and decision sciences, though it does support some research in these
areas through outside grants, collaborations, and procurement.
Recommendation 3b: The committee recommends that EPA add staff who
have training in behavioral and decision sciences and find ways to enhance
the existing staff capabilities in these fields.
Options that EPA might explore to fulfill that recommendation include:
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Findings and Recommendations 197
Recruit several new staff who have earned advanced degrees in empiri-
cally based behavioral and decision sciences. The new staff would need to have
strong communication skills and would need to work closely with economists,
natural scientists, and engineers in the agency to help to make regulatory and
other agency policies that promote environmentally protective behaviors that are
more realistic. Their knowledge would assist the agency by helping it to make
more informed choices when seeking outside contractors and advisers and to
create stronger collaboration with academics in related fields. The committee
suggests that the new staff be located within the National Center for Environ-
mental Economics (NCEE). The reason for that suggestion is that NCEE cur-
rently staffs the largest number of social scientists within the agency. The large
interest in behavioral and decision sciences that exists now in economics
broadly, as exhibited by the fields of behavioral and neuroeconomics, will con-
tribute to making NCEE a productive location. More importantly, behavioral
economics is an essential source of new insight in environmental economics
research pertaining to the benefits of environmental protection and the design of
incentives for environmental management. Co-locating behavioral scientists
within NCEE will increase the capacity of economics staff to participate in the
advances in environmental economics emerging from the integration of behav-
ioral economics.
Provide mechanisms for cross-disciplinary training of staff in core dis-
ciplines that are relevant to behavioral and decision sciences. The committee
acknowledges that the number of staff in EPA who have advanced training in
these fields is likely to remain modest even with a concerted recruitment effort,
and it is important for staff scientists who work in adjacent disciplines to have
enough familiarity to know what questions to ask (and whom to ask).
Develop improved mechanisms for integrating economic, social, be-
havioral, and decision science into the development of science to support envi-
ronmental-management decisions.
Outside of EPA
EPA would be well-advised to continue to take advantage of such mecha-
nisms as extramural funding to access the expertise that it needs. One example is
the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, which is sponsored by EPA's
National Center for Environmental Research to support transdisciplinary and
interdisciplinary relationships through interactive and collaborative projects. It
can also access experts through collaborations. Specifically, it could reestablish
the collaborative research program between ORD and the NSF Decision, Risk,
and Management Sciences program. That type of collaboration would allow
EPA to harness the expertise that it needs to make informed judgments in behav-
ioral and social sciences.
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198 Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead
Most of the agency's science needs will probably continue to be met by
research and collaboration performed through existing means. However, EPA
also has the potential to acquire more information through collaboration with the
public. For example, the explosion of new Internet-based, wireless, and minia-
turized sensing technologies provides an unprecedented opportunity to involve
the public in research and in meeting data-collection needs in ways that were not
possible in the past. The emergence of secure enterprise social networks also
provides a host of opportunities for EPA to greatly enhance internal and external
collaboration. There is potential for the collection of environmental information
and the sorting and analysis of complex data to be accomplished through citizen
science, crowdsourcing, and similar techniques. EPA will need to continue to
follow new and emerging technologies closely and make anticipatory decisions
for adoption where its mission can be addressed in a cost-effective way.
Even if resources were not a major constraint, EPA would still need the
expertise to be able to harness the science, data, information, tools, techniques,
equipment, and expertise available from research being done in other organiza-
tions domestically and internationally. As resources dedicated to research be-
come more limited, tracking, gathering, and using such knowledge becomes
even more essential.
Finding: Research on environmental issues is not confined to EPA. In the
United States, it is spread across a number of federal agencies, national laborato-
ries, and universities and other public-sector and private-sector facilities. There
are also strong programs of environmental research in the public and private
sectors in many other nations.
Recommendation 3c: The committee recommends that EPA improve its
ability to track systematically, to influence, and in some cases to engage in
collaboration with research being done by others in the United States and
internationally.
The committee suggests the following mechanisms for approaching the
recommendation above:
Identify knowledge that can inform and support the agency's current
regulatory agenda.
Institute strategies to connect that knowledge to those in the agency
who most need it to carry out the agency's mission.
Inform other federal and nonfederal research programs about the sci-
ence base that the agency currently needs or believes that it will need to execute
its mission.
Seek early identification of new and emerging environmental problems
with which the agency may have to deal.
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Findings and Recommendations 199
SCIENCE, TOOLS, AND TECHNOLOGIES TO ADDRESS
CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES
As with all of science and engineering, the fields of environmental science
and technology continue to evolve. Tools and methods are becoming more pow-
erful and sophisticated. In Chapter 3, the committee identified some examples of
tools and technologies that have helped and will continue to help EPA to address
challenges that are relevant to its mission. As mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, the committee was not asked to and did not attempt to prioritize specific
tools and technologies that EPA should invest in for the future. Those decisions
will need to be made by EPA based on factors such as where it would like to
develop its inhouse expertise in the future, where it would prefer to collaborate
to gain the expertise it needs, and where it would like to leverage or incentivize
outside expertise. Some specific areas the committee identified where EPA may
want to consider maintaining or enhancing its expertise on in the future include:
Extend collaborations with remote-sensing scientists.
Find ways to engage in broader, deeper, and sustained support for long-
term monitoring.
Continue to promote methodologic development and application to
rapid and predictive monitoring.
Develop a quantitative microbial risk-assessment framework that in-
corporates alternative indicators, using genomic approaches, microbial source
tracking, and pathogen monitoring.
Collaborate with other agencies (for example, the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences Exposure Biology program; the NSF Environ-
mental, Health, and Safety Risks of Nanomaterials program; the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention; and the European Commission's Exposure Ini-
tiative) to build a greater capacity for exposure science.
Improve exposure assessment for environmental-epidemiology studies.
Continue modeling efforts to advance understanding of sources and en-
vironmental processes that contribute to particulate matter loadings and conse-
quent health and environmental effects.
Improve understanding of interactions between climate change and air
quality, with a focus on relatively short-lived greenhouse agents, such as ozone,
black carbon, and other constituents of particulate matter.
Develop processes and procedures for effective public communication
of the potential public health and environmental risks associated with the in-
creasing number of chemicals.
Improve understanding of the value and limitations of "-omic" tech-
nologies and approaches for environmental and human health risk assessment.
Continue validation of high-throughput in vitro assays for the screening
of new chemicals for potentially hazardous properties while continuing to rec-
ognize the limitations and strengths of current toxicity-testing approaches.
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200 Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead
Regardless of the specific tools and technologies EPA intends to invest its
resources on in the future, it must at least have knowledge of new technologies
and tools that are emerging in the areas of environmental science and engineer-
ing. EPA's efforts to anticipate science needs and emerging tools to meet these
needs cannot succeed in a vacuum. As it focuses on organizing and catalyzing
its internal efforts better, it will need to continue to look outside itself--to other
agencies, states, other countries, academe, and the private sector--to identify
relevant scientific advances and opportunities where collaboration that relies on
others' efforts can be the best (sometimes the only) means of making progress in
protecting health and the environment.
Finding: Although EPA has periodically attempted to scan for and anticipate
new scientific, technology, and policy developments, these efforts have not been
systematic and sustained. The establishment of deliberate and systematic proc-
esses for anticipating human health and ecosystem challenges and new scientific
and technical opportunities would allow EPA to stay at the leading edge of
emerging science.
Recommendation 4: The committee recommends that EPA engage in a de-
liberate and systematic "scanning" capability involving staff from ORD,
other program offices, and the regions. Such a dedicated and sustained "fu-
tures network" (as EPA called groups with a similar function in the past),
with time and modest resources, would be able to interact with other fed-
eral agencies, academe, and industry to identify emerging issues and bring
the newest scientific approaches into EPA.
IMPROVED MANAGEMENT AND USE OF LARGE DATASETS
Without good data that show the state of the environment, how it is evolv-
ing, and how it is affecting people and ecosystems, it is difficult to do an effec-
tive, science-based job of environmental protection. EPA is gathering and will
continue to gather large amounts of data from a diverse array of sources and will
need to deposit such data into data management systems that are both secure and
accessible. EPA will need to have the capacity to systematically access, harvest,
manage, and integrate data from diverse sources, in different media, across geo-
graphic and disciplinary boundaries, and of heterogeneous forms and scales.
This capacity will depend on EPA maintaining and possibly increasing its cur-
rent information-technology capabilities that support state-of-the art data acqui-
sition, storage, and management. Capacity will also depend on having enough
senior statisticians in the agency to analyze, model, and support the synthesis of
data. EPA will need to continue to promote and engage in the development of
informatics techniques for seamless data integration and synthesis and robust
model development. As EPA continues to strengthen its informatics infrastruc-
ture, including data-warehousing and data-mining, it remains important to pay
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Findings and Recommendations 201
attention to new analytic and statistical methods, the building blocks of infor-
matics and backbones of data-mining; to address emerging modeling issues; and
to bridge methodologic gaps.
Many of the issues being addressed by EPA are in the context of environ-
mental factors whose effects are best characterized in terms of changing expo-
sures, accumulating amounts of materials, and changing health and environ-
mental conditions. Given the high levels of spatial and temporal variability of
those factors, it is often critical to have and maintain long-term records of multi-
ple parameters. Making data and samples accessible to future researchers is cen-
tral to ensuring that the understanding of environmental phenomena continues to
grow and evolve with the science. It is also important to develop sample ar-
chives where materials are appropriately stored and to have good metadata for
analysis or reanalysis at a later date.
Long-term monitoring is essential for tracking changes in ecosystems and
populations to identify, at the earliest stage, emerging changes and challenges.
Without long-term data, it is difficult to know whether current variations fall
within the normal range of variation or are truly unprecedented. It is also essen-
tial for knowing whether EPA's management interventions are having their in-
tended effect. Monitoring is a fundamental component of hypothesis-testing. All
management interventions are based on explicit or implicit hypotheses that jus-
tify them and explain why they should yield the desired results. A hypothesis
may focus on physical and biologic processes or on expected human behavioral
responses. If it is made explicit and monitoring is designed specifically to test it,
both the value of the monitoring and the details of its design will be clarified,
and the importance of the monitoring will be evident.
Finding: It is difficult to understand the overall state of the environment unless
one knows what it has been in the past, and how it is changing over time. Typi-
cally this can only be achieved by examining high-quality time series of key
indicators of environmental quality and performance. Currently at EPA, there
are few long-term monitoring programs, let alone programs that are systematic
and rigorous.
Recommendation 5: The committee recommends that EPA invest substan-
tial effort to generate broader, deeper, and sustained support for long-term
monitoring of key indicators of environmental quality and performance.
INNOVATION
To understand future environmental health problems and provide solu-
tions, EPA will depend on innovations across different media (air, land, and
water). EPA has an important role in addressing capacity and opportunities for
innovation by providing information, technical assistance, platforms for infor-
mation exchange, demonstration activities, and economic incentives and disin-
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202 Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead
centives. It can play a role not only in promoting innovation in the agency but
stimulating innovation by others. The agency also has the opportunity to lever-
age resources to support innovation. The committee does not recommend that
EPA attempt to develop all such solutions itself. Rather, it would be more cost
effective to partner and engage with others to support innovation. That can be
supported through EPA's Small Business Innovation Research program or an
award, such as the Presidential Green Chemistry Awards, which would nudge
the entrepreneurial community to address problems of direct interest to the
agency. EPA has taken a global leadership role by supporting efforts that focus
on innovative solutions-oriented science, including the pollution prevention pro-
gram, Design for the Environment, and the green chemistry and engineering
program. They demonstrate the potential for innovative approaches to advance
and use scientific knowledge to protect health and the environment through the
redesign of chemicals, materials, and products. They also demonstrate the role
that EPA can play in driving decisions by providing high-quality scientific in-
formation.
Finding: EPA has recognized that innovation in environmental science, tech-
nology, and regulatory strategies will be essential if it is to continue to perform
its mission in a robust and cost-effective manner. However, to date, the
agency's approach has been modest in scale and insufficiently systematic.
Recommendation 6: The committee recommends that EPA develop a more
systematic strategy to support innovation in science, technology, and prac-
tice.
In doing this, the agency would be well-advised to work on identifying
much more clearly the "signals" that it is or is not sending and to refine them as
needed. Clearly identifying signals could be accomplished by seeking to identify
the key desired outcomes of EPA's regulatory programs and communicate the
desired outcomes clearly to the private and public sectors. The committee has
identified several ways in which EPA could address this recommendation.
Establish and periodically update an agency-wide innovation strategy
that outlines key desired outcomes, processes for supporting innovation, and
opportunities for collaboration. Such a strategy would identify incentives, disin-
centives, and opportunities in program offices to advance innovation. It would
highlight collaborative needs, education, and training for staff to support innova-
tion.
Identify and implement cross-agency efforts to integrate innovative ac-
tivities in different parts of the agency to achieve more substantial long-term
innovation. One immediate example of such integration that is only beginning to
occur is bringing the work on green chemistry from the Design for the Environ-
ment program together with the innovative work on high-throughput screening
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Findings and Recommendations 203
in the ToxCast program to apply innovative toxicity testing tools to the design of
green chemicals.
Explicitly examine the effects of new regulatory and nonregulatory
programs on innovation while ascertaining environmental and economic effects.
This "innovation impact assessment" could, in part, inform the economic
evaluation as a structure that encourages technologic innovation that may lead to
long-term cost reductions. The assessment could also function as a stand-alone
activity to evaluate how regulations could encourage or discourage innovation in
a number of activities and sectors. It could help to identify what research and
technical support and incentives are necessary to encourage innovation that re-
duces environmental and health effects while stimulating economic benefits.
STRENGTHENING SCIENCE IN A TIME OF TIGHT BUDGETS
This report has stressed the importance of sustaining and strengthening
EPA's present programs of scientific research, applications, and data collection
while identifying and pursuing a wide array of new scientific opportunities and
challenges. Both are needed to address the complexity of modern problems and
both are essential to the agency if it is to continue to provide scientific leader-
ship and high-quality science-based regulation in the years to come.
Specific recommendations related to agency budgets are outside the scope
of this study, but the committee feels compelled to note, as did the report Sci-
ence Advisory Board Comments on the President's Requested FY2013 Research
Budget (EPA SAB 2012b), that since 2004, the budget for ORD has declined
28.5% in real-dollar terms (gross domestic productindexed dollars). The reduc-
tions have been even greater in a number of specific fields, such as ecosystem
research and pollution prevention.
Finding: If EPA is to provide scientific leadership and high-quality science-
based regulation in the coming decades, it will need adequate resources to do so.
Some of this committee's recommendations, if followed, will allow EPA to ad-
dress its scientific needs with greater efficiency. But the agency cannot continue
to provide leadership, pursue many new needs and opportunities, and lay the
foundation for ensuring future health and environmental safety unless the long-
term budgetary trend is reversed.
Recommendation 7: The committee recommends EPA create a process to
set priorities for improving the quality of its scientific endeavors over the
coming decades. This process should recognize the inevitably limited re-
sources while clearly articulating the level of resources required for the
agency to continue to ensure the future health and safety of humans and
ecosystems.
