5
Addressing Future Challenges
Numerous studies of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have identified foreseeable future issues that the agency will face in meeting its mission. See Box 5-1 for examples of such emerging issues, which were identified in part by a 2012 National Research Council report (NRC 2012a). In some cases, addressing the emerging issues will present substantial new scientific and technical challenges. This chapter focuses on how the agency can structure its workforce, research and technical infrastructure, and management to account for and address emerging issues. This is relevant to summary principle 2, which indicates essential laboratory capabilities are the ones that are relevant to the current mission and the ones that anticipate future mission needs.
Interactions with state and local governments as part of EPA’s regulatory function provide opportunities to hear from and maintain a discussion with those who are confronting emerging issues daily. EPA research priority setting and planning could be enhanced if agency program managers assist agency researchers in accessing this resource. An appropriate extension of this “listening” process with state and local governments is to include universities, industry, and other federal agencies. Broadening the interactions to include the international community presents even more opportunities to identify emerging issues, gain different perspectives, and gauge the importance of issues.
More structured approaches to identifying emerging issues should include formal analyses of future societal scenarios and their ramifications. EPA successfully incorporated some of these analytic techniques in coming to understand how it would use the emerging fields of genomics and proteomics in fulfilling its regulatory mission.
BOX 5-1 Examples of Emerging Environmental Challenges with Potentially Large Effects on Human Health, Species, and Ecosystems1
• Human and environmental exposure to toxic chemicals.
• Loss of native biodiversity.
• New stressors from climate change that affect human health, the built infrastructure, social institutions, and natural ecosystems.
• Degradation of surface-water quality and coastal ecosystems as a result of agricultural runoff, aging of sewage-treatment infrastructure, and land-use change.
• Exposure to new chemicals and nanomaterials.
• Growth in the volume and changes in composition of solid waste, such as increases in hormonally active products in household waste streams.
• Development of large and complex datasets by modern and future research initiatives (big data).
• Synthetic biology and biosecurity.
• New biomarker techniques.
1The list is based on NRC 2012a and the committee’s deliberations.
Advisory groups, such as EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) and advisory bodies established to provide independent expert advice to specific types of EPA laboratories, can also contribute to the process of identifying and evaluating emerging issues. Those groups can provide perspective on the value of emerging tools for the agency. They do that through various mechanisms that have different degrees of agency participation including roundtable discussions, workshops, and minisymposia. Box 5-1 lists some issues and developments that the groups (e.g., NRC 2012a) have identified as future drivers of research and other science and engineering activities in EPA. The present committee augmented the list with several other items, such as the large and complex datasets that are the products of modern and future research (referred to as big data) (NRC 2013). High-throughput technologies and ubiquitous sensing arrays, which comprise a source of big data, will challenge researchers and provide important opportunities for understanding biological responses to environmental chemical exposures (NRC 2007). Increased collaboration with other government and nongovernment institutions in meeting the challenge of working with big data will exacerbate operational hurdles but amplify the opportunities. In addition, the committee sees a need to relist biomarkers, which were identified more than 2 decades ago (NRC 1989a, 1989b, 1992a, 1992b, 1995), as an opportunity to apply molecular techniques and as a tool for the future in environmental health. Progress has been slow, but the developments in related fields have brought the use of biomarkers to the fore again. EPA should consider using a variety of structured approaches for identifying emerging issues and possible solutions, including formal analyses of future societal scenarios and their ramifications and third-party advisory groups. (Recommendation 5-1)
Some government departments establish robust programs that they use to anticipate developments and possible responses. The Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is often cited in this regard and emulated by others, for example, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program. EPA has made occasional forays in this direction, such as the National Center for Computational Toxicology and the interagency collaboration known as Tox21, that have successfully placed EPA in a position to address emerging issues and use emerging tools. In fact, the agency could marshal a small E-ARPA, an Environmental Advanced Research Projects Alliance, by using the various institutional research tools that it has already developed. Faced with a serious emerging issue or substantial opportunity to take advantage of new knowledge or technologies, the agency could involve universities and the private sector through its ability to develop cooperative agreements, to issue contracts and grants through its Science To Achieve Results (STAR) grants program, and to coordinate the different departments of the government and the different elements of the agency’s own scientific expertise. EPA should consider creating an E-ARPA and also consider how and under what circumstances E-ARPA efforts could be managed to address the agency’s future scientific and technical needs. (Recommendation 5-2) Although it did not attempt to estimate the funding requirements for this alliance, the committee does not anticipate that E-ARPA would involve a programmatic effort of comparable magnitude to DOD’s and DOE’s programs.
Through its continuing workforce development, research and technical infrastructure, and management philosophy, EPA can maintain a robust and facile scientific and engineering enterprise that is capable of dealing with emerging issues and unpredicted developments.
EPA needs to continue to develop its present workforce and attract new scientists and engineers who have new skills. A number of current practices are appropriate for doing that (see Chapter 3). They include
• The use of postdoctoral fellows for relatively short technical assignments to provide the agency with a flexible mechanism for bringing state-of-the-science expertise to bear and a pool of individuals for hire.
• Temporary assignments from academe or industry through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act.
• Colocation of EPA laboratory employees with university researchers, as in the case of the Office of Research and Development’s epidemiology and human exposure research groups at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
• Hiring of renowned scientists and engineers under Title 42 authority,
• EPA’s recently introduced Innovation Grants, an excellent way to develop intra-Agency expertise rapidly.
• Allowing agency scientists and engineers to take temporary positions in university and industry laboratories.
A key tool for ensuring that students are developing properly to join the workforce of the future is the training-grant program for universities. EPA’s Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) fellowships for undergraduate environmental study constitute one example. Such programs attract capable people who will provide EPA and the fields of environmental and ecologic health with emerging skills. Although their use has dropped dramatically as funding has become more scarce, focused efforts to restore them are called for if the agency is to be prepared for the future.
RESEARCH AND TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Just as the physical infrastructure is an important consideration for EPA’s future, so is the research and technical infrastructure, the expertise of the people who use the physical infrastructure. The committee joins a number of EPA SAB and previous National Research Council committees in supporting growth in the number of scientists who have expertise in the social and behavioral sciences. Those backgrounds are essential for understanding already-identified emerging issues and for fashioning responses, mitigating effects, and finding acceptable long-term solutions. Given the multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary nature of current and emerging issues, formalized efforts involving synthesis are also called for. Examples of relevant syntheses are available from such institutions as the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, the Powell Center, and the Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC 2012; NCEAS 2013; Powell Center 2013). Science and engineering will continue to be increasingly data-intensive.
New approaches to doing science to address emerging issues are also necessary. Examples include
• “Group science”, whereby informal associations of individual researchers and research institutions address problems.1
• Engagement of the public more widely through the offering of XPRIZE-like “E-prizes” for specific developments.2
• Use of ubiquitous sensors.
New approaches will demand different techniques for the quality assurance and the analysis of data, including data obtained through meta-analysis. Workforce development activities within EPA will be crucial for ensuring that this information-related revolution can be effectively capitalized on.
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1Group science, also referred to as citizen science or crowd science, is a research approach that incorporates the efforts, knowledge, observations, and resources of the general public. For example, people use air-monitoring devices that are linked to smartphones to log, map, and share air-quality data collected from locations where they carry out their daily activities.
2XPRIZE refers to a monetary award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal during an incentivized competition in one of five areas: energy & environment, exploration, global development, learning, and life sciences. http://www.xprize.org/.
EPA faces so many near-term deadlines and controversial debates every day that it may be difficult for managers to maintain a focus on scientific and technical workforce development or research and technical infrastructure. But without a competent scientific and technical workforce, the quality of the agency’s decision-making will suffer. A focused commitment to workforce development and research infrastructure by career managers and political appointees is essential for sound decision-making and for maintaining a workforce that is capable of identifying and dealing with emerging issues. Success is largely a matter of commitment to a sound scientific and technical workforce and research and technical infrastructure. (Principle 5-1)
